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Open and Close Curve Icons confusing


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1 hour ago, haakoo said:

Highlight the button that would be possible and dim the non possible
i.e. if open curve, highlight the close curve button.
if closed curve, highlight the break curve button.

Exactly. Why is it possible to click a button that can't do anything. Context sensitive buttons please.

6 hours ago, rbsund said:

I literally have to hover and wait for the description every time... this is supposed to be a comic with 2 pictures per icon right? would it be possible to overhaul these icons into something clearer?

Bildschirmfoto 2019-04-17 um 19.11.36.png

Me too.

Especially meaningless for cultures with RTL text and icons etc. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-left

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13 hours ago, rbsund said:

would it be possible to overhaul these icons into something clearer?

Any suggestion?

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I think the “Break” button should be disabled when an ‘end node’ of an open curve is selected because there’s nothing to break, as it’s already the end of the curve.

I also think that the “Close” button should be disabled when you have a straight line with only two nodes as there’s nothing to ‘close’ in a straight line.

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4 hours ago, GarryP said:

How about something simple like this? (I won't say which is which as it should be fairly obvious.)

new-break-join1.png

For me, your proposal is definitely not clearer and more obvious than the original one.

He definitely lacks the symmetry, that obviously is in the mentioned actions (open/close), and should therefore also be apparent from the icons.

I would also like to know, how icons will look when they are adjusted to the correct resolution, when details are lost.

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4 hours ago, GarryP said:

I think the “Break” button should be disabled when an ‘end node’ of an open curve is selected because there’s nothing to break, as it’s already the end of the curve.

Agreed.

4 hours ago, GarryP said:

I also think that the “Close” button should be disabled when you have a straight line with only two nodes as there’s nothing to ‘close’ in a straight line.

A straight line is still technically a curve. I think you’ll find that if you ‘close’ a straight line and then drag the middle to one side with the Node Tool, you’ll end up with a closed shape bounded by a curve on one side and a straight line on the other.

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Closing a straight line seems a bit strange to me, I wonder if that’s the correct and expected behaviour. Maybe it’s useful for something that I haven’t come across.

Now I’m wondering: Should the “Close” button be disabled for a closed curve? That sounds reasonable to me.

Anyway, attached are another two icons to throw into the mix. Neither is fantastic but they may give people some better ideas.

join-close-curve2.png

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Hopefully a UX profile can direct their graphic artist.

Remember that the icons are tiny on a high-res monitor.

 

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Just a thought - but I wonder if you could just have one toggle button, that closes open curves and opens closed ones?

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dutchshader:

My first attached image shows how the buttons look on my screen: Break; Close; Smooth; Join; Reverse.
The Close and Break buttons icons are not the same as in the Help, which is a little troubling.
The little lines coming out of the single node on each are confusing to me.
Also, the icon on the Close button doesn’t look like what it actually does. The icon looks like the function will join two nodes whereas the function actually puts a curve between the two end nodes. So Close should look more like my second attached image.

haakoo:

I agree that “Open Curve” and “Closed Curve” are better descriptors in the Layers panel.

PaulEC:

At first I thought a toggle button might be a bad idea but I can’t – off the top of my head - think of a reason why. One part of me is saying “That won’t work” while another part is asking “Why won’t it work?” Maybe someone can give a good example of where it would reduce functionality.

current-close-join-buttons.png

new-close-icon.png

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3 hours ago, dutchshader said:

open-close.png.b0aebbc6693aead3d3bf9df4e428326a.png

from the designer help folder

That is much clearer. Don't even really need the arrows.

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I agree that the Help icons are much clearer than those in the application but the arrows – in this case – are necessary to show what happens.
One of the issues some people had was that the application icons can look the wrong way round to people who read right-to-left as there was no way to see ‘which way round’ they were.

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4 hours ago, GarryP said:

but the arrows – in this case – are necessary to show what happens.

For me not. Time axes (what is and what will be) is obvious. The direction of text reading is not decisive.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Quote

For me not. Time axes (what is and what will be) is obvious. The direction of text reading is not decisive.

But it's not obvious in which icons there is a time axis... so I would pledge to keep the arrows... (is anyone from Affinity even reading this? xD) They certainly don't do any harm.  

Quote

join-close-curve2.png

I also really liked this proposal as it doesn't need a timeline and once you get it the two are hard to confuse, which doesn't apply to the comic version.

Seeing if a curve is closed or open by glancing at which Icon is greyed out would come in really handy!

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  • 11 months later...
16 minutes ago, eobet said:

I mean, they're just the mirrored versions of each other. Is this a bug?

image.png.42aa526e6a267fb6f2436b9500fc04fb.png

This, I would understand:

image.png.f1d625c79acf992880c239327db240db.png

This is an interesting suggestion. I just recently realized that I constantly keep looking at the tool tips to tell them icons apart. I think the confusing part is this tiny horizontal line.

d.

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Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301
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