UI hard to work with

[captain_slocum]

Wearing glasses and not exactly being in the first flush of youth, I really find it hard to see whether a tool is selected or not. I calibrate my monitor regularly so I know it is showing the greys faithfully. A lighter background would be very welcome, but I cannot see how to alter the UI colours other than the work area. Is it possible?

[MEB]

Hi captain_slocum

You can also change the UI Gamma in Affinity Designer ▹ Preferences, User Interface tab.

[captain_slocum]

Thanks MEB. But changing the gamma for the whole UI doesn't alter the contrast between items. When working in ambient light there just isn't enough contrast between the background of a selected icon and the main background. Could I suggest a light coloured border around a selected icon? Or a customisable background colour? Look at Photoshop or Lightroom or Ai and you will see it is much easier to see when something is selected. You have a great product and a beautiful UI but when you are making your living using apps, then function trumps style every time. I found myself going back to AI for a while yesterday because of the strain of seeing which icons were selected in AD.

[MEB]

This was discussed already in a few threads and we are aware of its limitations. I was just trying to help with what's currently available in the application.

[captain_slocum]

Thanks MEB. No problem, as long as you are aware of it, I am sure you will address it at some point.

[beruffled]

I agree with captain_slocum. Whilst the black UI looks pleasing, I find it very difficult to work with and my eyes hurt from straining to use the product.

 

Please provide the option for a light colored user interface. The colors used here in this forum are perfect.

[LilleG]

I agree with captain_slocum and others.  A UI with these colors would be so much easier to use for those of us with contrast issues.

[Gear maker]

I guess "contrast issues" must include me also.  I have to always double check to see which tool is selected.  It's just not obvious, like it should be.  Especially seeing as if I hit an A, the node tool isn't the only one that might be selected.

[Ron P.]

I realize this threads dates back to 2015. However what I've been realizing in AD, (Designer), is there's a major, what I call flaw, in the UI. Some of the buttons there's no way to see if the button has been selected (clicked) or de-selected, or not.

Also this seems to be a OS issue. I noticed this flaw while trying to follow a tutorial for Designer, showing how to create cans. The tutor was using a Mac. The tutorial was dated back in 2019, so not a real old one, meaning the version of Designer would not really differ from the current release. In the tutorial I noticed that the area of a button in the Isometric Panel, darkened. The entire length of the button and the text beside it. This was not happening for me. In fact I found it extremely difficult, if not completely impossible to determine if I had selected the button or not.

So my main question is Why does the current UI not have more pronounced contrast when a button is clicked?  Why is it different on Mac than Windows?

Why has this not been corrected yet?

I've been a participating member here since 2017, and have read thousands of entries, and now I can really understand the frustration some members are experiencing. I mean I use a 27" monitor, and I had to lean across my desk, getting inches away from the screen to see if the dang button had been selected or not.

I'm attaching 3 screenshots. 2-of my UI, showing both Dark and Light UIs. I've played with the settings, in Preferences, but made no difference. 1-screenshot from the tutorial video, of that UI, showing the button selection. How it jumps out, showing it has been selected. In the top 2 screenshots the Current Pane  section it's easy to see, however in the Plane Editing Options, is where the problem really resides. Can anyone tell if the Edit in Plane is selected or not?

From My Desktop

From the Video Tutorial

The Tutorial is Affinity Designer-Isometric Cylinder Tin & Can (YouTube)

[Lem3]

+1

[Pšenda]

14 hours ago, Ron P. said:

Why has this not been corrected yet?

Because version 2.0?

[R C-R]

23 hours ago, Ron P. said:

So my main question is Why does the current UI not have more pronounced contrast when a button is clicked?  Why is it different on Mac than Windows?

All I can say as a Mac user is that the contrast issue has been there since the very first, Mac-only version of Designer was released, & it has never been fixed to the satisfaction of a great many Mac users, who have complained about this almost since day one.

[Ron P.]

Just now, R C-R said:

All I can say as a Mac user is that the contrast issue has been there since the very first, Mac-only version of Designer was released, & it has never been fixed to the satisfaction of a great many Mac users, who have complained about this almost since day one.

You're not serious. Mac users complain about this? Being able to actually see if a button has been pressed? That's what I mean by the contrast. Something a user can see the button(s) have been pressed.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Ron P. said:

You're not serious. Mac users complain about this?

Of course I am serious about this. There are many topics about this issue, including recent ones like the one about the "Edit All Layers" button in AD. It is the same for both Mac & Windows -- it is almost impossible to tell if the button is on or off.

The UI Gamma adjustment was supposed to help resolve this but it doesn't; as was the addition of a Light UI mode.

[Ron P.]

Ok, that's what I'm talking about. However the bottom screenshot is apparently what Mac users see. It should be that way on windows too. That's what I think or thought you were referencing about Mac users complaining about that. There needs to be a visual cue. When creating webpages, for example, there's different "states" for buttons. Hover, press, release, ect. These are shown by having different colors, shades, lightness for those. Clearly with Designer, the programmer/developer did not add much of anything for at least that section of buttons.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Ron P. said:

Ok, that's what I'm talking about. However the bottom screenshot is apparently what Mac users see. It should be that way on windows too.

I am not sure what you mean about the bottom screenshot. If you mean the one in this post by @Pšenda, the Edit All Layers button looks just like that on Macs (when set to use the Dark UI). There is almost no difference in the two button states, so little that I have no idea if it is on or off.

6 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

These are shown by having different colors, shades, lightness for those. Clearly with Designer, the programmer/developer did not add much of anything for at least that section of buttons.

Again, I am not sure which buttons you mean but throughout the UI in all 3 Affinity apps the contrast between enabled & disabled buttons is often so low that it is almost impossible to tell at a glance which state they are in. This applies to the Tools panel, to some of the items in the context toolbar, & elsewhere in the UI. For some but not all of them, it is better when using the Light UI, but there has never been a way to set the contrast sufficiently high to make it easy to tell the state of every button.

I do not have any other app on my Mac that has this same issue -- all the others make button states much more obvious, & do not need any tweaks or other UI adjustments for that.

[Lem3]

I have difficulty with this on Windows as well. Quick, which button is pressed?

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Lem3 said:

I have difficulty with this on Windows as well. Quick, which button is pressed?

It is the same for Macs -- nothing quick about it. ☹️

[walt.farrell]

12 minutes ago, R C-R said:

It is the same for Macs -- nothing quick about it. ☹️

But in the prior set of screenshots, it seems that the contrast is slightly better in the Mac version. Still not good, but better than on Windows, perhaps. Still, the answer at this point is to use the Light UI.

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But in the prior set of screenshots, it seems that the contrast is slightly better in the Mac version.

It is better for the Tools panel on Macs if the UI gamma setting is high enough but that doesn't help much in some other places in the UI, like for the slider mode Lock button on the Color panel, various places in the context toolbar, text alignment buttons in the Paragraph panel,  the Styles buttons when the Styles panel is not in list mode, & most of all the previously mentioned "Edit All Layers" button on the layers panel.

Basically, there is no consistency throughout the UI for what is most effective, & that includes what works in the two UI modes. I keep trying to find one setting for it all I can live with but it would be much easier if the builtin contrast level between button states was just increased considerably, which would eliminate the need to fiddle with anything (like with all my other Mac apps).

[Ron P.]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

I am not sure what you mean about the bottom screenshot.

The screenshot immediately beneath the words From the Video Tutorial. The Edit in Plane is so much darker, because it's been pressed/selected, and the OS being used in the tutorial video is a Mac. The other two above that one, is from my desktop. Nowhere near that.

 

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Still, the answer at this point is to use the Light UI.

No it's not. I provided screenshots showing both the dark and light UI. In both you can not tell if the button has been pressed or not.

[Alfred]

12 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

 

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Still, the answer at this point is to use the Light UI.

No it's not. I provided screenshots showing both the dark and light UI. In both you can not tell if the button has been pressed or not.

I can’t see any indication in the Dark UI screenshot, but the Light UI screenshot shows a marginally darker background for the ‘Edit in plane’ icon. JPEG compression artefacts in the screenshot will have made matters worse, but probably only slightly.

[Pšenda]

I think it's a shame to discuss that. Serif has known about this great shortcoming for a long time (MEB May 24, 2015: "This was discussed already in a few threads and we are aware of its limitations"), and yet he decided not to solve it in 6½ years. This is despite the fact that no specialist/expert in vector transformations or digital image processing is needed to solve it, but anyone (such as a temporary worker) interested in programming. So we can at least hope that it will solve it better in version 2.

P.S. I've also mentioned several times, but the hint/tooltip "Edit in Plane" next to the "Edit in Plane" button (see previous screenshot) is also not exactly a sign of high programming skills.

[R C-R]

43 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

The screenshot immediately beneath the words From the Video Tutorial.

If you mean in this post by @telemax, it links to a topic about the function of the "Edit All Layers" button, which displays the same lack of contrast between its 2 states that I have mentioned & looks the same on Macs as it does in the screenshot by @Pšenda for Windows in the post immediately above the one by telemax.

53 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

The Edit in Plane is so much darker, because it's been pressed/selected, and the OS being used in the tutorial video is a Mac.

Yes, that button is dark enough on my Mac, but others are not. Like I said, there is no consistency & more importantly, no need for workarounds like the Gamma UI slider. They just need to boost the contrast difference for all buttons, like every other app I use does.

[Old Bruce]

I think the whole User Interface design world has ceased to make our lives easier. Case in point is the seemingly arbitrary use of Lighter for Active and Darker for Active. Case in point, Active tab is Light, Active Preference is Dark.

I shall endeavour to add the screenshot when I don't get an error, can't upload it right now.

Have a couple of tabs for two (or more) documents in the Light Mode interface. Open the Preferences dialog to the User Interface and check what the Light versus dark means.