Important requests regarding usability
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Hi there
Windows 10, VS release 1.0.62
After trying out many beta releases for Windows I finally purchased Vectorstyler. You have implemented an impressive number of (advanced) features and the product could evolve into something truly special and wonderful. You still have some way to go though ... because there is a lot of small bugs and usability issues in Vectorstyler and it will affect or ruin the first impression and impression for weeks. Read: affect sales. The good news is that with so many features in Vectorstyler, prioritizing fixes of those issues is possible! My advice is still that you should focus almost entirely on bug fixes and many usability improvements. Stabilize and mature the product. Teaming up with a usability specialist would be a good move. When the product is mature market it heavily. It will attract a lot of attention!
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Selecting a layer with control + click on the layer (or thumbnail) in the layer panel should be possible (and just default). Having to move the mouse right to the "select object" control is somewhat frustrating.
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In the export dialog it must be possible to enable processing of strokes and object into pure vector that can be imported into whatever program even if the result cannot be guarenteed accurate. Strokes should be expanded to vector objects that actually looks like what a manual expand stroke would result in.
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I have made some drawings with many layers and objects and I want to preserve the Vectorstyler file as it is. Expanding strokes manually would ruin this and in complex drawings be tedious nonetheless.
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Windows: a color picker is needed that simple grabs the color of a bitmap layer or whatever is beneath the color picker. It is desperately needed when tracing hand drawn images and more. The lack of this little tool is a total workflow killer.
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I rarely if ever need the object isolation mode so I find it in my way very, very often, a preference setting for double click to enable the object selected in shape editing mode would be better for me. Muscle memory from countless other programs double clicks everything. I doubt I am the only one with this frustration.
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In any case the object isolation mode doesn't initially do much. The object is not selected and clicking it again with the transform tool (V) exits object isolation mode. Clicking the shape editor (A) doesn't select/activate anything either. I then select the layer. Hitting the A key still does not activate the shape editor (A). I have to click the shape editor icon on the toolbar before I can edit the shape. I am sorry but it totally ruins the feature for me. A few usability improvements and the feature should be flying again.
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The "<Layer name> - Content" information should probably say "<Layer name> - Content (Object isolation mode)" or "<Layer name> - Object isolation mode" as this is actually the active feature and without this info/reference it is impossible for users to know what to look up in the manual for help.
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You should probably display hints in the status bar or whereever as other programs do about options or what went wrong. Feedback!
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Panels are redrawn when moving them and again release the mouse button. It makes them flash twice every time you move them.
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Panels redraw almost shake when scaling them from the left side border and if you drag the mouse left and right continously the panel moves slightly to the left.
Thank you for your amazing work so far and take care!
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Just a few comments:
- Windows: a color picker is needed that simple grabs the color of a bitmap layer or whatever is beneath the color picker. It is desperately needed when tracing hand drawn images and more. The lack of this little tool is a total workflow killer.
With the 'Style Picker' tool active (shortcut: I), Shift-clicking a bitmap image should pick color from its pixels, and the same works with vector objects.
Unless this is broken on Windows?
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- In any case the object isolation mode doesn't initially do much. The object is not selected and clicking it again with the transform tool (V) exits object isolation mode. Clicking the shape editor (A) doesn't select/activate anything either. I then select the layer. Hitting the A key still does not activate the shape editor (A). I have to click the shape editor icon on the toolbar before I can edit the shape. I am sorry but it totally ruins the feature for me. A few usability improvements and the feature should be flying again.
Double-clicking a vector object allows you to draw inside it, or paste something inside it, not to edit its nodes.
LATER EDIT:
'Select Nodes from All Objects' should be disabled by default in Preferences > Editing Options, so selecting nodes is limited to the selected object. This means you don't need that kind of 'special isolation mode' for node editing.……………………………
- You should probably display hints in the status bar or whereever as other programs do about options or what went wrong. Feedback!
I don't disagree here, but hints are usually long — they would need space for a long row of text somewhere in the UI.
Currently you can find explanations about each tool in its tooltip.Explanations about what went wrong could be displayed in a dialog you can close.
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- Panels redraw almost shake when scaling them from the left side border and if you drag the mouse left and right continuously the panel moves slightly to the left.
It doesn't happen here on my system. Could be something specific to your configuration?
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Ah, thanks a bunch, SHIFT + click is exactly what I need!
"Double-clicking a vector object allows you to draw inside it, or paste something inside it, not to edit its nodes."
Allows, it is not exclusively for that purpose. If you need to edit a shape or nodes nonetheless - getting there is needlessly tough. Toolbar shortcuts (V, A...) does not work before I press something on the toolbar. I have to select the shape using the tiny layer control for it. Then press A. If the shape editor is selected first, I still cannot select the shape using it.
Anyway, I find the feature too easy to access using a regular double click. I wish something used more often had this shortcurt.
I don't disagree here, but hints are usually long — they would need space for a long row of text somewhere in the UI. Currently you can find explanations about each tool in its tooltip.
I just need the ultra short reminders: "Right click to toggle node type. Control-click to remove whatever."
And oh "Shift click to sample bitmap"
Affinity did this exactly right. Even Inkscape.It doesn't happen here on my system. Could be something specific to your configuration?
It is stricly a Windows port issue, I believe.
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@Ingolf Except for node editing of the container object itself while inside, I don't understand under which conditions the toolbar shortcuts fail to work. I would write a quick step-by-step instruction or record a short video and send it to the developer, so the issue can be replicated and fixed.
Also: 'Select Nodes from All Objects' should be disabled by default in Preferences > Editing Options, so selecting nodes is limited to the selected object. This means you don't need a special 'isolation mode' for node editing.
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About the hints:
Would it be a solution to display them in a tooltip right under the cursor after you switch to that tool and make them go away at the first click on the artboard? This doesn't need a special parcel of UI land and it's already right where your eyes are — near the cursor.
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Except for node editing of the container object itself while inside, I don't understand under which conditions the toolbar shortcuts fail to work
Windows port at least:
- Click on a layer or activate something in the layers panel
- A, V, I etc. has no effect
Tool tips require motion and action. Visible tips are much more accessible to everyone. Not a dealbreaker though, far from it.
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@b77
But most of all, thanks for you tips and time!
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@Ingolf I can't test the shortcuts issue on Windows, but I'm glad I could help with the rest.
So… to clarify: I totally agree that hints about how the current tool is to be used are great to have, and the text for them is already written in the tooltips of each tool — the developer doesn't need to sit down and write them all from scratch. (OK, maybe shorten some of them…)
I'm just not that fond of the idea of having another slice of the (pretty busy) UI reserved for them, when displaying them under the cursor until the first click on the canvas with that tool would be better IMO. I see only advantages to that.
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@Ingolf I will add these to the backlog. Some are easy to do as options.
A status bar is planned to be implemented in the near future.I will try to fix the panel redraw issue. The problem is with the Windows port.
