Draw tool sticky settings?

[b77]

I have seen and used many programs that would make
UI designers pull their hair out. But I appreciate all of them.

Tell us which was the worst.

[Subpath]

@b77

You won't believe that I never liked the Adobe Illustrator UI.
(Well, I don't use Illustrator since version 8, that was a while ago).

Liked Corel Draw UI from the beginning because of its configurable UI and other features.

Kai Krause plugins back then, was nice from a creative point of view.
But the UI was so tiny and not scalable, it was terrible.

Corel Painter could also be mentioned - I would say
it gets the award for the worst UI

Paintstorm Studio gets a positive special mention
because of his resizeable and very configurable UI
and thats in a App for 20 $

[Subpath]

@b77

A very interesting Vector Graphics App
( apart from VS of course )

Is "Cavalry" very unique UI, because of the animation capabilities.
but you can also create still images with it.
Kind of Mograph (Cinema 4D) for Vector Graphics.

There is a free Version where you could render (save) your
Result as SVG. You need to create a Account.

Here a short but impressive Video Example:

Some of this would be doable in VS but not all

[Ingolf]

This is seriously the worst idea in a long time.

With the brush enabled in pencil and pen mode - How exactly would you explain the difference between

• the pencil tool
• the brush tool

in the documentation? They look identical to me.

And why mix and confuse the Pen tool with those instead of merging them and adding a bit of pen control options as well?

UX assistance is seriously needed in this project - and more than ever. I've just had a professional one at my screen to reality check my own claims (he's an Illustrator user). Not disagreeing with me.

[b77]

@Ingolf Just to clarify my opinion:

I don't like the Pencil-as-a-brush idea either — it's confusing because these tools share the same drawing method (drawing strokes with the mouse/trackpad/stylus), so where is the differentiation then?

However, since the Pen tool works differently than the Brush and Pencil tools, I don't see where is the problem (the confusing overlap) in being able to draw with a brush contour directly.

It's a long thread now, so I'm re-including the context bar mockup for the Pen (not Pencil) tool, just so it's clear what I'm referring to:

(The idea is to display the Brush dropdown in the context bar when picking the Pen tool, before even placing the first node, so you can choose a brush contour if you want to).

[VectorStyler]

@Ingolf said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

This is seriously the worst idea in a long time.
With the brush enabled in pencil and pen mode - How exactly would you explain the difference between

I respectfully have to disagree. I would say it is an experimental idea.
The thing is that the VS is complex and one way to tackle complexity is customization.

In the future there will be much better workspace management features and it will be possible to easily switch between various working modes.

This would be a bad idea if it would be the default mode of operation, but it will not be and there will be settings to control these tools.

[Subpath]

Its seems a bit absurd to me.

As I already wrote, the Pen Tool could already be used
with Vector Brushes long before this Discussion.
As i show in a Video above.

In the End I'm just arguing for easier use. So that one
can instead of having to adjust the size of the vector brush.
Someone could start right away with the right size.

[b77]

@VectorStyler and @Subpath
I'm trying to see both sides here.

@Ingolf doesn't say it, but one possible UX glitch with the Pencil-as-a-brush idea is that if the previously selected object has a brush contour and now you want to draw in simple lines, will switching to the Pencil tool reset the contour to simple line?

If it doesn't switch, it breaks the convention that the app draws new objects with the attributes of the previous object.

If it does switch, most users forget that the Pencil tool is now in Brush mode (well, basically…), will draw the first line then have to go to the dropdown menu and switch to the plain line they needed in the first place.

That's why differentiation is better between these two. IMO, of course.

@Ingolf Do you think the same confusion can happen to the Pen tool with a direct brush contour?

[Subpath]

@b77

I must state here, that i have nowhere in this thread pleaded for the Pencil Tool.
As can be read in my posts.
Only for the Pen Tool.

[b77]

@Subpath Oh… all right. Well, it's a long thread.

[Subpath]

@b77

thats right

[Devil Dinosaur]

Cool design !

[Ingolf]

@Ingolf Do you think the same confusion can happen to the Pen tool with a direct brush contour?

Absolutely. Only confusion can result from this. And the most complex preferences in the universe.

And moving the lab to the production environment won’t make the product sell better. Or better.

[Subpath]

All I hear is that everything ends in confusion.
And it sounds like the world will coming to a bitter end.

So honestly, I can only shake my head. If this is already causing so much confusion,
what about the other features of VS ?

I can say that I don't feel any confusion about the fact when the pen tool works in this way,
even though it can be turned off.

But I do feel a lot of confusion about this kind of discussion.

[Ingolf]

Let’s not ask five die hard year long users about it. Power users. Let’s ask the new users or trial users that didn’t buy a license. Several people.

Yes much of the user interface is confusing because there are way too many options everywhere. Complexity. And looking at much of it I know it will almost never be used. But we will all see it in the interface.

I can handle it but I positively know from my 25 years in software development as a customer where both novice users and professional users draw the line. And how many features we retired after customer feedback revealed it was rarely used.

I like that the software can be configured. But it still is an acquired taste. And it doesn’t make a program more usable. Only for us. And we are ever so few.

You can shake your head all you want. The market decides. Lets see how that turns out.

[b77]

@Ingolf said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

@Ingolf Do you think the same confusion can happen to the Pen tool with a direct brush contour?

Absolutely. Only confusion can result from this. And the most complex preferences in the universe.

And moving the lab to the production environment won’t make the product sell better. Or better.

Ooh-kay… I cannot disagree.

I feel like @Dazmondo's initial idea of having a checkbox that locks the current stroke type (plain, brush or pattern) for the other drawing tools would be good and avoid any confusion — I mean, if the user clicks it he knows what to expect, right?

[Ingolf]

@b77 said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

@Ingolf said in Draw tool sticky settings?:
I feel like @Dazmondo's initial idea of having a checkbox that locks the current stroke type (plain, brush or pattern) for the other drawing tools would be good and avoid any confusion — I mean, if the user clicks it he knows what to expect, right?

It is a much better and less intrusive idea but the right term would be sync brush/sync something. This option should be placed in the brush panel where it belongs and where there is more room for functionality.

The context panels are filled to the brim, and so the question is whether in the future you expect trial users or new customers to remove all the superfluous features, or think "this is too much for me" before it occurs to them. It would be more than naive to imagine thousands of new customers happily finding and using the opt-out. Not gonna happen.

And a context panel simply needs to be ultra-focused - not more chaos.

[Boldline]

@Ingolf
Everyone should be encouraged to share their ideas freely and any dissenting views should be respectful. One of the best aspects of VS and the forum is that ideas are encouraged and solicited and then are often added and tested. If they don't work well, they eventually get removed or modified until they do.

For example, none of this would be located here if I had my way - but for you and maybe others, this was something that was requested - so it got added and is being tested. There's a give and take.

@Ingolf said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

Yes much of the user interface is confusing because there are way too many options everywhere. Complexity. And looking at much of it I know it will almost never be used. But we will all see it in the interface.

@Ingolf said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

The context panels are filled to the brim, and so the question is whether in the future you expect trial users or new customers to remove all the superfluous features, or think "this is too much for me" before it occurs to them. It would be more than naive to imagine thousands of new customers happily finding and using the opt-out. Not gonna happen.
And a context panel simply needs to be ultra-focused - not more chaos.

You have offered many great suggestions and found many bugs over the years and those are appreciated. You have also preached about simplicity and avoiding chaos in the UI while being the major voice behind adding a ton of symbols and icons to the UI to avoid keyboard shortcuts. I don't see how one can request a more simplistic UI while at the same time asking for more and more icons and symbols that will inevitably cause the new user more confusion and look more overwhelming.

The fact that the developer is very involved and very responsive and willing to try new radical ideas to see a better VS result is a special thing. Contrast this with Illustrator or with Affinity, who do not engage their user base often and prefer to trust only a small handful of people. We don't always get what we want in VS, but we have the flexibility to try things and remove things (via the developer) and to see what works best... that is a major advantage over the competition

[VectorStyler]

For what I see, in these discussions, the pencil as a brush is not a good way to go. Luckily this is still optional, and basically has no impact on the code.

The Pen using a brush would be an option (if enabled in preferences). Here, the question is that if the last selection was a brush then what would the Pen tool do (again if the option is enabled)?

I think the default (and preferred) mode of functioning should be what already exists in other apps.
Anything else should be accessible (if supported) through options.

[Subpath]

@VectorStyler said in Draw tool sticky settings?:

The Pen using a brush would be an option (if enabled in preferences).

Here, the question is that if the last selection was a brush then what would the Pen tool do (again if the option is enabled)?
.
.
In my Opinion:

If the Option for "Vector Brushes" is activated for the Pen Tool
it should stay with Vector Brushes.
(e.g. the last ones used).

If this option is disabled, it should work as usual.