Synfig Project Forum

- All panels currently we have will become sub-windows,
-- they can be embedded or tron off by user.
-- all sub-windows get its own toolbar(local toolbar) and title bar. the title bar is not a standard window tile bar, it will have different contents or widgets which are window type relatived.
-- a sub-window can be change from current window type to an other synfig window type via [Widnow Type Button]
-- I have some ideas here, but would keep it as a secret till I draw them out
- And the toolbox are replaced by a global toolbar.
-- the tools will be re-organized in a good way. some of them will be removed from tooltar, and new ones will be added.
-- I have some nice ideas here for global toolbar design together with windows local toolbar in my mind for some time, just keep it till I draw them out
- The menu in toolbox will be merged into main menu, as a "Syfnig" sub-menu item.
-- menu will be re-organized in a nice way.
- The other windows/panels, save file dialog for example, will be the same as they are now, implemented in standard gtkmm widgets.

Is it too blender-like?

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time flies...

There are many different people doing many different things on many different sorts of hardware, so flexibility is the key thing that I would want in the Synfig interface.

This plan looks very flexible indeed - it's very exciting stuff!

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http://kecskebak.blogspot.com

It looks very promising! I like it all!



I guess that resize window 4 top border would resize windows 3 in the same amount, right? So in fact which are the two or three areas where windows can lie down? More even, what's the default behavior when a window is closed? the above/below window takes its space or the left/right one?

Awesome!
-G

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I like it a lot!
Regarding the toolbox/toolbar - Can it be made to be vertical? Nowadays when almost all monitors is wide vertical space is more precious than horizontal.
Also if torn off, will the toolbar become a toolbox or will we have a long bar covering everything else?
Also #2, I would like to have the option of having the toolboxshaped as it is now, as a box.
Also #3, window type button is a dropdown, I don't like this as it is more clicks to get where you want and you don't immediately see where you have your windows. I much prefer current behaviour with tabbed icons.

Other that that it looks awesome!

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www.rylanderanimation.se
Synfig scripts, etc.

This looks awesome!!

I'm still in trying to figure out a better solution for this.



It is not so clear in my current mockup. The dropdown is a switcher, a window type switcher, with it user can
change current window from a type to an other. All synfig sub-windows(parameters, layers, metadata,
navigator, etc...) will be listed in this dropdown menu. It is smilar to Blender or Toonboom Animate's design.

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time flies...

Exactly, it is two click instead of one for every time you need to switch tab.
If it works like Blender you mean that the dropdown menu contain all different kind of windows? Then it's even more work every time you need a different tab, finding it in the dropdown menus.
I much prefer the current system with tabbed icons. It's fast to switch to desired window.

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www.rylanderanimation.se
Synfig scripts, etc.

yes, my initial idea is put all kind of windows
in a one dropdown menu.

I am not sure how frequent a synfig user
switch windows/panels in his daily creation
job. Toonboom animate seems adopt a
mbination of blender and synfig ways. Maybe
we should go that way.

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time flies...

I can see what rylleman is thinking here - the thing about animation is that you have to do things repeatedly. Particularly when animating frame by frame. Therefore an extra click which would be trivial in Blender could create a lot of extra work for someone producing an animation in Synfig Studio.

Perhaps one thing you could do is to collect some screencasts of yourself and some other people using Synfig to make a typical animation and then looking at what they click and how often. That would give you some kind of idea of what needs to be available most easily in the UI.

Mind you, that might be a stupid idea - I don't know anything about designing a UI!

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I'd think it's more often than you think. Workspace is limited so we can't have all desired windows open at the same time, unless we are animating stamps. Switching should be easy and fast. In blender the different windows is used in different scenarios, a handful for animating, a handful for composition etc. so we can have all necessary windows open at the same time. In Synfig all windows can be used together and they are not easily separated into different tasks.
I haven't used Toonboom so I don't know how it works there (they don't have a linux version).


Exactly my point. We should always strive for easier use, less clicks, faster workflow. Taking out the tabs seems counterproductive to me. Otherwise I think the suggested UI looks great!

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www.rylanderanimation.se
Synfig scripts, etc.

How about using a set of keyboard shortcuts to switch windows/tabs? for examples:

And these shortcuts are fully customizable in a clear UI.




I get your point here. Let me update my mockup later on tonight. I will take advantage of Toonboom Anomate's design. My only concern for using tab is it eats quite a lot spaces, specially in some small size sub-windows/panels. That causes some difficulty for user while play with them. For example, if user put
more than 4 tabs(sub-windows) in "Win 3" in above mockup, the Local Titlebar will overloaded and cluttered.

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Relevant Designs:

Toonboom Animate Pro
it is a combination of traditional TAB and Blender-like Drop-down designs:
you can add a tab by click the dropdown menu and select the title. when the title you selected is already existing in UI, this user action will bring up that tab, at the same time the focus of input device will be switched to as well.


Pros and Cons
====
This design is clear and friendly, and it is intuitive so that a new user doesn't need to take time to learn howto use.
but still, when the (width) size of window scale down to a certain size, it becomes clutter and not so user friendly, and it takes a lot of spaces:

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time flies...

Hi rylleman and others,

Thanks very much for your inputs and explainations, all of them were/are/will help this UI/UX design.

But I think this UI/UX redesign is a big job, we can not make it happen in a short term.

When I get the better soultion for the above issues (tabs switching, for example) I will update my mouckups
accordingly, but before that, I will continue to my design process by filling up the rest parts
of Synfig Studio. so that we can based on them to discuss and collect the infomations from our community,
to gerenate a full picture for the next gerenation UI before our develops start to code it.

Thanks very much for your help!

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Add a new window type: toolbox. you can customize the tools in this tool box in a easy way. and as other windows, the toolbox window can be a floating window as well.

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add layer filter widget for layer window and a window management menu, see the image in the first post


Edited 2013.0119：layer window design has been splited to another post

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