9 replies to this topic

[ASONE]

My laptop ends up getting quite busy with a ton of palettes all over the place.  I prefer this to having all of them jammed into the palette dock as it ends up being a lot of scrolling.  Also some palettes won't go in the palette dock anyways.  

 

A different option might be to have the palettes collapse into an icon style palette dock.  Similar to the attached Photoshop image.  This seems a much more tidy UI.  Personally I would prefer an option to show/hide Palette names (similar to the tool icons).  Hard to memorize every icon as there are so many these days across various platforms...not even computing anymore.  

 

It would also be nice if the palettes "locked" into this icon palette dock.  As a mac user I still prefer the "floating" ability of the UI, but I would rather be able to move the entire palette icon dock instead of 10 floating palettes.

 

This would be a nice upgrade particularly for laptop use.

Attached Thumbnails

• 
• 

[jsiggia]

If you collapse the palette to it's title bar is this not almost the same thing?

 

Perhaps if when you expanded a palette it would open in a previously saves location (not in the dock).

 

Joe

 

 

 

 

Attached Thumbnails

• 

Edited by jsiggia, 20 November 2015 - 05:08 PM.

[Alan Cooper]

Hi Jsiggia, no, sorry, not the same thing, we laptop users already do that and the whole width of that collapsed palette is sufficient for several single icons which is what we have been requesting and that leaves more height available for the palettes which are open. Personally, I think the icons don't even have to be in the same location as where the palette opens up when clicked upon. Even better would be if the icon dock(s) could be flexible itself, so we can show or hide the icons according to what type of work we are currently doing in addition to personalising which icons show ever. I would also like to be able to personalise the icons themselves because then I can make sure there is some sort of colour coding and memory jog which I personally will remember due to the idiosyncracies of my own quirky brain otherwise could be hard to learn or differenciate.

[Alan Cooper]

My laptop ends up getting quite busy with a ton of palettes all over the place.  I prefer this to having all of them jammed into the palette dock as it ends up being a lot of scrolling.  Also some palettes won't go in the palette dock anyways.  

 

A different option might be to have the palettes collapse into an icon style palette dock.  Similar to the attached Photoshop image.  This seems a much more tidy UI.  Personally I would prefer an option to show/hide Palette names (similar to the tool icons).  Hard to memorize every icon as there are so many these days across various platforms...not even computing anymore.  

 

It would also be nice if the palettes "locked" into this icon palette dock.  As a mac user I still prefer the "floating" ability of the UI, but I would rather be able to move the entire palette icon dock instead of 10 floating palettes.

 

This would be a nice upgrade particularly for laptop use.

Asone, I fully agree with you on all the points you listed there. But even the Photoshop ones are not as compact as they could be - there is a little wasted space around the perimeters. I like the suggestion of a dock to contain the icons as long as it can be resized both vertically and horizontally so they appear in a closely packed grid of any rectangular configuration, and with option for the icons to be text titles, which just show the beginning of their title or an abbreviation if preferred, as a memory prompt, we don't necessarily need to see the whole title to remember what it stands for. Colour individualised background to each icon would be nice, far more important to use color for useful identification than having a uniform theme color for appearance's sake imho.

[Alan Cooper]

Further thoughts about icon docks, I would like icons to lock into docks but also for icon docks to snap to each other and be able to therefore be floating as a single movable unit. Definitely would like the info panel which opens when an icon is active to be in an independent position to the icon, and for that also to be movable so nothing obstructs the varying focuses of attention in the model. Different info panels (preferably auto-collapsing when inactive) will need to be open at different times, some coinicidentally to others, so customisation is required as to which info panel displays the palette info when icon is active. Naturally, if no info panels are available, an icon will need to become inactive to make room in the info palettes, unless a new one pops up automatically. The key points are clarity, flexibility and minimalisation to maximise screen space, keeping inactive functions accessible but very small or hidden within an openable envelope, eg. fly-out icons.

[ASONE]

jsigga,

 

There are many palettes that won't go into the dock.  Also even if they did it, the dock leads to tons of opening and closing palettes + scrolling.  The dock is nice and I use it, but a collapsed set of palette icons would be awesome.

[jsiggia]

Asone,

 

I agree, but I also believe some palettes do not belong in the dock. We have the ability to move them out altogether and close the dock and live without it.

 

So if a palette can be collapsed to an icon instead of the name bar and the icons could live in a dock , I could go for that.

 

I guess the next step would be to have them (like tool icons) in a collapsible row.

 

Are we moving toward a paletteless work space? I might like that on a laptop.

 

Joe

 

 

[Alan Cooper]

I would like availability of ultimate customisation so we can adjust to our own preferences, which is generally true to the FZ character.

 

Ideally we would have ability for multiple docks so they can be minimised at will thus minimising the view of the palettes which a dock contains all at once, and for Icon controllers to either remain on view or not according to preference.

 

Important that docks of any shape can be snapped together if we preference that to happen.

 

The objective is maximum working space with shortest number of clicks to manipulate the tools, without any compromise to customisation of what is visible, yet retaining a good solid starting arrangement for new users who don't want to start off by customising that which they don't yet understand very well. The existing workspace manager is good as users have different types of working, eg a setup for surveys and another setup for design and yet another for manufacturing. Also we sometimes use different equipment, eg a desktop machine and a laptop. They may have differing screen resolutions so we need to be able to switch the user interface settings accordingly, while retaining the same model details, bit differing devices may have differing docks of palette setups.

[redrngr]

I think Photoshop does a good job with respect to this issue.

 

 

Dan S.

[jsiggia]

I was thinking the same thing. Specifically, using a single key to switch between screens. PhotoShop is "F". to have a single key to hide everything but the active window and at the same time, make that window fill the screen. another hit of this key would return everything back, then you could choose another window to work in, and so on.

 

Joe.

Edited by jsiggia, 13 December 2015 - 11:27 AM.