Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted January 15, 2019 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted January 15, 2019 I mostly just wanted to get a feel of opinions. No worries on whether this conversation will determine the very fate of Vectorworks 2020 or anything like that, I'm simply asking as I have been working with a number of other applications recently that have a different approach to UI than Vectorworks. We hear lots of feedback about users disliking the multiple levels of dialog boxes, which I agree with. However, what I hear less often is that users dislike palettes. Often, the feedback is more in the way of users actually wanting MORE palettes (like the ability to pull apart Shape, Data and Render from the single Object Info palette for example), or ways of collapsing portions of palettes when not in use. What I see in a lot of more recently developed software, is a large number of palettes that appear only contextually. I personally tend to dislike this, but that may just be because I "grew up" technologically with most of my software having a relatively static UI where elements were always visible and available onscreen, and changed their CONTENTS based on my selection (like Attributes or OIP) but never went away entirely. Fusion360 for instance, has palettes that are completely context-based by default. Even their workspace system is designed less like our system of "The workspace is for your industry" sort of thinking, and more a "The workspaces are for the different phases of design" which I like the idea of. But it seems to make the UI more difficult to learn since you can't just eyeball around the screen, you have to actively click on things, and sometimes in a certain order, to remind you that the UI element even existed. I'm mostly just looking for feedback and starting a discussion with this, there is no particular project in mind when I make this post, hardware and software UI is just something I think about in all my various work. Quote Link to comment
Popular Post markdd Posted January 15, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted January 15, 2019 Like you, I grew up with software like this and prefer to see menu items greyed out as opposed to being totally contextual. Vectorworks is really my only serious software package apart from AutoCad and some of the more esoteric lighting software packages whose UI's are not much to learn from. In general I find the little inconsistencies of the VWX UI rather hard to deal with. The protractor/deform/Subdivision widgets make the tools look and feel ill-considered when in fact I know they are far from that. It is inconsistency that makes software hard to learn and I would say that in order to retain new users, the ability to iron-out inconsistencies with the UI is fundamental to locking-in users for years to come. I would love to see the current mode bar options appear along side the cursor. This would seriously speed up my workflow and also cut out mistakes. ("move by points" tool anyone?!) Context menu choices specific to a tool could also be displayed along side a "floating" mode bar rather than having to scroll down to the very bottom of the contextual menu where they always appear. The ability to tear off menu items. This would be very useful for when a tool or set of related tools is getting heavy use. This would save the arduous scroll through nested menus to get to a certain tool time and time again. Tool dialogue boxes "remembering" their size and position on screen as part of a user/document preference. And your suggestion of collapsable OIP sections of all plugin tools. These would also remember their behaviour as a document preference. Personally, I find the yearning for a "dark mode" is low on my list of priorities as it won't fundamentally change how we work or make us more efficient, however I am sure that its development will keep a lot of folks happy! NB. Recently I have had the need to use Screenflow for a project and was rather dreading having to learn it. Different discipline of course but the UI is really neat, intuitive and above all ,super-fast. I am enjoying using it. Just a few thoughts..... 4 1 Quote Link to comment
Member Chih-Pin Posted January 15, 2019 Member Share Posted January 15, 2019 Some people also post some relevant discussions here: 2 Quote Link to comment
Mark Aceto Posted January 15, 2019 Share Posted January 15, 2019 (edited) Fewer dialogs, more palettes = less friction. Good examples of this: Cinema, Rhino, Maya, Unreal/Twinmotion, Adobe... The most frustrating thing about dialogs is when I'm starting at a blank OIP on a 4k monitor, and I have to dive into a dialog with multiple tabs. This is more often the case with every release. Good examples of OIP efficiency are all the Spotlight PIO's that third party developers designed (and are baked into VW now). I'd much rather draw stairs and ramps using those tools because they're a thousand times faster. The hoist POI is great. Also, the door and window PIO's make great use of the OIP. We all know how dreadful the notorious stair tool is. Same with fencing and railing. And 3 different types of tree PIO's... But that's drifting into continuity. You bring up a good point with the various industry workspaces vs the Lightroom process. As parametric modeling becomes more and more procedural, this seems like the next thing to evolve. Especially, since I use every workspace, and not editing any of them results in far less deleting of the user folder/preferences. I would much rather have a palette or Menu header for each industry than have to separately and pull apart and dock the redundant palettes for every workspace. And that's not to mention that when creating a custom workspace, we can only drag one menu/tool item at a time which is a nonstarter for me (and has been for years). Someone else pointed out how other 3D apps like Cinema display/edit materials vs textures in the resource manager (the iTunes of VW). This would also be a welcome improvement, particularly better previews. Lastly, I have no wish for a Dynamic / On-Demand UI Display. Again, continuity... KISS. Edited January 15, 2019 by Mark Aceto 1 Quote Link to comment
Mark Aceto Posted January 15, 2019 Share Posted January 15, 2019 Also, what's up with the Callout tool? Why isn't it as simple to edit as Dimensions (inline or in the OIP)? Is that an architectural thing? 1 Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted January 15, 2019 Author Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted January 15, 2019 1 hour ago, Mark Aceto said: Also, what's up with the Callout tool? Why isn't it as simple to edit as Dimensions (inline or in the OIP)? Is that an architectural thing? From what I understand, that's mostly related to how it links to keynotes for Architects, yeah. I've often seen class for a simplified version of it for everyone else. Quote Link to comment
Popular Post Kevin McAllister Posted January 15, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted January 15, 2019 My biggest desire is to have the mode bar fixed and integrated into the Tab HUD. The mode bar is so inconsistent. Sometimes its nice and simple - 2d Fillet Tool Regular Polygon Tool Though I still should be able to tab into the HUD and automatically have the first field be the value for the selected tool's input box, in this case either radius or number of sides. Sometimes it exists for no reason - NURBS Curve Tool Polyline Tool Why aren't these options just in the mode bar? Is a dialog really necessary? Sometimes there's too much duplication - Offset Tool 3d Fillet Edge Tool This could be simplified and likely all appear in the mode bar in some form. And sometimes the option you use constantly is buried in one of these dumb dialogs - Extract Tool I switch "Create Planar Objects" on and off constantly, but there's no way to give it a shortcut and its buried in a dialog. How these things are accesses is the MOST important part of the UI/UX as far as I'm concerned. The majority of my work in VW is using tools. Anything that can be done to streamline this (including separating navigation from tools) would be a massive improvement. Regarding the OIP and tabs etc., C4D is the one to beat. Its so customizable. I wish I could sometimes access both the "Shape" and "Data" panes in the OIP at the same time (placing symbols and updating data at the same time). In C4D its as simple as shift selecting both tabs and they both show in a stack at the same time. Example below where both Coord. and Object are shown at the same time - Kevin 6 2 Quote Link to comment
Mark Aceto Posted January 16, 2019 Share Posted January 16, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, Jim Wilson said: I've often seen class for a simplified version of it for everyone else. Simply adding a Note (text) field to the OIP (like the Dimension tool) would solve this vs. clicking the "Edit Note..." button to open another dialog. Bonus: add the usual text editing options to the OIP. There's plenty of space available on this 3008x1692 scaled display: Edited January 16, 2019 by Mark Aceto 3 Quote Link to comment
Popular Post Andy Broomell Posted January 16, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted January 16, 2019 42 minutes ago, Kevin McAllister said: And sometimes the option you use constantly is buried in one of these dumb dialogs 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌 Precisely. For example, "Close Open Curves" (Offset tool) is an option I turn on and off hundreds of times per day. Yet it's buried in an unnecessary pop-up. I also realize there will be a complete UI redesign coming some day, but I really hope that some of these smaller time-saving things could be addressed in the NEAR future, rather than just waiting for the full redo. 🤞 10 Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted January 16, 2019 Share Posted January 16, 2019 I don't like is the new "dynamic" palette for editing in symbols and editing in Site Models. The main reason is that I can't control their location and they pile on top of my floating tool palette. I'm also not a big fan of the disappearing contextual "Display 2d Components" checkbox that appears for sheet layer viewports rendered in hidden line (background render only). Kevin 1 Quote Link to comment
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