Scribus UI/UX improvements

[pablo_tool]

Hi Martin,

at first a question to understand you right. You have on right side an icon bar with all available windows/toolboxes. By click on a certain icon the related toolbox will show in the scroll container on left side and the "X" button hide it from scroll container, right? I like the idea.

That's right + these toolboxes appear within scroll container in "basic" mode. If someone needs more advances stuff he/she clicks on very top of each container to expand/collapse them. We could add arrows next to "X" for toolboxes with such advanced possibilities (for those who haven't grasped this idea )

How could be the layout for working with multiple screens? Is the whole Dock Widget moveable out of the main window? Maybe some users want to fill one screen with all panels as a wall to see all features... For the current scroll container in your concept it's not possible... If the single toolboxes can move out of the scroll container it could work for such users.

Good question... Well, check out my first mock-up You pull these toolboxes out from our right scrolling area and there you have them (as alone standing toolboxes - you can place them where you wish). In my opinion another way to activate our toolboxes should be like in almost every software - by going WINDOWS (very top menu) => GEOMETRY / COLORS / PAGES / TABLES / ALIGN & DISTRIBUTE and so on). If someone accidentally closes a toolbox - there's usually a confusion "how do I turn in on now?".  In case someone uses multiple monitor there should be some button to show/hide our right scroll container. How about right/bottom corner? Simple button with TOOLBOXES sign on it - you click on it and make our right scrolling area appear/disappear.

Kind regards!

[tim_occ]

Hi Pablo,

so I've tried to show the behaviour in the image below.

• is the collapsed state (for full focus on document and shortcut users)
• show the expand mode
  - the first toolbox is in advanced mode
  - second one is in collapsed mode


• show the expanded state with two toolboxes
  - the icon will add or remove from iconbar


• show all expanded toolboxes

Features
- expandable/collapseable mode of the whole Widget
- Toolbox modes: collapsed/expanded/advanced
- Foldable Araes within a toolbox
- arranging of toolboxes by drag and drop or by icon moving (also drag)
- toolboxes can be docked or undocked in the stack
- whole toolbox container is scrollable (overflow scrolling)
- click on icon scrolls the related toolbox on top

Perhaps for multiple screens we can make the stack moveable, like in Libre Office.
https://blogs.shu.ac.uk/shutech/files/2015/07/1.png
The right area can be undock from main window.

greets
martin

PS: my updated mockup file is in attachement

[attachment deleted by admin]

[pablo_tool]

Hi Martin!

Very nice. One question: is there an option to hide our right scrolling field for people who want to have separate toolboxes only (for example for those with multiple monitors)?

Do you know by any chance which file from SCRIBUS TRUNK should be opened by QT-DESIGNER in order to edit this interface? I tried to follow this tutorial, but no clue where to begin; http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Tutorial_Hacking_Scribus_User_Interface

Are you capable of applying your project into SCRIBUS? Are there some software developers to manage this? I have no C++ knowledge, I'm just a graphic designer

Kind regards!

[Kunda]

Do you know by any chance which file from SCRIBUS TRUNK should be opened by QT-DESIGNER in order to edit this interface?

Check out: https://github.com/nitramr/indigoDock#install

[tim_occ]

Hi Pablo,

as Kunda wrote we have a test bucket for the new UI Elements. It's a small project but we can easily test new stuff outside of the regular Scribus project. If the community and the core developers like the new UI I think it will implement in next versions.

The Indigo UI Project is more like a showcase for possibilities and not a commitment for the next Scribus release. However, I will try to realize our newest concept within these project, but would be nice if more developer join to the project. For me it looks simplier to finish the new concept as the old one... because the half code is already done for the new stuff

greets
Martin

PS: about your question to hide the right scrollfield (I think you mean the icon bar).
- If no toolbox is inside of the scroll container anymore the icon bar could be hide automaticly.
- If a user drag and drop a single toolbar to the border of main window the iconbar can be visible again with the toolbar inside of the scrollbar.

[pablo_tool]

Hi Martin / Kunda and everybody!

Whatever the changes will be in this topic - anything would improve this panel In my personal opinion in current PP the most problematic is TEXT section with COLOROS AND FILLS, FIRST LINE OFFSET, ORPHANS AND WIDOWS packed together within small container, roughly 6 cm in height + this section as a part of bigger scroll area...

Martin, I meant how do I switch of the right scroll-field, not a left one... I attach in this post which one I mean. Remember, you've asked how do users switch the toolboxes off if they use multiple monitors... Left scroll-field - I understand it hides automatically. How about this one - the right one? I think if someone uses toolboxes as alone standing, floating ones - he/she won't need this one... Any option to switch this one off under WINDOWS => TOOLBAR etc?

Kind regards!

[attachment deleted by admin]

[tim_occ]

Hi Pablo,

I have understood your question right. As I described, if there is no toolbox inside of the left scroll area the icon bar (right scroll field) will hide. If you want to bring back the icon bar  you have to drag a single toolbox next to the right egde of the main window. By releasing the mouse button the icon bar will shown and the dropped toolbox is inside of the left scroll area. Also the related icon of these toolbox in the icon bar.

Long story short: if no toolbox is inside of the left scrollfield, the whole thing will hide (left and right areas).


Otherwise if I think more about it... it feels bad. Maybe the user is suprised if the whole thing is hiding by close/drop out the last toolbox... In worst case he/she doesn't know how to bring it back.

Other idea:
- there is a close button next to the arrow icon on top
- you can hide the whole stack (also if there more than on toolbox inside) by click these close button
- it should be possible to show it again via (Window -> Show the cool thing) <-- or similar wording


greets
Martin

[pablo_tool]

Hi Martin!

Auto-hiding our very right scroll-field - all right, great idea.

- it should be possible to show it again via (Window -> Show the cool thing) <-- or similar wording

Yes, I'm for it This hiding-thing may not be recognized/noticed by everybody. Say I accidentally close this menu... I think first thing I do is to go to WINDOW => PROPERTIES PANEL in order to switch it on again Let's enable both ways so that if somebody won't find one way one of them - there will be always another solution for the problem.

My other "ideas" as far as UI is concerned:
- clicking on a guide should cause opening some toolbox where you can write precise guide position, agree with me?
- Shortcuts options for CHARACTER STYLES? (say CTRL + 1, 2, 3, etc...)
- Shortcuts options for basic text operations like increase/decrease font size, increase/decrease distance between lines/letters in selected words... This small things speed up creation/designing process/entire workflow a lot.
- I think I've mentioned that before - when it comes to ARRANGE PAGES... I can't make it any smaller in height (attachment) Hope this could get better with our new UI?
- Need to simply how pages/master-pages are created... Simple + / - icons for the pages and + / - icons for master-pages could do... (in order to create/delete them - I lack an option to CREATE NEW PAGE from this toolbox in v 1.5... Duplicate page option would be also a nice one...

Kind regards!

[attachment deleted by admin]

[tim_occ]

Hey, some news from Dev-Front!

Today I've updated the Indigo project on GitHub. The new features are based on the last discussions here in the forum.

What's new?
- now we have a single scroll container that contains all panels
- tab bar allow resorting of the single panels
- I tested some styles - now it's dark + simple image inversion (I don't know how looks on Windows or Mac, it's based on the Fusion Style)
- tab icon will only show if panel is inside of the scroll container


What do think about the update?

greets
Martin

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Kunda]

Looks awesome!
Here is how it looks on OSX 10.10
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xsamq2uorhuf7rr/indigo-OSX10.10.mov

[cloudbusting]

Looking great, Martin! Really excited with your progress. I think the change to dark colours is great too. I find it much easier on the eyes when working at night, and for long projects. By the way, will this work on 1.6.0, or will it need to be altered for it?

[a.l.e]

nice!

comments from my side:

- i'd prefer to have both a dark and a light theme...
- we should avoid collapsable sections...
- text and image tabs should probably be on the same pane (and automatically switching depending on the current content type: that's the idea behind the content pane).

[a.l.e]

ah, one more thing:

wherever a resource (style, color, ...) can be selected, it should also be possible to create one or manage that type of resource :-)

[pablo_tool]

Hello!

Martin, I like dark colors - good idea.

One thing though: are TEXT, ALIGMENT, PARAGRAPH, CHARACTER, COLUMNS are to be again within single toolbox? I thought the main idea of the entire enterprise is to split up somehow current PP in sections such as TEXT, ALIGMENT, PARAGRAPH STYLES etc. in order to ease access to all those tools... In my personal opinion - if they stay like this (as single toolbox with one "X" in upper right corner) - it's not gonna make much difference in comparison to current PP state...

One more thing regarding UI interface: it's really hard in v1.5 to manage pages around. There's ARRANGE PAGES toolbox as such, but in order to move them around, we need to go to very top menu => PAGES, MOVE PAGES, than some box show-up and we point out what is to be done... There should be some RIGHT-CLICK option within PAGES toolbox with MOVE, CREATE NEW and DELETE functions...

Kind regards!

[Kunda]

Interesting article on the Scribus UI:
http://www.publishinglab.nl/blog/2015/12/10/attempting-to-go-open-source-with-our-print-workflow-using-scribus/