Indigo UI: the properties palette

[a.l.e]

A few days ago I wanted to work on an issue that has affected for many years now.

When I import an SVG, I get lot of colors that I will never want to apply in my document:

https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=8944
Option to hide unnamed colours

My thoughts, wandered through a few ways, I could tweak the color lists to only optionally show the colors that I have never defined myself nor applied to one of my own shapes.

And then I thought that I should have a look at Martin's proposal:

http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,1617.0.html
Scribus UI/UX improvements

and more specifically to

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JRs-9VUaZGjG3Dvyci2DCpwIpYQLR8IZv485hjujdEk/edit#slide=id.g210d1a16fc_0_63

Wouldn't it be better to implement the easier parts of the Indigo UI proposal, before modifying the widget for the colors list?

The easiest part seemed to be the Shape tab of the property palette:

https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=15811

Here is a patch

https://gitlab.com/scribus/scribus/merge_requests/5

From



To



and here is an Appimage if you want to check it out on Linux:

https://gitlab.com/a.l.e/scribus/-/jobs/289677481/artifacts/file/Scribus-nightly-x86_64.AppImage

(the Appimage will be automatically deleted in about one week, though)

My plan:

- follow (or get inspired by) Martin's proposal,
- to shrink the size of the widgets in the xyz, shape and color widgets,
- so that they can finally be merged in one main pane that does not need anymore to be collapsed / opened (the final pane should be as high or smaller than the current xyz pane)

At the end, on a monitor with a "nowadays normal" resolution it should be possible to have the main panes of the Properties and Content (Text + Image) Palette open at the same time, one on top of the other.

Help, feedback and a good icon for the "Rounded Corners" are very welcome!

[attachment deleted by admin]

[a.l.e]

p.s.: i've pushed a slightly improved "round corners" icon to gitlab...

[RodneyLee]

Looks great, much cleaner, maybe Hover text can name each tool

[a.l.e]

yep, each of the new buttons has extensive and well forged tooltips!

[tim_occ]

Hi a.l.e,

I like to start with small changes. During my work on the implementation of the entire Indigo UI, I came across many dependencies with other functions. For example, I first started migrating all UI elements into layout blocks, but then I could not use the existing color picker because it was just a clickable rectangle. In the end it would have been better if I had started with the color picker and later with the layout blocks.

I think the right way is how you suggest working on small things, with no or minimal dependencies on other functions. Otherwise it gets messy.

best,
Martin

[a.l.e]

Status update:

- The Shape panel is now in Scribus.
- The Image panel has been moved (as is) to a new Content Palette.
- I've made a patch to apply Martin's proposal for the XYZ panel.
- The Group panel has been emptied from all the widgets that were also in the Shape panel.
- There is a patch for moving to the content panel all the panels that change according to the item type.

The main differences to Martin's proposal:

- I'm trying to avoid introducing the "advanced" hidden sections for each panel. For now I plan a common "advanced" section (or move items to other dialogs).
- I've proposed a few changes in the XYZ panel (basepoint on the right) and Peter added a few other, that produced more changes in the layout.
  Here is the almost final result (with two errors that have been fixed later...; please do not propose further changes to this panel until it's merged...)
 
- The padding and the spacing is not yet correct. I wait for bigger parts of the palettes being reimplemented before styling them (for now it's a default grid).

Wish me good luck : - )
a.l.e

[attachment deleted by admin]

[RodneyLee]

Great work, Good Luck

[tim_occ]

Hi,

I've been thinking about the Basepoint widget and I think it needs to be revised urgently, because it doesn't really fit either optically or technically. Technically, because many UI colors are hardcoded.
For a redesign, I primarily looked at Adobe InDesign and Affinity Publisher. In Affinity Publisher I saw that the widget also supports rotation of the selected element. I think this would be a useful widget for Scribus too.

[tim_occ]

Hi all,

I just want to give an update about the current implementation / changes of the properties panel.

Right now, I updated 3 sections (XYZ, Shape and Line). I also added a function to toggle the visibility of the smaller labels. In that way, it is possible to have a beginner-friendly mode with more explanation or a professional mode with more space-saving UI, also a nice thing for small screens.

Have in mind it is work in progress, and I'm happy to get your feedback.

[tim_occ]

Just another update. All new big UI changes are documented in the Wiki.

https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/IndigoDevelopment

[tim_occ]

Currently, I'm working on some more optimizations of the properties panel.

I have progress on implementing a new "color picker" to replace the color and transparency section.
After a couple of weeks of work, I think it is time to share the progress with you.

What is done?
- Color Picker as a new component
- Color Picker supports, color, gradients, hatch, pattern + related transparency options
- New "Fill" section in properties palette
- New preview button that open the color picker in context

What is left?
- Free Mesh + Patch Mesh are not implemented yet
- Gradient vector editing will get a new tool in toolbar

Your feedback is welcome.

[a.l.e]

here a question from my side:

- you're not showing the exact content of the fill and line panels, but i seem to detect two color widgets in the first one and one in the second...
  is it the plan / would it be possible to move the stroke part to the line panel?

and two comments about ideas that do not need to be implemented right away, but you might want to consider (in order not to make it hard to implement them if we want to have them in the future)

- color creation: as nathan wrote yesterday, it would be nice to have a fast way to create colors.
  in the past, there was the idea of allowing the creation of resource (styles, colors, ...) at the place where they're used.
  in your plans, would it be easy to add a button (or any other mean) for creating a color from the colors widget?
  or should we rather look for a specific and dockable panel for cresting colors?

- when i'm in draft mode, i just want to grab a color: would be it possible to also have the colors be shown in a compact way, without the label? (the details might be shown on hover...)

all in all, it looks good!
thanks for sharing your work!

[AdmFubar]

- color creation: as nathan wrote yesterday, it would be nice to have a fast way to create colors.
  in the past, there was the idea of allowing the creation of resource (styles, colors, ...) at the place where they're used.
  in your plans, would it be easy to add a button (or any other mean) for creating a color from the colors widget?
  or should we rather look for a specific and dockable panel for cresting colors?

- when i'm in draft mode, i just want to grab a color: would be it possible to also have the colors be shown in a compact way, without the label? (the details might be shown on hover...)

i'm hoping to see a color picker more like Rickrack. might be worth while checking into adding it. perhaps the creator of it would be willing to help with integration.

[tim_occ]

- you're not showing the exact content of the fill and line panels, but i seem to detect two color widgets in the first one and one in the second...
  is it the plan / would it be possible to move the stroke part to the line panel?

Fill and Line section have two color widgets. One represent the color, one the mask (formerly transparency palette). Both color and mask widget open a color picker and show context specific settings. See attached image for current implementation of Fill and Line section.

and two comments about ideas that do not need to be implemented right away, but you might want to consider (in order not to make it hard to implement them if we want to have them in the future)

- color creation: as nathan wrote yesterday, it would be nice to have a fast way to create colors.
  in the past, there was the idea of allowing the creation of resource (styles, colors, ...) at the place where they're used.
  in your plans, would it be easy to add a button (or any other mean) for creating a color from the colors widget?
  or should we rather look for a specific and dockable panel for cresting colors?

It is planned for the second iteration. Currently, Scribus works with color names as a reference. To support "free mixed colors" it requires bigger changes under the hood, perhaps sla file format too.

The final concept is posted here: https://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,4367.0.html

- when i'm in draft mode, i just want to grab a color: would be it possible to also have the colors be shown in a compact way, without the label? (the details might be shown on hover...)

You mean the colors in the swatches section of the color picker?