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Usability, workflow and bug fixes
One of the first initiatives I want to kick off is a big update to push out lots of little fixes, usability tweaks, minor bugs that often fly under the radar. Whilst they might be small things, each little frustration all adds up to the overall experience of a program.
To give you some examples of what I mean:
Resizing images doesn't snap to other images and objects.
Corner resize handles are not shown unless the object rotation center option is selected.
Changing the colour space does not stick unless you change the colour's values.
Program will lock up when it is processing something, causing windows to say it's not responding (which technically is true but the program isn't dead) instead of simple letting the user know it's working. This has often been reported as a crash.
And so on. Some of them are new, some of them are old issues. I have a large list myself of these tweaks and fixes, and I know there is a large number of TG here in the Dear Xara thread. I'm doing my best to go through as much as I can but with 15k Posts there will no doubt be loads I will miss, so with that if you have any of these small tweaks or annoyances that you want us to look at, please let me know.
Emphasis on the minor. I'm not planning any feature release or major overhauls in this particular update, just usability tweaks and fixes.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Excellent.
I would love to see independent left and right pages for book publishing. So if you make a change to the location of a paragraphs on the left hand pages it does not affect all the right hand pages.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Thanks for the opportunity Rob.
The Chorus from Koko’s “I’ve Got a Little List.” in the Mikado:
Quote:
He’s got ’em on the list — he’s got ’em on the list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed — they’ll none of ’em be missed.
Acorn
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time..... ;)
yes thanks rob - you have already got mine in the other thread; in particular the beep
most other things I might want, such as a UI switch for the boundary handles registry toggle, are likely out of this remit...
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
The web animation menu needs a rethinking. It is not intuitive and there needs to be more user control. Plus out options for the various object transitions. e.g. Fade Out, so an object can roll in and fade out.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Okay Rob, I'll keep it to a single issue that drives me crazy. I have a website template 960px NO PAGE SHADOW.
The second I change the page width, up it pops, that unwanted, hated page shadow. Forcing me to open the Utilities / Options / Page Size tab & uncheck the Show Page Shadow or select the page background in the P&L gallery and remove the page shadow. But dare I change the page background width or height by even a tiny-weeny single pixel and the damn shadow thing reappears. >:)
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Err, Egg, are you talking about the attached pic? If so, then it may just be you. The shadow option is off by default and no amount of resizing makes it appear unless I tick the box. De-selecting makes it go away, and it stays off.
XWDP 17.1 and also tested on a friends XDP+ whatever number it's up to.
Attachment 129861
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
>>>
Program will lock up when it is processing something, causing windows to say it's not responding (which technically is true but the program isn't dead) instead of simple letting the user know it's working. This has often been reported as a crash.<<<
how true.
Xara crashes only one or twice a year.
but i would like a t kill a process when it takes to long.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
In the Selector Toolbar, add a button with which to toggle between the new (blue) selection handles and the old (simple, black) selection handles or integrate it into the 'Show object edit handles' button that, anyway, doesn't do what is says it does. So, latter needs to be fixed.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Chris M
Err, Egg, are you talking about the attached pic? If so, then it may just be you. The shadow option is off by default and no amount of resizing makes it appear unless I tick the box. De-selecting makes it go away, and it stays off.
XWDP 17.1 and also tested on a friends XDP+ whatever number it's up to.
Attachment 129861
Chris, this is a long-time issue. If you drop a colour onto the design page, it happens, repeatedly.
The shadow is off by default as the supplied templates do not have any colour for pasteboard or page backgrounds.
@Egg, never seen it for page size changes though.
Acorn
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Boy
In the Selector Toolbar, add a button with which to toggle between the new (blue) selection handles and the old (simple, black) selection handles or integrate it into the 'Show object edit handles' button that, anyway, doesn't do what is says it does. So, latter needs to be fixed.
well since boy has mentioned [Selector Tool]ShowXCBoundsBlobs as well, I may as well put in the other registry toggle that I think should be in the UI:
[Freehand]AutoDeselectFreehand
when sketching, having the lines auto deselect after each stroke means no accidental joining up and/or repathing of the strokes; but when drawing in a slower fashion it is better to have this off andhaving to exit the program to toggle is a real pain
as is having to exit the program to toggle the visualisation disrupting blue boundary lines
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Acorn
Chris, this is a long-time issue. If you drop a colour onto the design page, it happens, repeatedly.
Acorn
So it does! Just goes to show that I've never dropped a colour onto the page. Pasteboard yes, page obviously not.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
It is good to have you Rob look over all this stuff. I feel there is new life in Xara now. My beef is the attached. I sometimes work on large website where I leave it for upload and go away from the computer in hope of it finished when I return but I see this screen. I do understand that the information is good to know but it hinders my workflow. Also if at anytime I close Xara it starts again. I would be so happy if this can be fixed. Attachment 129863
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Re the drop shadow:
I believe the cause of my problem is that I was forced into bad habits many years ago due to an issue that existed on my computers at that time. Namely opening the Utilities / Options dialogue window taking several seconds loading, so I’d avoid doing so as much as possible.
https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...748#post589748
I prefer not to have a page shadow. Probably through changing page colour incorrectly applying a page shadow as mentioned by Acorn. To avoid having to wait for Options window to open I’d select the page rectangle in the page layer and remove the drop shadow. Unfortunately this way didn’t remove the Show Page Shadow in the Options window, so as soon as the page was resized the shadow would reappear. There appears to be disconnect between the page rectangle and page size.
Strange how bad habits persist. I attach a xar template file which shows this behaviour. My bad, not Xara’s.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
you are not alone egg - a decade or so ago xara removed bitmap tracer from the work area right click context menu and I hardly ever used anything else in that menu I got out of the habit of using it - these days everytime I do right click to access the relatively recent multiple page view toggle I remind myself that page options is there, but I still automatically use the options menu route - there is even a shortcut to the general options, a file menu route to page options as well.. but hey you can't remember everything, and somethings become embedded; one reason why workflow changes in the UI, if they bring no personal benefit or worse cause disruption, can be hard to adjust to...
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Rob, a long time hate is Curvature. It is tied to the WxH of the initial box.
If you select a curvature control when the Editable items box has Curvature selected and then adjust it, the top Primary curvature ratio is varied, the Stellation curvature ratio is activated and has a fixed value of 0.2.
As you do not have stellation for a box, this ought to be a 'Secondary curvature ratio' so the curvature controls can be made independent, along with a meta-key to lock or unlock this action.
Acorn
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
There should be available toolbar BUTTONS for ALL the COMMANDS. The BUTTON PALETTE has not been updated as much as the program.
For example, there are buttons for EXPORT AS JPG and EXPORT AS PNG but NO EXPORT TO PDF which is together in the menu with the other two. It appears that the button palette has been neglected.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
that's a good point when using a graphics tablet and pen; a floating button bar's much quicker and easier than toggling an onscreen keyboard, scrabbling around for the physical keyboard you had to put to one side, or toggling in and out of fullscreen mode - 'convert line to shape' is an obvious omission from me
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
(sorry was logged into webmaster before lol)
Thanks everyone, I'll review this stuff shortly
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Glad to hear that, Rob.
Here's another one: I'm using the the rather cumbersome workaround in order to use the light interface and would greatly appreciate it if it would be officially supported again!
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Boy
Glad to hear that, Rob.
Here's another one: I'm using the the rather cumbersome workaround in order to use the light interface and would greatly appreciate it if it would be officially supported again!
What workaround? You should be able to press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S to switch to the (as you say officially unsupported) light theme
(aaagghh too many browsers with different accounts)
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rob-Xar
Resizing images doesn't snap to other images and objects.
If it's just this one I'll send you a Kangaroo with a bow on it.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rob-Xar
(sorry was logged into webmaster before lol)
Thanks everyone, I'll review this stuff shortly
thanks rob
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
I find the new Web Properties/Export/Transitions dialog confusing with the 'Website' option mixed in with the Transition Effects. Perhaps two radio buttons, 'Regular website' and 'Website with transitions,' on top would make it clearer, with 'Transition effect' grayed out when 'Regular website' is ticked.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rob-Xar
What workaround? You should be able to press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S to switch to the (as you say officially unsupported) light theme
(aaagghh too many browsers with different accounts)
If I remember correctly, using this combo resets all custom settings.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
I would like to see the "show boundary handles button" brought back so that we can do the stretchy/squishy of photos without having to remember ctrl+shift+1
Ray
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
When creating a bitmap copy, the default is always True Color + Alpha. It would be great to have Xara remember the last option you used (in my case 95% True Color) and offer that first.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
For over a decade many of us have relied on XaReg to alter Registry default settings. I wish Xara would support this utility or build the functions into the Utilities menu.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
whilst xareg is 'safer' for those who are not happy editing the windows registry directly, from my point of view it not the solution because you still have to exit the xara program to use it
i appreciate some changes will always require a program restart, but a simple restart of xara is better than having to then use a utility program as well, this is all about workflow and speed, these switches should be in a UI preferences menu (utilities)
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gwpriester
For over a decade many of us have relied on XaReg to alter Registry default settings. I wish Xara would support this utility or build the functions into the Utilities menu.
I have wanted to do something like this, but we'd have to create a new dialog to support all the options as there's no way in hell the utilities could do so without convoluting it and hiding the important options (forgoing the unimportant stuff that doesn't need to go into a dialog). This also would be a massive job that would be extremely hard to sell to the higher ups. I'm trying to balance feature rich impactful updates (to all manner of Xara users) with updates that don't make as big of an impact but improve quality of life and usability (which has been neglected for a while, hence by big push to bring the program back in line).
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Hidden number and Windowstask
pls see picture
Attachment 129912
gruß
reinhard
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Hi Rob
My suggestions were pretty much listed in this previous thread.
https://www.talkgraphics.com/showthr...197#post607197
Two things to highlight were:
Eye dropper / Colour picker shortcut
Keyboard shortcut to activate the colour picker whilst a vector object is selected, and shift + shortcut to select line colour.
Colour editor
Make clicking the colour editor button on the status bar toggle the colour editor on and off
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
@Rob-Xar, a few small inclusions to your list.
Web Properties > Placeholder > replace with graphic file.
- [May change] - For good or bad, the Browse button opens the Open dialog with the last-used Filename displayed.
- [Must change] - The Image file type list fails to include SVG or WebP.
File > Import from web address > Help
- Import from Web Address (Ctrl+Alt+W) Help Page still refers to a web Preview window.
Acorn
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
You can use the scroll wheel to advance the Strength. It would be useful to do this with the Hue as well.
And in general, more adjustments like this using the scroll wheel.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
just noticed the button palette has gone squiff in pro+
appears to be rendering problem - it briefly displays correctly and then falls over :
Attachment 129947
it does this on cintiq at native resolution 3840 x2160 both at 100% and 200% scaling and on my asus 2K monitor at 100% [not tested any other combos]
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Try this: minimize the app and then open/maximize it again. The icons will now be visible again and stay.
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
This was reported and "fixed" a time back.
@Xara - this is a repeat offence as similar has occurred on a variety of fly-outs and SmartShapes with omissions or artefacts.
@handrawn and @Boy - thanks both.
Acorn
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Re: Usability, workflow and bug fixes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Boy
Try this: minimize the app and then open/maximize it again. The icons will now be visible again and stay.
thought I'd tried that, but it worked just now so thanks