GUI design

[Phil Thalasso]

Good morning everybody.

Trogluddite, you somehow planted a seed of thought in me that won't go away easily, knowing myself. What if it were possible to first of all define a requirement spec for a set of consistent icons for synths and then take a shot at doing it? I dug up some old Siemens, Bell Labs and TI books on symbol standards in flow and process control. I'll go through them today and perhaps something for starting a collaborative evaluation could result from it.

Question: What is perfectionism? I believe that beautiful simplicity cannot be but a result of perfectionist effort. I have read of writers who spent days thinking about the right words to describe a scenario or emotions. And I know from personal experience that placing three straight pencil lines on a piece of paper is no easy task.

So I do suspect that working on an icon set would be a job for many weeks if not months until they look good and consistent and are meaningful in the sense of self explaining or at least implication.

Best Regards
Phil

[Spogg]

Since we’re talking about what we dislike about GUI design I’m gonna sound off about the current fashion trend of making everything so effing dark.
I tried out a VST recently and I had to close the blind in my Man Cave and peer closely at the monitor to read the labels. Everything was different shades of very dark, with little contrast between text and background.

And what’s more, I don’t like excessive minimalism. You know, when a knob is just an arc for example.
I’m probably too old.

Rant over!

Cheers

Spogg

[Phil Thalasso]

Hi all,

I am a great friend of black or flat colors. Why is that? There are a couple of really neat colorful vsts out there. By themselves they all look good (well, that's subjective of course), but: If I have 12 vsts open in my DAW and have to look at chromatic chaos, it annoys me.
Another reason why people go for dark might be that a subtle dark grey or blue usually doesn't run any chance of looking like plastic. Might be just me, but I associate colorful much more with toys than with anything serious.

Something very positive about using flowstone for building vsts is the capability of assigning one knob/switch/menu per function. I do own a very versatile microKORG, which is a pain in the lower back to handle. As there are all sorts of functionalities hidden in that machine, I was very thankful that someone built a vst-controller for that synth. Recently I also noted that for some products (like the Yamaha Reface DX) special hardware expanders are offered to afford the luxury of having direct access to parameters. I can't handle an instrument that is controlled via a LCD and deep structured menues.

You all have a good day!
Regards
Phil

[trogluddite]

Question: What is perfectionism? I believe that beautiful simplicity cannot be but a result of perfectionist effort. I have read of writers who spent days thinking about the right words to describe a scenario or emotions.

Hmm, intrinsically not a bad thing; but for me something that can become counter-productive due to excessive procrastination - being unable to decide quite when (near enough to) perfection has been realised, so never deeming a project finished. Your example about words describes me perfectly - I can take an hour to write a simple one or two paragraph forum post sometimes due to excessive tinkering with the words and grammar, and doubts about how my message or tone might be received. I'm just hopeless at deciding whether I'm just making something "different" rather than "better", and after a short break, often come back and immediately have a change of opinion (I've now edited this post at least three [four!] times! )

So I do suspect that working on an icon set would be a job for many weeks if not months

Yes, I suspect that you are right. It's a job that I've done on a small scale, both for my own plugins and for a former employer's software, and I found them among the hardest design projects that I've ever done (I've dabbled a lot in drawing, painting, desktop publishing, and photography). When it's done well, as with Aicher's ubiquitous stick-figures, it is something that I have a lot of admiration for, and even more so since attempting it myself.

Everything was different shades of very dark, with little contrast between text and background.

Yes, I've seen a few pretty egregious examples of that recently. I do generally prefer pale text/controls on a dark background, as I'm a bit photophobic, but there's no excuse for turning the contrast down that far!. I'm always put in mind of the Disaster Area "sundiver" space-ship from the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - black controls on a black background that light up in black when you press them (I guess Douglas Adams got the "mystery GUI" idea before any of us VST geeks! )

I can't handle an instrument that is controlled via a LCD and deep structured menues.

To coin an old metaphor; "Wallpapering the hallway through the letterbox"! It's no wonder that many people prefer to stick with presets rather than rolling their own with some kit!

[Phil Thalasso]

Hello you all!

I've got a problem with Spogg's suggestion

Oh wow that’s so pretty!

What you could maybe think about is having a floating tool-tip system, or a box below which tells the function on mouse-over. The user would then be able to learn where stuff was.

Spogg

"floating tool-tip system": I simply don't know how to do that. Could someone please, please make an example?
Thank you bunches for that!
Edit:
Just found that:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3809&hilit=synthmaker+greatest+hits&start=10#p21386
I guess that will help!
Edit-end
Best regards
Phil

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

I promise, I'm going to finish everything I planned to finish.

I've been working on a replacement for the dropdown menus. Also, I'll tweak good looking tooltips with rounding and shadows. I'll include the ability to add images and alignment. Furthermore I'll finish the Numberpad value entry.

In the meantime here's a dropdown menu beta to work with for ideas. I made some useful modules. Enjoy

Hello you all!

I've got a problem with Spogg's suggestion

Oh wow that’s so pretty!

What you could maybe think about is having a floating tool-tip system, or a box below which tells the function on mouse-over. The user would then be able to learn where stuff was.

Spogg

"floating tool-tip system": I simply don't know how to do that. Could someone please, please make an example?
Thank you bunches for that!
Edit:
Just found that:
http://www.dsprobotics.com/support/view ... =10#p21386
I guess that will help!
Edit-end
Best regards
Phil

[lalalandsynth]

Here is a tweaked listbox/dropdown from Tulamide.
Can use pngs , uses mouseover to release dropdown if nothing is selected.
Also remembers last selection

EDIT: FROM THE 64 BIT FS VErsion

Drpdwn mouseover release.fsm

(35.94 KiB) Downloaded 770 times

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

Not bad, Here's My new version too. Staring to look as good as the menus used a in the VA synth by AA.

custom drodown menu system 33 - fork.fsm

hoot woot oh...

(23.12 KiB) Downloaded 798 times

Here is a tweaked listbox/dropdown from Tulamide.
Can use pngs , uses mouseover to release dropdown if nothing is selected.
Also remembers last selection

The attachment Drpdwn mouseover release.fsm is no longer available

[trogluddite]

Here is a tweaked listbox/dropdown from Tulamide

Big crashy for me unfortunately - guess my version of FS is too 'stone-age', like me!

Not bad, Here's My new version too.

Nice!

I do really like this alternative where making a selection doesn't always close the drop-down - when I'm testing out a bunch of different options from a list, it can get very annoying to have to keep clicking to re-open it!

[lalalandsynth]

Oh, sorry about that , I really keep forgetting that I am using the 64 bit version, been using it for so long now.
I will try and remember to mention that in my posts.