The new interface - the dissenting voice :)

[derekfountain]

The new single dialog interface seems popular, and I like it too. But it needs a lot of work to make it usable. It's absolutely terrifying!

Firstly, this ribbons thing. Is this the same thing as Microsoft put into the latest version of Office? The thing that's got people confused, as it tries to adapt itself dynamically to the state of the application? I've never seen it (not being an Office user) but I can see where people are coming from. It's horrible! But it can be made better - starting with a massive clean up!

Let's count the menus. The big coloured button in the top left corner is one. This seems to be a duplicate of the one found in the curves pane, accessed via the right pointing arrow button thing. Maybe both these menus are needed, but surely not as duplicates of each other? Back up top, there's some sort of drop down menu found by clicking on the tiny downwards pointing arrow. This seems to control parts of the user interface, although it's not at all clear what's going on when I click most of it's options. Then there's the "traditional" menu across the top, which isn't a proper menu, it would seem. This is obviously the ribbon interface which has only served to confuse me so far. Below the ribbon there's the familiar CM toolbar leading to pins, zoom, another menu for sample points, and the channel buttons.

That's far too many menus and toolbars. It's totally bewildering. I have no idea where to find most options I'm familiar with, and there must be hundreds of buttons in total, many of which are duplicates of others.

I'm not really in a position to try to sort it all out - it'll take hours! But I, and hopefully others, will add to this thread offering some suggestions for a clean up.

[-default]

You have some good points, as always Derek.  I do agree the ribbon needs to be reorganized and greatly simplified and would appreciate any suggestions. 

I've retained the old menus so that you have the option of minimizing the ribbon and operating almost exactly as you did with the old curvemeister, only with full screen capability.

[derekfountain]

Maybe as a starting point, CM users could give Mike a quick list of the functions they use all the time from previous versions of CM. Perhaps making a superset of all the functions we use in our workflows would be a better starting point for onscreen buttons than "pretty much everything" which appears to be the strategy so far. :)

Typically, I use these every time I use CM 2.0:

Mode radios: RGB, WGCMYK, Lab, HSB; Compare; Cancel; OK
All the curve graphics - normally in 'All' view, but frequently just having a single curve in the dialog
Curve context menu: reset this curve; Pin grid options
Main image context menu: Set shadow; Set highlight; Set neutral; New Sample Point
Dragging threshold bars from the sides of the curve graphics

From keyboard shortcuts I use these:

Zoom in/out; Ctrl Click (don't know what it's called - sets a point on the curve); Space to enable moving

I use the Photoshop-esque pallete menu to get to the main curves menu, and I use right click to get to context menus.

And that's about it. I never use the wizard. I didn't know what the spanner icon did until I just tried it. I never use the individual channel views (perhaps I'm missing something there, but I have no idea why they might be useful in CM). The sampler icon in the image toolbar just pops up the context menu doesn't it? I never use that. I never use the zoom or hand toolbar facilities, although I suspect they need to be there. I occasionally use the pin icon to pop up the pin pane.

So, back to CM3, and sticking my neck out to make a starting suggestion:

Of the image toolbar, the only thing that isn't duplicated on the Home ribbon is the hand tool for moving the image about, and that could go into the View ribbon area with the zoom tools. Therefore that toolbar could default to not shown and nothing would be lost.

Since the ribbon appears to be the way forward I'd also bite the bullet and call that the control interface. Remove the option to hide it. I've a feeling it can be made a lot smaller and will be completely acceptable once it has been reduced.

BTW, I reserve the right to withdraw these opinions and completely change my mind once I've fiddled a bit more. :)

[derekfountain]

Next suggestion: remove the cancel and OK buttons from the Home area of the ribbon. I didn't know what they did, so I clicked cancel and the whole CM interface disappeared. I was so surprised I said "oh!" out loud and my partner stared at me in her usual quizzical manner!

To me it makes perfect sense to have OK and Cancel in the curves pane. That's where the curves are shown, and that's where I expect to confirm they're as I want them. It makes no sense to put them above the image in the ribbon AFAICS. (The standard in PS, BTW, is to have the Cancel button become the Reset button when you hold Alt - can that be made to happen in CM? It'd remove a button.)

It does make sense to duplicate the image mode buttons in the ribbon Home area. That's something I'd like to be able to switch when working in the image, and when working with the curves. It might be nice to have them appear the same though: either traditional radios as in the curves pane or the icon button selector as is currently in the ribbon.

I'm unsure about the highlight, shadow and netural buttons in the ribbon Home area. I always get to those via the context menu in the image. Probably best leave them in the ribbon until others offer their opinions.

[derekfountain]

Is there a difference between the curves pane Reset button and the ribbon's Home->Curves area's "Reset all curves"? I assumed that the Reset button would remove marks and sample points, whereas the "Reset all curves" would do exactly that and no more. It seems they both do the latter, which means the one on the ribbon could be removed.

Also, it makes little sense to have the "Reset this curve" button on the ribbon. There's not much clue as to which curve is the "current" one. That option is surely best left on the curve graphic's context menu.

One more: when a curve graphic is clicked to make it the current one, it gets a black border around it. When you click another curve graphic, the previously selected one retains its black border making it look like several curves can be selected at the same time. Curves 2 does this too - is it wrong or am I missing the point?

[-default]

They are both the same.  The reason those curves are duplicated is because I have would like to make the curve dialog buttons reconfigurable, so that you can put any combination of commands there that you like.  If the reset all button is removed, it would have a permanent home in the ribbon, which is regarded as a sort of flat baseline where all commands are easy to access.  This concept is still developing, however, and I'm starting to turn in your direction of simplifying the ribbon, so as not to bewilder less experienced people right off the bat.

You are correct that there are problems with curve focus, connecting a particular command to the last curve that was selected.  I am still in the process of getting commands that were designed to work via a right click to operate from the ribbon bar.  I have not solved this problem yet.  This will mean that many of the right click functions will be dropped from the ribbon bar.  OTOH, I find it great to be able to see all the pin options at once, after selecting one or more pins, instead of having to chase each one down.

Anyway, as you can see, things are evolving and changing.  Organizing the commands more effectively is a balancing act.  I hope this will be one of the more fun and rewarding parts, because you can prototype your own menus and command bars (for example), configure the location of the curve and pin windows,  and you'll be seeing many of your ideas immediately reflected in coding changes to the interface.

[ggroess]

Not to be argumentative Derek but which way do you skin a cat?  I personally start at the nose and work my way back...Some people start at the tail.  If you start at the toes, how would you like it if someone gave you a cat without toes?   How would you begin to skin it? 

I see a lot of redundancy in the ribbon as well.. but I think it's more a product of trying to get different ways into the program working at this point.  Maybe a future version removes some of the buttons from the curve window and makes the overall graph bigger.  I'd opt for that over removing the visibility of the controls on the ribbon.  There are a few suprises in there for me and I've used the program since version 1.

I use office 2007 at home and have found it to be very helpful in finding things fast. My kids have learned it in half the time it usually takes.  OK they are kids but you know what...I hardly ever hear.."Dad, how do you do this..??"

It is confusing at first because we are all to some extent creatures of habit and we want our little shortcuts...Hey! I always right click to get to "A" but I hate the menu to get to "B".  But having taught windows to adult users for 10 years has taught me not to dictate the workflow...rather enable the user to find what they want in a way that makes sense to them.

If the ribbon can be hidden with a mouse click and It seems like eye candy to you...you can and should hide it...but there are tons of new users out there that are going to expect the interface to adapt to them a bit...

That is my $1.38 on this...No refunds...
Greg

[-default]

I think the ribbon is here to stay, though with some severe pruning that I'd like some help with in the coming days, after we get past the crash bugs and other major problems. 

Perhaps the tool bars can help as a way to organize what should be in the ribbons.  One thought would be for those who are interested to use the customize feature available in the tool bar to make up their own set of minimal toolbars with curve, sample, and perhaps pin operations.  Then I can distill those into a minimal set of ribbons.