hi all i like the idea of optimizing pd's appearance, although i think it's only details, that should be improved. personally, i'd prefer boxes like that:
http://romanhaefeli.net/ramsch/nu_peedee_stuyl.png because: 1) 1px border looks better. 2px or more looks like drawn with a clumsy pencil 2) a border is still needed, otherwise the boxes seem to disappear and the strong presence of connections with very light boxes looks strange and makes it hard to follow a patch. 3) borders are grey not black in order to emphasize the text. 4) light grey filled boxes in order to better distinguish patch from canvas why i like in the examples from: http://eds.org/~hans/pdsketch/ 1) the inlets and outlets. 2) anti-aliased connections roman On Sat, 2007-11-03 at 14:24 -0400, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote: > I think there is a lot that could be done to the look and feel of Pd > that would make it much more efficient and usable. I think it is > crucial to avoid flashiness, one of Pd's strengths is its lack of > flashiness (no segmented patch cords! ;) But small things can make a > big difference. > > For example, I think the inlet you're about to drop a connection onto > should highlight itself, that would make life a lot easier. You can > just drag to the middle of the box to connect to and see which inlet > is selected instead of having to aim for the tiny inlet. > > Another thing is having the inlets and outlets look slightly > different based on whether they are audio, message, or both. > > Another thing would be to automatically shape a cord when it is used > to feedback to the top of a patch. This is the only time when I > think that segmented patch cords are useful. > > Some of these ideas already exist, maybe in DesireData, maybe in Max/ > MSP, maybe jMax, wherever. I'd like to try to come up with a > coherent idea of the whole look. Another thing is choosing the line > colors, weights, shapes, etc. > > I've been thinking a bit of how to make a patch more readable. > Color, shape, and weight should be used to highlight what is > important in the patch. I think that the shapes of the object box > vs. the message vs. the atom box are a nice feature. I think that > having them drawn in sharp, black lines draws too much attention to > the boxes themselves, rather than the text, which is more important. > > Here are a couple of quick sketches I did, while talking with Roman, > vade, and others: > > http://eds.org/~hans/pdsketch/ > > I'd like to see other sketches along these ideas. > > .hc > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > ---- > > Mistrust authority - promote decentralization. - the hacker ethic > > > > _______________________________________________ > [email protected] mailing list > UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> > http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list ___________________________________________________________ Telefonate ohne weitere Kosten vom PC zum PC: http://messenger.yahoo.de _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list
