topic Re: AC 20 Interface in Modeling

AC 20 Interface

Bling Keeta — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 02:04:38 GMT

I don't know if anyone else shares my view of the new interface. I find it really too subtle, almost GREY instead of sharp black icon lines. There's no borders between different palettes or tool sets. A thin red line would help. For a while I thought my eyesight has gone bad staring at a sea of icons. I would much prefer the look of SketchUp interface.

Re: AC 20 Interface

Stress Co_ — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 05:08:15 GMT

Comparing my AC19 toolbar to AC20... a bit of color sure makes it easier/faster
to find icons

Re: AC 20 Interface

Barry Kelly — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 05:29:24 GMT

To me the icons seem we have gone back to an old 2D CAD package or maybe an early version of Archicad.
I miss the colour too.

Everything old is new again! - just move the decimal point one place to the right.

Barry.

Re: AC 20 Interface

Stress Co_ — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 05:42:05 GMT

Barry wrote:
Everything old is new again!

I wonder when we'll start to see 80" 4K HDR BLACK & WHITE TVs.

Re: AC 20 Interface

Piotr Dobrowolski — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 07:20:15 GMT

Come on...remember the complaints when the BW icons changed to color ones?...I do not remember what version it was...and maybe it was in the plain old mailig-list AC-talk

Best Regards,
Piotr

Re: AC 20 Interface

David Maudlin — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 11:33:57 GMT

Ben:

Give it some time. It took me one or two weeks to adjust (during Beta test), and now AC19 looks very dated. I find the new interface more tranquil.

David

Re: AC 20 Interface

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 14:02:33 GMT

So far I like the Interface, and it match with my brand colors or color (blue with white, greys, white). Even though I'm sometimes I can't find right away the icon in the interface, but is just a matter of getting use to it. And agree with David, It looks to me more calm down and relaxing.

At the end, it also has a matter of personal taste if you like it or not, but something we all probably agree is that, is now more functional, the fact that we have the favorites next to the tool icon right there, the new quick option palette, dockable quick layer palette are great function and save space in the screen.

Re: AC 20 Interface

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 14:20:07 GMT

The only thing I was hoping to see was, a third option for the pet palette to appear in preferred position, apart from jump to preferred position.

Re: AC 20 Interface

Stress Co_ — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 17:12:20 GMT

It's all good.
.... getting used to it (and the jump to El Capitan).

Here is a screen grab from the announcement presentation.
Looks like quite a bit of thought went into the icon designs.
These are for the wall tool (personally, I like bottom row, 3rd from the left ).

Re: AC 20 Interface

Jeff Kogut — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 19:04:39 GMT

So far the only thing that keeps eluding me is the Layer on/off where the on is light grey open eye and the off is a darker closed eye. Darkness seems backward.

Re: AC 20 Interface

Bricklyne Clarence — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 23:40:07 GMT

I don't know when (or why...or how) colour became such a bad thing.

We use colour (especially in THIS profession) to memory associate and as a big mnemonic tool, and you don't really realize how much you rely on it until it's taken away.
Once again it just seems like everything is being driven and designed by engineers (coders and developers) rather than by people who are actually working in this profession.

The lack of depth (shadows or strong outline) between tabs, palettes, toolbars, etc...... also makes the new interface a bit of a pain to use (okay, a huge one).

I just wish they had kept the option of using a legacy interface (for example, they still easily could have done all the other changes, like then new favourites even with the old interface). I hate having to adjust to something that's not intuitive on it's face and regardless of whether one chooses to upgrade to this version or not, it seems like this is what they are settled on using, going forward, and it's just a shame.

Re: AC 20 Interface

Anonymous — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 17:03:08 GMT

David wrote:
Ben:

Give it some time. It took me one or two weeks to adjust (during Beta test), and now AC19 looks very dated. I find the new interface more tranquil.

David

I've only used AC20 a little bit, but the first thing I noticed was how much calmer and less cluttered everything seemed. Much more relaxing to use!

In some ways I wish I could assign colors to different icons, or especially different colored layers in the layers settings. That said, it is nice to look away from the drawing (which has lots of colors) and see all the palettes and toolbars in black and white as it seems to make visual navigation of the screen less complex and tiring. Working on a retina iMac the icons are super sharp and clear even thought they are quite small. This is a MAJOR improvement for me.

As I go back and forth between AC 18, 19 and 20. I am finding that I much prefer the simplicity and clarity of 20,

Re: AC 20 Interface

Stress Co_ — Sun, 03 Jul 2016 21:38:33 GMT

Bricklyne wrote:
We use colour (especially in THIS profession) to memory associate and as a big mnemonic tool.....

Speaking of color (or colour) and UI.
I WISH we could color (or colour) code the project map,
view map, layout book and publisher sets.
(Like apple had in finder c. OS 10.8 )

Re: AC 20 Interface

Robby — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 00:56:39 GMT

I'm going to guess the Statue of Steve Jobs directed Graphisoft to follow the Apple Interface.....not ketchup

Re: AC 20 Interface

Laszlo Nagy — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 16:23:32 GMT

This clean, flat look is becoming the new norm in multiple systems like macOS, Windows 10, and also in iOS, if I am not mistaken.

Re: AC 20 Interface

Erich — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 00:26:05 GMT

Stress wrote:
Bricklyne wrote:
We use colour (especially in THIS profession) to memory associate and as a big mnemonic tool.....
Speaking of color (or colour) and UI.
I WISH we could color (or colour) code the project map,
view map, layout book and publisher sets.
(Like apple had in finder c. OS 10.8 )

I really wish we could like posts!

Re: AC 20 Interface

Bricklyne Clarence — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 09:59:40 GMT

laszlonagy wrote:
This clean, flat look is becoming the new norm in multiple systems like macOS, Windows 10, and also in iOS, if I am not mistaken.

Just because other fields and disciplines are adopting this "norm" doesn't automatically mean that it's the right way for this profession to follow as well.

Those are operating system interfaces and GUI's that you've pointed out.
They're expressly designed to cater to a wide variety of people with different tastes, needs, sensibilities and conditioning.
As such it would make sense to adopt as neutral and flat a look as possible, and which simplifies all functions and features as much as possible, and is reductionist in every sense.

ArchiCAD is a program that's (ostensibly) designed and developed to cater to a very particular and specific set of users with a specific way of working and a conditioning and training that adapts them to working that way.

Why anyone would then imagine that an architect or designer would be okay, .....or would want to use the same interface as an engineer for example,.... or a geologist, or a climatologist (by way of example).........just because others are doing it that way, is frankly speaking beyond me.

We're all trained to view, analyse and perceive the world in different ways from all those other professions so it would make sense that we also work differently from them, and that we also manipulate and assess graphical information, specifically, differently from them too.

This is essentially the same kind of reasoning that saw Revit end up with an interface that looks like it was pulled out of the backside of the unholy love-child of an engineering program and an even more byzantine and inscrutable engineering program. (Which,.....oddly enough, is exactly how Revit came about in the first place).
Once you convince yourself into believing that if everyone else is okay with mining through countless dialog boxes and drop-down menus by way of defining your user interface and that it should then be okay for Revit users - you end up with Revit.

Which speaks volumes as to why it's a horrible program for design (from a user-interface point of view), and which in turn boggles the mind as to why the developers of ArchiCAD who pioneered this field would now think it prudent to just "go with the crowd" and do what everyone else is doing.

I think the simplest and most straightforward assessment (which speaks volumes as to it's effectiveness) should be in the fact that the most common remark and review of it (- even from people speaking favorably of it) is ,....."I need to get used to it"....
...or... "Once I got used to it...."

Re: AC 20 Interface

David Maudlin — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 13:01:27 GMT

Robby wrote:
I'm going to guess the Statue of Steve Jobs directed Graphisoft to follow the Apple Interface.....not ketchup

I know that is a result of autocorrect, but given all the red in the icons, seems spot on.

David

Re: AC 20 Interface

Marky — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 15:31:01 GMT

Just replacing boring Arial nad Tahoma for Segoe UI as a Dialog font made all now more pleasant and readable, at least for me.

Re: AC 20 Interface

shtarkel — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:35:44 GMT

Minimalism is the new (old) trend in design of GUI now. So if ARCHICAD wants to stay with the flow the new interface is the right step.
Also there are people that don't like changes at all because can't adapt so quickly as others.
In half an year or so we will see if there is so big complain about the UI, but I doubt it.
The more important thing for me is if there is a lack of bugs!