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Adobe seeking feedback about panels, palettes, workspaces, and other UI elements

Jun 02, 2011 Jun 02, 2011

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Several folks within Adobe are discussing the user interfaces for our various applications, and we'd like your feedback.

Do you use After Effects, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Lightroom? Other Adobe applications?

If so, please post your comments on this forum thread comparing your experiences with the user interfaces of these applications.

Regarding the panels, palettes, workspaces, and overall UI paradigms in these applications: What do you like? What do you hate? Do you care that the applications are different in this regard? What differences do you even notice?

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replies 107 Replies 107
Explorer ,
Jun 02, 2011 Jun 02, 2011

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I use Lightroom and Photoshop most frequently. The last several releases of Photoshop CS# have made great UI improvements over older versions, so I don't have much to contribute there. And I am mostly happy with the Lightroom interface, except for one major complaint.

I am a plugin developer for Lightroom's Web module (http://theturninggate.net) and it frustrates me to no end that I am forced to cram all of my controls into the pre-existing panels: Site Info, Color Palette, Appearance and Output Settings, and that I can only house metadata options in the Image Info pane.

In future versions of Lightroom, I would love to be able to create or modify collapsable control panes in the Web module, allowing me to divy up my controls into a more logical layout. I would also love to be able to place metadata controls anywhere in those control panes, so that I can -- for example -- control the metadata source for a page element alongside the styling/appearance controls for that element. As it is, it's very difficult to keep things together, and extremely frustrating attempting to organize controls in a way that makes intuitive sense. I just feel like I'm overstuffing a suitcase, then having to ask my mother, father, brother, girlfriend and the neighbor's family to sit on the thing while I try to zip it up ...

I am very glad to see you seeking feedback in matters of UI. Thanks so much for listening!

Cheers,

Matt

--

Matthew Campagna
The Turning Gate | http://theturninggate.net
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Web Engines, Tutorials & Resources

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Explorer ,
Jun 02, 2011 Jun 02, 2011

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Frankly I too am quite pleased overall w/the UI.

However I ask that you please add the option to use standard window title bars and menus to Flash Pro CSx…  I use it often making swc’s for flex projects… And I must tell you as a developer and not a designer, the UI is frustrating from a programmer’s point of view.

Maybe the Flash functionality could be wrapped up into the Flash Builder eclipse interface, allowing developers/designers to choose which UI they prefer based on the context of the task and their personal preferences. I for one have never been a fan of skinned applications in general, but I use Adobe apps because they are of course the best bar none, despite the presence of the skins.  (I do realize that I'm in the minority of people by admitting that I prefer non-skinned apps).

Also, in my opinion the worst feature in the flash builder interface is the single row of editor tabs, could a multi-row tab bar be developed, similar to the zend studio 5.5 bar (but of course with an eclipse-ish/adobe flavor).

I work with large projects, and I can't think of a single day in the last 3 years that I have not had at least 10 or 15 tabs open, often more.  The single row of tabs is horrible restrictive and in my opinion very frustating.  I for one have a wide screen monitor, rotated to page view, and another widescreen monitor in landscape for the project explorer, debug monitor, search tree, browser, etc...

Many developers work this way, but eclipse has always been lacking good support for large numbers of open documents.  It is one of my longest running wish-list items that eclipse/Flash builder could implement a multi-row editor tab list.

Also in dual monitor setups, with Flash Builder, workspace panes that are dragged onto the other monitor jump back onto the monitor that has the main application for seemingly unexplicable reasons.  (not frequently but just often enough to be annoying, I suppose it may be an eclipse bug).

Overall, though, I can't complain and Three Cheers to you guys at Adobe for opening the floor to us and listening to our feedback.  My hat goes off to all the awesome engineers over there and I hope that my feedback can help in some way!

Sincerely,

David Coleman

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Contributor ,
Jun 02, 2011 Jun 02, 2011

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I work mostly with video editing and compositing - After Effects, Premiere Pro, Photoshop. As many others I have a multi-monitor setup to maximize editing space. One of the nice things you could do is some way of auto populating all (or 2 out of 3) monitors with the application interface, if needed. It would be nice to see the workspace panels reflow without sticking with the monitor boundary splitting a panel or two in half.

Hope my clumsy write up makes sense.

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Engaged ,
Jun 02, 2011 Jun 02, 2011

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How about a universal interface for timeline navigation? AE and PPro shortcuts for getting to the start/end of the timeline, forward/backwards one frame, etc. have little in common.

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New Here ,
Jun 02, 2011 Jun 02, 2011

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Hi,

I am currently an assistant editor and have worked heavily in the Television commercial industry the past year. I work mostly as an AVID user however do have a respect for Premiere and what it could eventually be. Adobe seems to have made a huge leap in workflow between the adobe applcations and also the optimisation of playback speed and rendering. However, what I think it is lacking is a professional feeling cutting environment focused heavily on speed of navigating the interface and cutting tools, and also an assistant editor friendly application (ie Premiere currently has terrible subclipping features).

Overall I do like the of the interface/gui, however I believe that there are some wasted screen real-estate and some missing features which would make it a more pleasant experience to cut with.

Here is a few changes I have thought about;  (Most of these are interface/gui concerns but I may have got carried a little off topic in places.)

  1. The controls for I/O cards (ie Blackmagic) are currently found in the sequence settings, this would be much easier if you could access it as a program wide setting so you can select and forget, As you can with FCP and even more so with AVID - the only reason you should ever have to even think about this is when you are doing a project that is not your norm.
  2. The ability to create a sequence with default project settings without a settings panel appear. In both FCP and AVID you press the button to create a sequence, and it creates a sequence for you. Every time you have a dialogue box it slows an editor down.
  3. A graphical keyboard layout editor - Editors are visual people - They know what there layout looks like in other applications.
  4. The ability to assign a button only while holding key down, not just click on click off. ( ie. to be able to set  hold the option/alt key to enable snapping then let go and it is disabled)
  5. More control over the layout of the project/bins panel.
    • Many editors are very particular about the size of there thumbnails (when in icon view) and also how many there are in each row and how they are sorted in this layout.
    • The ability to change timecode (and reel name) directly while in the list view without having to go into timecode settings window. Important for assistant editors.
    • The ability to disable the clip information and thumbnail. This would allow for more room in this window for people with lower resolution monitors, or when screen real-estate is important.
  6. Customisation of the source/program monitors.
    • The ability for the user to remove any buttons taking up space that are not regularly used. (for example i would use the JKL buttons to play/stop the video. I have no need to have these buttons below the source/program monitors which I will never use) This will give more space for the sequence  or allow for larger playback views..
    • The quick way to change which timecode your viewing in the program monitor. (for example source timecode, v1 timecode, v2 timecode) etc
  7. When you pull a sequence into the source monitor, it would be nice to have the ability to overwrite or insert the source clips instead of a nested sequence. Maybe this could be an option to change the default behavior depending on the user.
  8. Sequence/Timeline;
    • Change 'Video 1' and 'Audio 1' to 'V1' and 'A1' - Most editors are smart enough to know what this means - and gives you more screen realestate.
    • Give us the option to choose if the audio and video have separate scroll bars or for them to be combined. Coming from avid you tend to find it more confusing.
    • The timeline workspace in and out points take up way to much space, this could be easier if you just used in and out point to determine work area.
  9. The ability to 'render selected' and 'render in to out points'.
  10. Media Management - The ability to choose between working from source clips like FCP and premiere do now, but also to transcode on import and save in a folder containing all media for project. (this goes for audio and stills as well as video) AVID based offline editors this are used to this workflow  and do not want to have to think about where souce clips are located. There needs to be an option to copy into a single media directory. Though Premiere does a great job working with a variety of formats many professional offline editors (and particularly their assistants) wish for everything to be a single file/codec type and to be all contained in a single place. 

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New Here ,
Jun 02, 2011 Jun 02, 2011

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I always wished Photoshop brushes somehow showed the feathering -- maybe radial lines? Next, ALL CS apps need the same shortcuts, icons and other interface signatures. Finally, Acrobat needs to get with the program and adopt some of the CS interface. It reminds me of a (shudder) Microsoft product -- an ugly, disorganized mess (no wonder hardly anyone knows how to use it).

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New Here ,
Jun 02, 2011 Jun 02, 2011

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After Effects: A configurable thumbnail view which can give you an overview of scenes/frames/comps. Primary use would be for viewing consistancy of graded shots and VFX shots.

Similar to this example of DV Rebels Tools - but with more intigration with AEs interface and less manual work assigning markers etc.

http://i56.tinypic.com/6rpkp2.jpg

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LEGEND ,
Jun 02, 2011 Jun 02, 2011

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What differences do you even notice?

Well, the various ways of collapsing panels into mini bars or icons obviously would be extremely useful for character/ text panels and others that you may use only once a day. Finally that would also allow customized slender UI palettes using Flash panels so all that UI noise that is thrown in the comp and layer viewers can exist separately and where the user really wants it...

Mylenium

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Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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The UI have been greatly improved since CS3. I'm using AE, used to work on a dual screen setup, but now, more and more on 13" laptops and single huge screen destop setup. Pixel real estate is very high. I'd love to see the Photopsho ptreatment to AE, where you can reduce a panel ton a simple icon.

I'd also love to remove the panel header when I want. For exemple I always put the preview panel under the comp viewer so I just have the play/pause/preview button just under my viewer. But I loose a lot of real estate because of the "Preview" header. I'd love to keep the header when having tabs inside the panel, but not when I don't or when the panel can't have tabs.

There is also a bug when too much elements are diplayed in a panel. For exemple add 1000 layers in a comp in AE and twirl down for all of them the transformation properties. Now scroll down the panel and at some point it will become completly black.

Hope that helps,

Seb

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New Here ,
Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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I think Adobe must clean all the UI, less un useful option out, but with option to added or customize your own tools sets. I think there is a very inconsistencies in the suite, like Photoshop does not have the same UI than AE than Illustrator for example.

But look to the UI in illustrator is insane bad organized, it looks very old. In general for me the feeling is that each program is done by a different group of people that don’t communicate between the groups.

Illustrator have a lot of obscure tools like invert (flip) in a menu! Thats not the way.

Adobe for me needs urgently a rearrange of all the suite of tools,to be consistent with the same shortcuts, the same kind of names for the same options, and so on.

Thanks,
Gabriel

http://microbians.com

http://cocoe.com

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New Here ,
Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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… each program is done by a different group of people that don’t communicate between the groups… rearrange of all the suite of tools, to be consistent with the same shortcuts, the same kind of names for the same options

Agree.

… Illustrator have a lot of obscure tools like invert (flip) in a menu! Thats not the way.

Disagree.

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LEGEND ,
Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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But look to the UI in illustrator is insane bad organized, it looks very old.

It is old and badly organized.... But then again, the same is true for Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop - unless you really get into them, their UIs are intimidating and confusing. It matters a lot what you do and how often you use an app...

In general for me the feeling is that each program is done by a different group of people that don’t communicate between the groups.

They certainly do, but probably not to the extent that would truly foster integration. Everybody just does the bare minimum due to limited resources...

Mylenium

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Participant ,
Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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It would be great if the UI elements available for scripting would be more similar to the elements used in the application itself.


For entering numbers, for example, I can only use text boxes in the scripting UI, whereas inside AE you have the more compact UI elements that just show the numbers and that you can click and drag to in/decrease or click on to replace.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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I'd love to see Photoshop's History palette replicated in After Effects.

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New Here ,
Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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I'd love to see Photoshop's History palette replicated in After Effects.

And Illustrator.

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New Here ,
Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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How about being able to save History palette entries as Actions?

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Community Expert ,
Jun 04, 2011 Jun 04, 2011

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tomprager wrote:

How about being able to save History palette entries as Actions?

Wow, you just reminded me.  I was thinking this just days ago - After Effects needs an Action Palette like PS.  This would streamline repetitive tasks enormously, without needing to resort to scripting.

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Contributor ,
Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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I use Story, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition and Encore all the time.

Consistency troughout all the Adobe products (short cuts and maybe UI structure as much as possible) would be really great cause it would speed up the workflow and allow new users to increase their learning curve (I started out with AE and have still problems finding features in Photoshop or Illustrator)


A kind of group option (like the one in Photoshop) to organize many layers in AE would really be awesome. Of course right now we can precompose all these layers, but it's still a workaround and it is not always desirable to change compositions all the time.

A visual representation of a keyboard when changing/or searching for a specific short cut would also be a blessing (especially for Premiere Pro)

Also an improved 2monitor workspace with application fullscreen mode, like mocca has it, would be great. There is also a workaround right now but its one more workaround;-)

The option to easily share workspaces with co-workers..

A slider to choose how dark photoshop appears on screen like the one used in PP and AE.

I also use Blender for some simple 3D and Compositing work. There you can customize everything UI related color. Even tough I don't think it is good to change each and every buttons appearance I really like the ability to customize the Ui in the way I prefer to work with

For PP and AE i hope you will implement a true fullscreen view, without all the controll-items at the bottom of the screen. It would help to estimate cuts and timings even better without the need to use an external monitor (I think most of us don't have one available)

It would be nice to change higlighted values with the mouse wheel. much like in Nuke

How about adding something like the Media-Browser from PP or the Mini-Bridge from Photoshop into After Effects (maybe a hybrid of both) Together with an improved Imagesequenz Importer 😉

You should add a visual representation of all the nested sequenzes and their relationship in pp. Much like the flowgraph or the miniflowgraph in ae

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People's Champ ,
Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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After Effects:

The ability to expand the timeline view to include keyframes that are
out of range of the composition start and end frames.

A "previous" and "next" button in the keyframe Edit Value pop-up for toggling

through keyframes without exiting the Edit Value dialog box.

A timeline counter that actually counts time during RAM preview and playback.

The ability to specify an unlocked panel to always be on top of other unlocked panels.

The ability to force save a project if only an interface change has been made that
will be recalled when the project is re-loaded (i.e. expanding/collapsing layers,
currently displayed comp, etc.)
In fact, the Ctrl+S shortcut should always be operable (as in Pr).

Application Windows keyboard shortcuts that need
a three-stroke cycle to return to original position:

Ctrl+\ (backslash)
Resize application window or floating window to fit screen.
(Press again to resize window so that contents fill the screen.)
NEEDS: (Press again to return window to it's original position.)

Ctrl+Alt+\ (backslash)
Move application window or floating window to main monitor;
resize window to fit screen. (Press again to resize window
so that contents fill the screen.)
NEEDS: (Press again to return window to it's original position.)

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New Here ,
Jun 03, 2011 Jun 03, 2011

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I was just thinking yesterday about how great it would be in AE to be able to have multiple project windows or the ability to open and move folder contents into separate spaces in the UI. Similar to what the NLEs do. Its frustrating in a long list of assets to always have to scroll

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LEGEND ,
Jun 04, 2011 Jun 04, 2011

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I was just thinking yesterday about how great it would be in AE to be able to have multiple project windows or the ability to open and move folder contents into separate spaces in the UI. Similar to what the NLEs do. Its frustrating in a long list of assets to always have to scroll

Na, I don't think so. Substituting lists for bins is just replacing one UI metaphor with another and even then, essentially you can already do that by creating folders in the hierarchy, AE just doesn't treat them separately. The real problem I see is that AE (and ultimately all Adobe video apps) need to get smarter and more flexible in managing and tracking assets on a more general level. Many inconveniences and slowdowns are related to the programs being locked into specific project folder structures and in turn the apps reacting über-sensitive to changes or just the same not properly responding to such changes and keeping outdated files and assets around, causing confusion with different versions... That particular one is realyl much deeper than just the UI IMO.

Mylenium

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New Here ,
Jun 06, 2011 Jun 06, 2011

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Substituting lists for bins is just replacing one UI metaphor with another

That's not what I was asking for. Maybe I wasn't clear enough: I would like to have the ability to have multiple project windows open at once (similar to the ability to have multiple timeline windows open at once).

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LEGEND ,
Jun 06, 2011 Jun 06, 2011

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Mmh yeah, but what would be the advantage over importing projects into other projects beyond perhaps some minor copy&paste stuff? Odd is this may sound, but I think a multi-document environment is not necessarily something that would streamline your workflow here, at least not given AE's current inabilty to simply reference external project files and have those referenced changes ripple through all other projects that use this external file. If we had this feature, then we are talking, but not before. Also with any such stuff there is always the danger that people end up busting up their own stuff by copy&pasting/ drag&dropping to the wrong files... To me, it's simply not a clean workflow as too many things in AE are dependent on specific contexts as opposed to being encapsulated and able to exist as independent entities. Of particular note here would be effects that reference other layers or expressions which are even tricky to deal with when working with just a single project... If you will, IMO AE's internal referencing system is not robust enough to deal with project structure changes when specific things are already in place and that where it fails for me...

Mylenium

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Explorer ,
Jun 07, 2011 Jun 07, 2011

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Referencing would be a major step up, Mylenium.  I can't help but miss some of the features I have in 3D apps like x-refs from outside files and referencing/instancing a single modifier or effect across multiple layers.

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