New user interface design woes

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Moderators: TrackerSupp-Daniel, Tracker Support, Paul - Tracker Supp, Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team, Chris - Tracker Supp, Sean - Tracker, Ivan - Tracker Software, Tracker Supp-Stefan

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David.P
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New user interface design woes

Post by David.P »

Hello Forum, dear Tracker Team,

I still owe to the Forum the announced screenshots about a comparison of the new user interface with the classic UI.
Arnold wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 7:14 pm I do like the old scroll bar better, no doubt. Is that because I am 70 then? [...]
Paul - Tracker Supp wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:34 pm It may be our age [...]
While I'm a bit younger, I also loved the previous scrollbar very much — as well as the overall unobtrusive interface with just the right amount of slight textures, borders and shadows, in all places where they're useful and pleasing to the eye.

PDF-XChange Editor is not only clearly the best PDF software in the world, but in my view also one of the best designed, fastest and most effectively coded software programs anywhere — hats off to your world-class developer team. Until recently, PDF-XChange Editor also had one of the most beautiful and most efficient user interfaces ever, in my opinion — a design that was thus totally consistent with the software quality.

Unfortunately, with the latest design update, some user interface features have been lost, especially many of the beautiful textures, some of the visually very helpful 3D, shadow and inset effects that visualize, for example, the pressed state of buttons or the Z-order of certain window elements, and very regrettably, also the very effective and catchy scroll bars.

Regrettably, the new UI design also has the effect that the visual appearance of PDF-XChange Editor no longer matches its superior quality and leading market position as perfectly as the previous UI did —⁠ see the attached PDF comparison document.

By the way, we professional users not only love the functionality of our favorite software, but we also love to see some eye candy applied to the razor-sharp high-end tools that we use on a daily basis.

Image
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=37479&hilit=tools#p155026

Further, the argument that a subtly realistic looking scroll bar distracts from the content of the document and therefore should be decomposed and made as rudimentary as possible cannot hold.
Image
The human eye inherently has the characteristic of barely perceiving anything outside the central focus anyway. However, this certainly does not mean that everything outside the central focus of the eye should be faded out or made as rudimentary as possible.

After all, as soon as the eye's focus shifts from a PDF's content to an element of the user interface, this element of course should be as meaningful, intuitively understood and as easy to use as possible —⁠ and all this not only after you've moved the mouse over it.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with many of the elements of the new UI, especially and including the new scrollbars. Not only is their position barely visible out of the corner of the eye (in order to provide information about where you currently are in the document). The new scrollbars are also significantly more difficult to hit with the mouse — although admittedly being just as wide as the classic scrollbars, technically. However, this is something you don't keep in mind all the time, instead you keep trying to hit that narrow scrollbar strip time and again :(
Image

Long story short, below and attached is my long-announced screenshot comparison. For easier switching between new and classic user interface, I have assembled all screenshots into a PDF with two pages.

In order not to scare anyone when opening the PDF, the screenshot below shows what the attached PDF looks like. Because of the relatively large number of elements and dialogs shown, the pages are rather packed.

For best results when comparing the UI parts of interest, it is recommended to open the PDF (in full screen mode), to point with the mouse to a respective area of interest, and then to zoom in as much as desired by using CTRL+mouse wheel.

It is then possible to switch between the current and the classic user interface in the PDF by simply clicking on any of the text boxes (callouts).

Image
PDF-XChange Editor User Interface Comparison.pdf
(1.81 MiB) Downloaded 44 times

Lastly, regarding my background as a professional user of PDF-XChange Editor for over a decade, I may mention, and it is a great honor having suggested, inter alia, the following current features of PDF-XChange Editor:

  • David.P wrote: Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:35 pm Auto-snap selection to words
    Image
  • David.P wrote: Wed Sep 24, 2008 10:08 am Define link target directly in the document
    Image
  • David.P wrote: Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:49 am Create or change text marker color with one keystroke
    Image
  • David.P wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2013 4:33 pm Multi-color highlighting of search results
    Image
  • David.P wrote: Sun Aug 10, 2014 1:34 pm Rename open PDF files
    Image
  • David.P wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2015 11:09 am Drag & drop files or pages between bookmarks
    Image
  • David.P wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 2:51 pm Select all pages that are link (or bookmark) targets
    Image
I believe that the list does include some of PDF-XChange Editor's unique killer features, and that this in turn lends some weight to my vote — for the classic user interface (i.e. for an at least partial rehabilitation of the same).

Thanks very much,
Kind regards,
David.P
--
PDF-XChange Editor User Interface Comparison.pdf
(1.81 MiB) Downloaded 44 times
David.P
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: New user interface design woes

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello, David.P

Thank you for the post and extensive details, I have notified Vasyl of this directly, he is a bit busy at the moment, but he will come review this when he can find some time.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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Our Web site domain and email address has changed as of 26/10/2023.
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David.P
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Re: New user interface design woes

Post by David.P »

Thank you Daniel, for your action in this matter.

There is of course nothing to hurry about here.

Also, I hope it is understood that nobody should be offended in any way with the above, all the more so as the user interface is certainly not static but an ongoing project.

My only motivation is and always has been to contribute a little in keeping PDF-XChange Editor among the best software in the world, both inside (features + performance) and out (with a smashingly awesome user interface).

Keep up the great work
Kind regards
David
David.P
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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New user interface design woes

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

:)
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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Our Web site domain and email address has changed as of 26/10/2023.
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Support@pdf-xchange.com
zarkogajic
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Re: New user interface design woes

Post by zarkogajic »

Hi Support (and sorry David.P for hijacking your topic, I did not want to open a new topic related to new UI)

image.png

Look at panes with "check mark" - which pane is active and which ones are not not visible?

At first I thought all are visible as the check color difference between, for example, "Comments" and "Signatures", is such I cannot see the difference.

p.s.
Could be my eyes, but still. In previous UI version the difference was much more clear.


-žarko
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David.P
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Re: New user interface design woes

Post by David.P »

Thanks Žarko,

I think that your request fits quite well into the current topic.

Best regards
David.P
David.P
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: New user interface design woes

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello,

Zarko, Thank you for bringing this up, I hadn't even noticed that we did that in the past (or if I did, ive long since forgotten), but that explains the sense of "something is missing here" I've been feeling when I look at this menu. Ill be sure to show this to Vasyl so that it can be touched up.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Our Web site domain and email address has changed as of 26/10/2023.
https://www.pdf-xchange.com
Support@pdf-xchange.com
zarkogajic
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Re: New user interface design woes

Post by zarkogajic »

Hi Daniel,

While I know you know, here's how it looked before:

image.png

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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: New user interface design woes

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Thanks Zarko,

It was indeed quite more distinct in the past. As Daniel said - this is now with our UI Devs for a review!

Ticket number for reference:
RT#5869: active pane checkmark is hard to differentiate from inactive pane checkmark

Kind regards,
Stefan
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