First impression is that it takes up too much screen space. We're not all using 26" monitors, you know. On a laptop or tablet it would simply be ridiculous.
At least give us the choice of reverting to the old menu system if necessary.
New GUI
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Richard Watts
- Posts: 32
- Joined: Wed May 11, 2016 4:18 am
New GUI
Personally I really, really, really like it, and think in my case it will help workflow a great deal. Besides, it looks cool(!) - but I work on a dual monitor display set up to which it will be well suited.
Perhaps to help on smaller monitors there could be an option to hide or display the icons with a single click, or what about an option to make the icons smaller to take up less space, if that is an issue? Just my penny's worth.
Perhaps to help on smaller monitors there could be an option to hide or display the icons with a single click, or what about an option to make the icons smaller to take up less space, if that is an issue? Just my penny's worth.
customize
The old tool bars takes up 2 rows above the text area. The new tool bars takes up 3 rows above the text area. To me this seems ok. I like the collective columns idea with groupings. However, the toolbars of today are customizable as to what you display. I suspect the new ones will be also. If you remove enough items from all the columns you might be able to reduce it to 2 rows as well. I am speculating. Of course you could also remove all the toolbars and depend in the menu list which will now open an overlay with icons if I understand correctly.
Dale
Dale
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lynneconnolly
- Posts: 75
- Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2017 7:44 am
Great word processor, but the new GUI concerns me.
This word processor does so many things so right, but IMO the new GUI ruins it, if you cant tuck it away when you're not using it. I would be so sorry to have to give it up. I can't live with that much information all the time, and no way to hide it. An option to keep the old GUI, or an autohide would work for me. I stopped using Scrivener because of its cluttered interface. I don't really want to work on learning a new system right away, so the option to retain the old GUI, at least in the shorter term, would help people get used to it.
Lynne Connolly
I do not like the new GUI at all
I agree with the sentiment of others here, I really dislike this new version's GUI. I already reverted back to v2.06. Version 3.0's GUI is just too bulky and ribbon like, the exact opposite of why I bought Atlantis in the first place. It feels more confusing also and unclear though that could also be due to unfamiliarity of the location of things, but I can definitely say it defeats the purpose of me moving from Word 2010 to Atlantis. If I didn't buy v2, I definitely wouldn't have bought v3 with this interface since I would have just stuck with Word 2010 and LibreOffice.
Some thoughts about the new GUI:
- Icons are like LibreOffice, Goldwave Audio Editor, etc. They aren't very well standardized and not very homogeneous in size and style. Kind of a typical Linux type icon set. Icons not being homogeneous leads to confusion, delay, less efficiency. Your eye wants to rely on things being where you expect them, yes, but also your eye wants to be able to quickly focus on something. Colors, different sizes, etc., confuse and you have to do quick double-takes. Part of that is because it's new, but another part is why UI development is somewhat of an art.
- Icon description popups and the menu fold-out animations are too slow (or not customizable). There would have to be a menu delay option of "0" to make this somewhat usable. Even then, it's not great because the menu height is not customizable either. Even if it were, I doubt anyone would want more icon down-fold area. I bet people would prefer bars, not ribbons.
- New UI is reminiscent of a ribbon UI -- without its benefits but with most of its detriments.
- More than anything, a layout like the new menu (and its delay unfolds) is really not an efficient UI. It will be slower to use than the old menu, even if you're used to it.
- Tab fields are square, non-defined, blue. Looks unfinished. I know Win10 also looks unfinished but then that's not a great example to be following
- With its linuxy icon set, its Win10 like undefined square elements, and its more traditional Windows elements (fun if you run this on Win7 as I am) it looks like a strange jumble. I also don't feel like learning it because I can't trust that this will be the final style or layout of the UI. If it is, I would stick with v2.0.6. So that is a dilemma of sorts.
- When using this with a darker Windows theme (title bars, etc.) it looks a little less harsh to the eye. Otherwise, there is a lot of light color in the new UI "bar" (?) and it just hurts the eyes. The UI bar is just so large, so far down. But the unfolding menu sections (new menu part) are just a bad idea. It's not a good idea.
- Every word processor should have a dark UI theme (including all menus).
This would be much better for me if you made horizontal bars (that you can turn on/off) with buttons/icons, rather than sections with dropdowns. It just won't work this way. I would suggest making bars, but just with updated look. And don't hardcode the icons in the program -- meaning, you can, but make it possible to call upon a different icon set as well, that you can provide (even for a cost) or people can put together/edit themselves. Light and Dark Theme, customizable icons, bars rather than ribbons/sections. Refine look of the tabs a bit (bit of depth/definition), etc.
I hope this doesn't come across as overly critical. I certain very much appreciate the tremendous efforts behind Atlantis and its new UI. If you get blowback here, there is no derision in it from your users, I am sure. They LOVE Atlantis, that's why they're so territorial about it It is seriously my favorite word processor so I only wish the best for it.
- Icons are like LibreOffice, Goldwave Audio Editor, etc. They aren't very well standardized and not very homogeneous in size and style. Kind of a typical Linux type icon set. Icons not being homogeneous leads to confusion, delay, less efficiency. Your eye wants to rely on things being where you expect them, yes, but also your eye wants to be able to quickly focus on something. Colors, different sizes, etc., confuse and you have to do quick double-takes. Part of that is because it's new, but another part is why UI development is somewhat of an art.
- Icon description popups and the menu fold-out animations are too slow (or not customizable). There would have to be a menu delay option of "0" to make this somewhat usable. Even then, it's not great because the menu height is not customizable either. Even if it were, I doubt anyone would want more icon down-fold area. I bet people would prefer bars, not ribbons.
- New UI is reminiscent of a ribbon UI -- without its benefits but with most of its detriments.
- More than anything, a layout like the new menu (and its delay unfolds) is really not an efficient UI. It will be slower to use than the old menu, even if you're used to it.
- Tab fields are square, non-defined, blue. Looks unfinished. I know Win10 also looks unfinished but then that's not a great example to be following
- With its linuxy icon set, its Win10 like undefined square elements, and its more traditional Windows elements (fun if you run this on Win7 as I am) it looks like a strange jumble. I also don't feel like learning it because I can't trust that this will be the final style or layout of the UI. If it is, I would stick with v2.0.6. So that is a dilemma of sorts.
- When using this with a darker Windows theme (title bars, etc.) it looks a little less harsh to the eye. Otherwise, there is a lot of light color in the new UI "bar" (?) and it just hurts the eyes. The UI bar is just so large, so far down. But the unfolding menu sections (new menu part) are just a bad idea. It's not a good idea.
- Every word processor should have a dark UI theme (including all menus).
This would be much better for me if you made horizontal bars (that you can turn on/off) with buttons/icons, rather than sections with dropdowns. It just won't work this way. I would suggest making bars, but just with updated look. And don't hardcode the icons in the program -- meaning, you can, but make it possible to call upon a different icon set as well, that you can provide (even for a cost) or people can put together/edit themselves. Light and Dark Theme, customizable icons, bars rather than ribbons/sections. Refine look of the tabs a bit (bit of depth/definition), etc.
I hope this doesn't come across as overly critical. I certain very much appreciate the tremendous efforts behind Atlantis and its new UI. If you get blowback here, there is no derision in it from your users, I am sure. They LOVE Atlantis, that's why they're so territorial about it
It is seriously my favorite word processor so I only wish the best for it.New User Interface
"First impression is that it takes up too much screen space. We're not all using 26" monitors, you know. On a laptop or tablet it would simply be ridiculous."
"At least please do give us the choice of reverting to the old menu system if necessary."
And also other comments disliking the change.
I have just discovered that version 2 can be installed over the top of version 3 to restore the version 2 interface.
However, I do think there should be a choice of interfaces for those who prefer the traditional and familiar, but still receive updates/upgrades.
Sorry, but the new interface is not for me.
"At least please do give us the choice of reverting to the old menu system if necessary."
And also other comments disliking the change.
I have just discovered that version 2 can be installed over the top of version 3 to restore the version 2 interface.
However, I do think there should be a choice of interfaces for those who prefer the traditional and familiar, but still receive updates/upgrades.
Sorry, but the new interface is not for me.
New GUI
Having just downloaded version 3.0, I too was struck by the MS-like ribbon interface. I avoid it in Word by using the AddIn Tools classic menu add-in. For now, the best alternative I see is to make the ribbon interface invisible. Because the icons duplicate the menus, there’s no advantage to having them. I would like to create my own small, single row, icon bar that has a few informative items such as zoom level, font, and paragraph, and some frequently used commands such as setting headers and footers.
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freecicero
- Posts: 52
- Joined: Tue May 31, 2016 10:08 am
I have to agree with most all of the critical comments, and I hope something can be done to allow customization, because the new changes in the format tool are much needed and welcome and I want to always use the latest version for those improvements. I was hoping at least for a "resize" option to adjust the icon sizes of all at once, because I think I could like with the tile arrangement if the icons weren't so large.
And the new website design looks great too!
And the new website design looks great too!
I would suggest to make the UI like this (SoftMaker Office 'TextMaker'):
Instead of focusing all the energy on a different style UI, focus on updating it with new icons (could use the current icons in v3.0, but resized for use on bars). In addition to that, make one light theme and one dark theme such as seen in the above image.
If you do this, I think virtually everyone will be happy.
Instead of focusing all the energy on a different style UI, focus on updating it with new icons (could use the current icons in v3.0, but resized for use on bars). In addition to that, make one light theme and one dark theme such as seen in the above image.
If you do this, I think virtually everyone will be happy.
Ok, I just downloaded the 3.0 trial. Yie! super huge toolbar! Coming from 1.6.6.1.
The icons are ginormous on my 15" laptop. I see the interface seems to work with UHD...that is great.
Unusable the way it is now though.
If there was a way to shrink the size of the icons...that would make 3 rows more workable. And/Or to configure the toolbar. I could get everything I need in 2 rows probably if the icons were smaller. There is a big space on the right side of the toolbars. Unused space.
Ok..I will try 2.x.
EDIT: Is 2.x downloadable as a trial anywhere? Or was that only for registered users? Meaning I need to pay the $15 upgrade.
The icons are ginormous on my 15" laptop. I see the interface seems to work with UHD...that is great.
Unusable the way it is now though.
If there was a way to shrink the size of the icons...that would make 3 rows more workable. And/Or to configure the toolbar. I could get everything I need in 2 rows probably if the icons were smaller. There is a big space on the right side of the toolbars. Unused space.
Ok..I will try 2.x.
EDIT: Is 2.x downloadable as a trial anywhere? Or was that only for registered users? Meaning I need to pay the $15 upgrade.
Version 2.0.6 can be downloaded here:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en ... rsions.htm
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en ... rsions.htm
Just installed 2.0.6, my initial 30-second glance says it supports UHD resolution better - my impression from an earlier forum message was that this aspect had not changed, but it has! I'll be purchasing the upgrade today or tomorrow! Thanks.
I'll look forward to 3.0.x having an improved toolbar!
EDIT: Upgraded!
I'll look forward to 3.0.x having an improved toolbar!
EDIT: Upgraded!