I keep forgetting that RayW is the undisputed champion in the world of GUI's and that I should just listen to him instead of my loyal customers.  I could always use the many examples of excellent GUI's he has designed as proof (you know, the examples he has posted here on "how to do it right"), but I guess I'm just too stubborn or I choose to ignore those.  After all, he was able to find one help tool tip that needed updating, so that's for sure proof that "The whole interface needs a redesign in concept". 


WOW.  Didn't expect that one to go over your head.  Another knee jerk reaction like your reaction to Qimage not working your way!


OK.  So see... like Qimage.  If you take a moment to think about what is going on, you can get it! 

Ray, as you know, I do listen as I implemented most of the feature suggestions you made WRT canvas edges.  Maybe you think you "have my ear" or that somehow entitles you to a license to drive the bus here, but that's not the case.  There was no prior precedent for software that offers automated mirror edges like other (more established) Qimage features, so I was willing to go out on a limb with those features.  No problem.  But getting on a bus, a very well maintained and operating bus, and taking a seat among a bus full of other happy travelers and yelling from your seat "YOUR BUS NEEDS A TOTAL REDESIGN" isn't going to get you anything but frowns, nor will walking up to the driver and proclaiming you can drive better and "move over and let me drive".  "HEY, COULD YOU PLEASE TRY TO AVOID THOSE POTHOLES" is a valid complaint.  "THIS SEAT HAS A RIP IN IT" is a valid complaint.  Let's stick to those, because those can be addressed.  The others cannot.  If all you can find is an outdated tool tip, fine, I'll take those.  At least it's something!

Mike

I think you are missing my point entirely, so I'll do it this time without all the long-windedness.  Even if you do love the PhotoShop (type) interface, it is totally inappropriate for batch processing and printing.  It was not designed for that task, so the "File", "Open" mentality doesn't work.  The very reason that PhotoShop can't do multi-image anything, is the reason the Qimage UI doesn't look like PhotoShop.  In general, a UI that was designed to deal efficiently with multiple objects isn't going to look like one that was designed to work with single objects at a time.  As I said, I'm all up for constructive suggestions or corrections, but the occasional "UI whining" that we get sometimes where an "expert" or two start to try to tailor things to their own preconceived notions of a "good interface" is a bit like hopping onto a motorcycle for the first time and then hopping off after 30 seconds in frustration, saying "I couldn't find the gas pedal".

I think there are many who are very happy to hear me say I have no intention of making Qimage work or look like a PhotoShop wanna-be like gimp.  Those people are generally less vocal because they don't consider themselves "experts"... but they realize how to use a screwdriver when they need one even though it doesn't look like a wrench.

Mike

I do enjoy and appreciate the discussion BTW.  Positive things (and changes) do come from them.  As I said, neither I nor the UI are perfect.  The thing that is important to me is for people to understand the Qimage "mission", where it's been, and where it's going.  I guess I'm just long winded explaining that. 

Mike

The point of my entire post is that I don't make changes to the interface on a whim.  I used to do that in the early days of Qimage, maybe ten years ago, and it was in a constant state of unneeded flux.  One person liked buttons.  Another liked drop downs.  Yet another liked menu selections.  A few liked everything right out on the interface where they could press a button.  A few others liked it all "hidden" just to say the interface looked "clean".  One person liked this or that selection remembered after an operation, others didn't.  Some people wanted the queue automatically cleared after printing for example, others not.  We've been through those times and have all learned from them and the Qimage UI is quite well refined for the job as a result!  The Qimage UI is purpose driven, standards limited unlike other interfaces that are standards driven with purpose being an afterthought.  Of course the Qimage UI isn't perfect and of course some changes will improve it.  BUT...

I've heard from my fair share of "seasoned programmers" and many of them who claim to be UI experts are self appointed experts because you can never find any UI that they've ever designed (as an example) and they turn out to be "experts" solely by the fact that they have program X (I'll call it PhotoShop just because people like to talke about it), they've gotten used to how it works, and want the Qimage UI to be as convoluted as the PhotoShop interface.  Now, I can't say that about Ray or Patrick nor am I implying it: I don't know you guys well enough.  I'm just saying, when I hear from the self proclaimed experts, I tend to take them with a grain of salt.  I have a good pulse on the overall user base and that's what I follow.  I don't run off changing little things or tweaking for one or two people proclaiming themselves experts but for which we have no examples of a UI they would design.

Ray, when you open PhotoShop, do you complain that your image just shows up in the middle of the screen when you open it and that area isn't labeled "image preview" or "work area"?  What do you call that area when discussing with other PhotoShop users?  The image preview area?  The image editor window?  I think that's pretty obvious, as is a panel labeled "page" in Qimage.  At least it has a label in Qimage.  And yes, there are some help tips that are a little out of date like the one that says you can't "edit" on the preview page: that was once true.  Some of those tips could use an update, but I don't think that makes/breaks an interface.  I've also gotten a lot of kudos for the Qimage help.  Have you seen the PhotoShop help?  I mean honestly?  It's the biggest joke I've ever seen.  F1 never works, never takes you anywhere when you need help.  In Qimage if you want help, most controls (like the ones that can take focus) will take you right to the applicable section of the help.  Want help on borders, click in one of the border sizes and press F1.  Try that in PhotoShop: it's like Adobe forgot you could do that.  And Adobe never gives examples (comparing to the learn by example section of the Qimage help)!  They give help that sometimes leads to functions that don't exist and often you have to spend time digging through many items to find what you want, often times because F1 doesn't work, but other times because the label in the software doesn't match what you have to search for to find it!

Do a lot of people use PhotoShop?  Sure.  They have an astronomical advertising budget!  Doesn't mean that it's a UI to use as an example of a good UI.  Not intentionally "picking" on PhotoShop, but it often gets mentioned so I'm just making an example.  There are a lot of Qimage users out there too!  And they all bought by word of mouth!  I didn't need to run commercials costing millions during a Super Bowl to do it.  And I know that all those people didn't buy it just because it gives better prints.  They bought it because it is brain dead simple to use.  Some people took the time to learn how to use an interface that was designed for multi-photo printing while others didn't.  I come back to PhotoShop as an example.  Simple things like cloning, text, drop shadows, etc. are much easier to use in a program like Paint Shop Pro.  Some people choose to use other tools because they don't have 500+ hours to learn how to use PhotoShop or spend thousands on training courses: people actually make careers out of training people to use PhotoShop.  Why?  Because it is difficult to use!  Some of the complexity of that UI is needed due to the complexity of what it can do, but much of it is unnecessary!

Mike

Methinks you are making some very broad assumptions based on one thing that you happen to be doing, and it's not what most people intend to do in that same situation.  Text is linked to prints.  You cannot link text to other text.  It does not follow that just because you tell Qimage you want to copy text labels to other prints, that you necessarily want them all to move together.  Things like copyrights or signatures, for example, are often adjusted (position wise) on a print so that they cover the least obtrusive area, or they are laid over a dark or light area based on the color of that copyright signature.  So a common workflow is to copy a logo, signature, time/date, or other label onto a batch of prints and then manually drag/adjust individual ones so that they don't cover important areas of the image or they appear in an area that is more readable, etc.  Now, could it be an option to "Move all similar labels (Y/N)"?  I think so.  Then people could choose.  So it's a feature that can be added.  But as far as irritating, it'd be far more irritating if Qimage arbitrarily moved every label that was copied among prints.  Now that wouldn't meet the Qimage design goal of making it easy to print great photos!

Mike

Every once in a while, a "seasoned programmer" who thinks they know all about GUI's will jump in and want things redesigned their way.  You need to realize that everyone who points out one of these little nit-picks is expecting something specific based on one workflow that may not work for many others!  Often times, what appears next is based on what is best for the most common next "expected move".  Other times, you won't want to make any assumptions at all.  If you are doing something a bit different from the average user's workflow, you may expect something that many others don't.  Qimage's UI has been refined over 10 years for a purpose: most efficient means to an end when gang printing optimal quality photos of any size!  I think a few people expect it to be designed after Photoshop and worked backwards.  This does not work for a real photo printing application!  A real photo printing application must be able to do certain things with ease, like gang printing of different sizes on the fly, clicking whatever size you want as you go, one or two clicks to change the size once on the page that already exists, and so on.  Qimage's interface was designed to be as efficient as possible at these tasks, so obviously it isn't going to look like PhotoShop, Lightroom, and other apps that make what few capabilities they have in that arena incredibly difficult.

I can tell you right now that the Qimage UI is not going to be redesigned.  Why?  Because it does not need it!  It is already hands down the most efficient tool (UI-wise) for printing multiple photos.  Any "programmer" or "software engineer" worth their salt will be aware of the fact that no interface can be designed to anticipate the next move of every user.  They are designed to be a best fit for the population using the software.  Is any interface perfect for anyone?  Of course not.  Can their be improvements to the Qimage interface?  Of course.  Does it need a redesign?  Absolutely not.  Needs change, workflows change, the user "populus" changes, and we adapt to different needs.  And we make needed adjustments as we go.  Sometimes I tailor things to work one way and it turns out most people are not using it that way!  In that case, I need to change something.  Not convinced that is the case here... yet.

Also, it's difficult at times to determine which users just want to blow off steam because the UI doesn't work to their own personal (sometimes twisted) expectations, so I have to ask.  What are you referring to when you say the panels need names?  Can you give an example of one that doesn't have a name?  That's why we have "job properties", "print properties", "full page editor" and so on... and that's why we have the "Getting Familiar" section of the help where the main window is cut into one of a number of named sections.  So if you have something specific in mind (that you think doesn't have a name), I'd like to know what it is in case I've missed one.

That said, off the soap box and back onto the original topic here.  I see it started out with Patrick not realizing that the current border settings relate to the currently selected print BUT I also understand the confusion between the full page editor and the main window WRT borders from his point of view.  Again though, the interface is designed to try to make the best assumptions (or often no assumptions when there is no clear cut route) about what you want to do next, and varying assumptions are being made here about what people will likely do when they exit the full page editor.  Years ago, Qimage remembered the selections made before entering the full page editor when returning to the main window: I believe that's what Patrick and Ray expected.  Users complained that when they went to the full page editor, they make selections (selecting and modifying prints on different pages) and that those superseded the selections made on the main window.  By the time they went back to the main window, what was selected before the full page editing was often irrelevant.  When they went back to the main window, they argued that their next move was (usually) to either print or add more photos to be printed.  At that point they often wanted to change to a new print size, clear the border, or other operations but with the previous selections still in play, they click 5x7 to prepare for the next batch of thumbnails they are about to add and instead, the 3 of 8 prints they had selected before change to 5x7.  So... long story short, when you exit the full page editor, your print size, borders, and such return to the last defaults that were used on the main window.  Why?  Because you can't assume that the last thing you did in the page editor is necessarily what you'll want for the overall defaults for the main window.  This is one of those things where everyone wants something different.  If I make Patrick and the other 804 Qimage users who expect it to work a certain way happy, then I'll make 1804 unhappy.  That's just life in the business of UI's.

Mike

http://www.ddisoftware.com/flashpipe

v2010.119     02/24/10     

Priority: Med     

v2010.119 fixes an issue where, under certain conditions, automatic generation of subfolders (by date) would still occur even when the checkbox for auto subfolders was NOT checked.

Mike

http://www.ddisoftware.com/flashpipe

v2010.119     02/24/10     

Priority: Med     

v2010.119 fixes an issue where, under certain conditions, automatic generation of subfolders (by date) would still occur even when the checkbox for auto subfolders was NOT checked.

Mike

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

v2010.202     02/23/10     

Priority: Low     

v2010.202 includes an updated EXIF hotbar that shows the after-cropping resolution for cropped images.  This version also offers much smoother scrolling of crop and size/move boxes.

Mike

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

v2010.202     02/23/10     

Priority: Low     

v2010.202 includes an updated EXIF hotbar that shows the after-cropping resolution for cropped images.  This version also offers much smoother scrolling of crop and size/move boxes.

Mike

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

v2010.201     02/20/10     

Priority: Med     

v2010.201 contains some bug fixes that eliminate potential error pop-ups during certain operations in the v2010.100 release.

Mike

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

v2010.201     02/20/10     

Priority: Med     

v2010.201 contains some bug fixes that eliminate potential error pop-ups during certain operations in the v2010.100 release.

Mike

For those interested, there is a new video link on the Qimage homepage that shows some of the new touch capabilities of v2010.200:

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/touch.htm

Mike

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

Qimage v2010.200 (02/19/10):

    ddisoftware, Inc. has just released a significant upgrade to its Qimage photo printing software.  This latest revision comes with UI (user interface) refinements that improve the overall user experience, allowing users to go from original photos to prints of optimal quality more efficiently than ever before.  We've even updated the interface to be touch-aware to support multi-touch monitors and the upcoming Windows 7 touch tablets that will appear on the market later this year.  On these devices, a simple flick of the finger can be used to "throw" thumbnails onto the print page, throw unwanted prints off the page, flip pages forward/back, etc.  This revision has also undergone a comprehensive QA review that has led to a number of bug fixes.  We know that amateurs and professionals alike depend on Qimage to produce optimal quality from their digital photos so we thank our loyal users for the opportunity to bring yet another advancement to the field of digital photo printing!

Mike

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

Qimage v2010.200 (02/19/10):

    ddisoftware, Inc. has just released a significant upgrade to its Qimage photo printing software.  This latest revision comes with UI (user interface) refinements that improve the overall user experience, allowing users to go from original photos to prints of optimal quality more efficiently than ever before.  We've even updated the interface to be touch-aware to support multi-touch monitors and the upcoming Windows 7 touch tablets that will appear on the market later this year.  On these devices, a simple flick of the finger can be used to "throw" thumbnails onto the print page, throw unwanted prints off the page, flip pages forward/back, etc.  This revision has also undergone a comprehensive QA review that has led to a number of bug fixes.  We know that amateurs and professionals alike depend on Qimage to produce optimal quality from their digital photos so we thank our loyal users for the opportunity to bring yet another advancement to the field of digital photo printing!

Mike