Re: [Audacity-quality] Sync-lock-look

[Vaughan J. <va...@au...>]

Great. Go for it! Thx, V

On 9/13/2010 11:40 PM, Al Dimond wrote:
> I'm going to top-post this -- it's related to this conversation but 
> doesn't really respond to any specific points. One deliberate feature 
> of the chain-link images was that they were diagonal. This means you 
> can't draw a vertical or horizontal line that doesn't intersect part 
> of the graphic.
> 
> One possible arrangement would have a square tile with a clock in the 
> middle and a quarter-clock at each corner. Another is a hexagonal 
> arrangement: tiles are rectangular, about 1xsqrt(3); clocks are drawn 
> as semicircles drawn in the middle of each edge. Using either 
> technique you shouldn't have to pack them all that closely to cover 
> every vertical/horizontal line, but the tiles will have to expand to 
> keep size of clocks the same.
> 
> With any luck I'll have time to try these this coming weekend (my week 
> is swamped), but I thought I'd throw them out there in case anyone has 
> a chance before that, or in case I don't have time over the weekend.
> 
>  - Al
> 
> On Monday, September 13, 2010 22:57:04 Vaughan Johnson wrote:
>> On 9/13/2010 7:04 AM, Gale Andrews wrote:
>>> | From David Bailes <drb...@go...>
>>> | Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:54:38 +0100
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 6:17 AM, Vaughan Johnson
>>>>
>>>> <va...@au...> wrote:
>>>>> Please, David and Gale, check the latest.
>>>>
>>>> re the mute and solo buttons, I think it would be a bit clearer
>>>> that they were buttons if there were horizontal grey lines
>>>> immediately above and below them, as in the edit toolbar. With
>>>> no difference in color betweent the buttons and the background,
>>>> the current edges have fairly low contrast.
>>>
>>> Wouldn't it be better if we could put the dark border back (so
>>> affecting the track menu button and minimise button too), but
>>> with a rather lighter colour? I agree, something akin to the
>>> contrast the Edit Toolbar buttons have would be good.
>>
>> Done, using same color as the border of the toolbars. For the title
>> popup menu and mute/solo buttons, that makes it look like the
>> bottom bevel is bigger than the other 3 bevels, but that's true in
>> the toolbars, too.
>>
>> This currently does restore a line above the sync-lock icon, but
>> I'll fix that after we decide on Steve's suggestion (below).
>>
>>>> re the clock icon in the track panel. It has slightly low
>>>> contrast, a bit more pitch black might be helpful.
>>
>> I purposely did not do that because it is an indicator, and because
>> it needs to be anti-aliased. Pitch black would be very jagged at
>> 12x12.
>>
>>> I like the look of the icon in the Track Panel. It doesn't seem
>>> quite correct in the waveform yet.
>>
>> De gustibus non disputandum. I like the one in the waveform much
>> better. Can't get very accurate in the 12x12 pixel icon, so I
>> couldn't make it look as much like my very beautiful (!) tiles as
>> I wanted.
>>
>> I didn't give the proviso Al did, but I am also not a graphic
>> artist. Just wanted to get rid of the chain-link fence look, and
>> finish up this feature. If any of you can do better, please submit
>> the images -- that is not a dare, it's just not a good use of my
>> skills for me to do it.
>>
>> If anybody's going to try it: the icon is 12x12, the tile is 27x27,
>> and the button is 20x20, and needs enabled and disabled versions.
>> Al did the chain-link images purely with the alpha channel. Not
>> sure why. Mine have non-zero gray values in the RGB channels, too,
>> e.g., shades of "Audacity blue" for the clock hands.
>>
>> In the meantime, I've added the button images, based on the tiles.
>>
>>
>> I'd love it if we could get a graphic artist to redo *many* of our
>> amateurish-looking buttons... and we could agree on them! :-)
>>
>> Some of them (e.g., mic and speaker) could be readily replaced with
>> existing OSS or CC-licensed images. Really, I think only the
>> Transport buttons are good looking. Do we want to prioritize a
>> slightly newer look for 2.0 as well as bug fixing? I vote yes,
>> especially for readily available replacement images.
>>
>>> As well as it being slightly low contrast,
>>
>> That is intentional. It's an overlay, not content.
>>
>>> the "rim"
>>>
>>> that surrounds the clock "looks" thicker than (but lighter than)
>>> the clock itself.
>>
>> There's no distinction of a "rim". I intentionally used a brush in
>> The GIMP so the edges fade on the inside and outside of the
>> circle.
>>
>>> The rim seems thicker at the bottom too (it appears to have light
>>>
>>> grey shading in the bottom half of the clock face on my monitor).
>>
>> Possibly, as I was using a brush, but I think the impression you're
>> getting is because the hands are darker, so make their background
>> look lighter than the bottom half of the circle.
>>
>> And if it's not even all around, that's probably good, as it makes
>> it less two-dimensional.
>>
>>> The clock tiles also looks a bit like a letter V in a circle.
>>
>> My favorite letter! But I disagree. Nothing on a clock face looks
>> like a V because the hands are different lengths. Clearly, the
>> hour hand is on the right. That's why you say "five/ten to" two,
>> below.
>>
>> My thinking was that both hands should be up, so it's not a frown
>> or droopy mustache. 10:05, 10:10 and 11:05 all look like a check
>> mark in a circle. It wasn't arbitrary. I thought about those
>> before I did it.
>>
>>> Maybe it would
>>>
>>> be a bit better if the "time" was closer to a quarter to two? It
>>> looks a bit like "five to" in the tiles and "ten to" in the
>>> Track Panel - is it an illusion?
>>
>> It's due to the different resolutions.
>>
>> I think any of the quarter-hour positions, for either hand, make it
>> look less like a clock and more like a pie chart. :-)
>>
>>> So for me, more space between the clock tiles,
>>
>> Interesting. There's already more space between the clock tiles
>> than there were for the chain links, i.e., the image is a smaller
>> part of the tile.
>>
>>> with a slightly, darker
>>>
>>> thinner rim would help.
>>
>> I disagree. The color is very similar to the chain links tiles.
>> Should be light, and somewhat fuzzy, as an overlay, so it doesn't
>> appear to be a series of objects/controls, or content of the
>> track.
>>
>> On 9/13/2010 9:15 AM, Steve the Fiddle wrote:
>>> The link icon on track panel is clearly not a button now (which
>>> is good), and I like that you can click on it to select the
>>> track when the track is collapsed.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>> However when SyncLock is off and the track is
>>>
>>> minimised, there is a tiny sliver between the track name and the
>>> expand button, which if clicked on with the accuracy of a surgeon
>>> it is possible to select the track without expanding it.
>>
>> I think that was true prior to my recent changes, and is an
>> off-by-one error in the original code.
>>
>>> My preference would be that when SyncLock is off, the track icon
>>> disappears but the track expand button does not grow to fill the
>>> space, but that the space remains empty, leaving a space that the
>>> user can click on when the track is minimised.
>>>
>>> [and Martyn's +1]
>>
>> I think it looks odd to have the minimize button "left-justified"
>> when nothing is to its right. How about shrinking the minimize
>> button on the left, too, leaving a blank that's the size of the
>> icon on both sides of the minimize button when sync-lock is off,
>> and putting the icon to its right (as currently) when sync-lock is
>> on?
>>
>>> Regarding the icon / tiles, I'm not overly concerned about what
>>> the graphic is, but using a literal representation of a clock
>>> would tend to invite the question of whether there is any
>>> significance to 1:55.
>>
>> That would be true of any time we choose.
>>
>>> As it represents "synchronization" rather than "time", perhaps
>>> something a bit less literal would convey the meaning more
>>> clearly, for
>>
>> example:http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=synchronize&tbs=isch:1,isz
>> :i&biw=1366&bih=549
>>
>>
>> Those images imply very different meanings of "synchronize", imo.
>> They mean "make these two different storage items contain the same
>> latest superset." The world/folder ones imply local-to-distant.
>> The circling arrows more often have the meaning of "refresh"
>> (http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&biw=983&bih=634&tbs=isch%3A1%
>> 2Cisz%3Ai&sa=1&q=refresh+icon). And the gear image usually means
>> "settings/preferences", so doesn't really even belong in the
>> group, regardless of showing up in a Google search result.
>>
>> So, I think any of those would be misleading, as we mean, "lock
>> these tracks together on the timeline". "Sync-Lock", not
>> "Synchronize".
>>
>> - Vaughan