Research and mockup design: Mypaint toolbar and icons
I spent my week end trying to bring a bit of love to the Mypaint GUI ( Graphic User Interface ) and also renovating icons. Well , I'm not a developper, so I did only a 'mockup' a sort of picture simulation , nothing 'real' but maybe it will inspirate the developper(s). Why ? Last weeks on the developpement version, the top toolbars started to be cluttered with too many icons and informations :
Mypaint 1.0.0+Git top toolbar with all activated , takes actually more than 1500px width
...so, I started discussing the changes with Andrew Chadwick. Andrew is brillant, one of the 3 most active Mypaint developpers , and at the origin of the cute GUI of Mypaint 1.0 ( the drop down panel , the toolbar ) and tons of other great commit to Mypaint. Because I felt limited expressing my ideas with words , I decided to dive in a mockup, a complete one, full vector. Why vector ? because if the icons works on the mockup, they could be instantly usable.
*Download here my final ( for the moment ) vector .svg** 2012-08-20_mockup-Mypaint_final.svg ( license GPL , edit with Inkscape )
Here were my priority working on it : - Make the toolbar display all icons on 1024px screen large minimum - Kept essential shortcuts, removed more rare features, moved them to submenus. - Grouped icons by family - Blending mode : back to text ( note as 'multiply' or 'overlay' but a more textual friendly approach ), icons are too complex to design a blending mode. - Mixed of the 'Frame' modal dialog and the 'Background' modal dialog in a new 'Canvas Setup' easy to access icon ( symetry moved here too ). - Moved 'Circles / Ellipse' and 'Series of Lines ' to the 'quickbrush' submenu , with auto pressure graph.
My tool was Inkscape ( a FLOSS vector drawing program ) and the huge libraries of icons already made named 'Tango'.
Of course, feel free to do the same as me ; more brain = more ideas , and it certainly great to pick good feedback here and here. And now you have my *.svg , thats half of the work done for proposing good looking mockup.
13 comments
Hi David !
j'espère que ton travail sera pris en compte pour la prochaine version de MyPaint. Ce qui serait intéressant, c'est d'avoir des palettes auto-rétractables (qui se cachent/affichent lors du passage de la souris) ainsi on peut mieux profiter du plein écran.
Awesome, that's just what I was waiting for :D
Can't wait.
David.
Wow, next MyPaint will have Lines and Curves, Circles and Ellipses! COOL. Can't wait next update
@David Revoy
offtopic but I saw that you use the small and nice tool "Knotter" (http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/introducing-knotter-free-celtic-knots-design-app). Can you please post a small HowTo-Post of how you install it in (K)ubuntu? That would be nice!
best regards!
@André : Hey, I'm sure you can do it because it was easy to compile the source ; just download the tar.gz of Knotter, extract it and follow the Readme ; as I remember there is only a line to config, and a single 'make' to build it , then the Knotter executable will be ready in the folder to play with :)
I hope your idea can be the nex MyPaint GUI ^^
I think one way to improve the interface is used to clear and vivid hues. Both to be more striking as to be more friendly to the eye (especially for those who spend much time at the computer)
Hi David,
great idea - MyPaint is my favourite program for painting, and your presented idea seems much better than the development one. Hope the great guys developing MyPaint will go along with yours :)
Nota bene, thank you very much for all the work you have done and been doing for the open source digital painting!
:) David can you put on Mypaint site big banner "We need an Windows builder! Windows and Windows developer!" Like on the front page :) Without someone make a build for Windows nobody can test the bugs that appears on new version before launch and without a developer for Windows then none can fix the bug.
@all : Thanks!
@numarul7 : Tumagonx is already the only volunteer working on the MypaintWindows version. He posted on the forum a new build about the developpement version. I must admit I tried the Windows version recently on Windows, and I thought it's far less good than on Linux. Everything is just laggy, in my opinion and not as smooth than on Linux. I would advice for Windows digital painters ( who have a large choice of apps, not as on Linux ), to invest in a less than 50$ SAI Tools ; it's 10 times more well integrated into the Windows platform, and performance and price is really cool for this low price.
The idea looks great. You said your icon tool bar looks cluttered with all icons activated. I would like to know how you 'activate' the icons since I would like to have some of them docked on my toolbar. My screen looks something like this (the default)
http://simplest-image-hosting.net/png-0-screenshot-mypaint-025503-pm
And how often is the git version updated? I downloaded mine about three weeks ago so would I be able to customize the toolbar in that?
@Mishrito : Hey , yes, try to right click on the toolbar to access and activate other groups of tools available. The git version is 'real time' with the developpement , and here I update it almost 2 time by week , depending of the update I read ( I'm following Gitorious Mypaint update via RSS in my Google Reader ).
Thanks for the info :)
Your mockup looks great! I really hope the developers pick it up. =)
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