Adobe seeking feedback about panels, palettes, workspaces, and other UI elements

Frankly I too am quite pleased overall w/the UI.

However I ask that you please add the option to use standard window title bars and menus to Flash Pro CSx…  I use it often making swc’s for flex projects… And I must tell you as a developer and not a designer, the UI is frustrating from a programmer’s point of view.

Maybe the Flash functionality could be wrapped up into the Flash Builder eclipse interface, allowing developers/designers to choose which UI they prefer based on the context of the task and their personal preferences. I for one have never been a fan of skinned applications in general, but I use Adobe apps because they are of course the best bar none, despite the presence of the skins.  (I do realize that I'm in the minority of people by admitting that I prefer non-skinned apps).

Also, in my opinion the worst feature in the flash builder interface is the single row of editor tabs, could a multi-row tab bar be developed, similar to the zend studio 5.5 bar (but of course with an eclipse-ish/adobe flavor).

I work with large projects, and I can't think of a single day in the last 3 years that I have not had at least 10 or 15 tabs open, often more.  The single row of tabs is horrible restrictive and in my opinion very frustating.  I for one have a wide screen monitor, rotated to page view, and another widescreen monitor in landscape for the project explorer, debug monitor, search tree, browser, etc...

Many developers work this way, but eclipse has always been lacking good support for large numbers of open documents.  It is one of my longest running wish-list items that eclipse/Flash builder could implement a multi-row editor tab list.

Also in dual monitor setups, with Flash Builder, workspace panes that are dragged onto the other monitor jump back onto the monitor that has the main application for seemingly unexplicable reasons.  (not frequently but just often enough to be annoying, I suppose it may be an eclipse bug).

Overall, though, I can't complain and Three Cheers to you guys at Adobe for opening the floor to us and listening to our feedback.  My hat goes off to all the awesome engineers over there and I hope that my feedback can help in some way!

Sincerely,

David Coleman

I use Lightroom and Photoshop most frequently. The last several releases of Photoshop CS# have made great UI improvements over older versions, so I don't have much to contribute there. And I am mostly happy with the Lightroom interface, except for one major complaint.

I am a plugin developer for Lightroom's Web module (http://theturninggate.net) and it frustrates me to no end that I am forced to cram all of my controls into the pre-existing panels: Site Info, Color Palette, Appearance and Output Settings, and that I can only house metadata options in the Image Info pane.

In future versions of Lightroom, I would love to be able to create or modify collapsable control panes in the Web module, allowing me to divy up my controls into a more logical layout. I would also love to be able to place metadata controls anywhere in those control panes, so that I can -- for example -- control the metadata source for a page element alongside the styling/appearance controls for that element. As it is, it's very difficult to keep things together, and extremely frustrating attempting to organize controls in a way that makes intuitive sense. I just feel like I'm overstuffing a suitcase, then having to ask my mother, father, brother, girlfriend and the neighbor's family to sit on the thing while I try to zip it up ...

I am very glad to see you seeking feedback in matters of UI. Thanks so much for listening!

Cheers,

Matt

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Matthew Campagna
The Turning Gate | http://theturninggate.net
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Web Engines, Tutorials & Resources