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

[Todd_Kopriva]

Several folks within Adobe are discussing the user interfaces for our various applications, and we'd like your feedback.

Do you use After Effects, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Lightroom? Other Adobe applications?

If so, please post your comments on this forum thread comparing your experiences with the user interfaces of these applications.

Regarding the panels, palettes, workspaces, and overall UI paradigms in these applications: What do you like? What do you hate? Do you care that the applications are different in this regard? What differences do you even notice?

[bdrummer67]

Is this the right place to post comments about Premiere Pro? I came here from http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2011/06/adobe-seeking-feedback-about-panels-palettes-workspaces-a... but it says After Effects here.

I’m using Premiere Pro CS 5 (till I upgrade to 5.5 soon).

Premiere Pro Titler could use an update. It feels like the most stale part of Premiere.

Insert Logo should be Insert Graphic (since you renamed some things in 5.5).

There should be constrained scaling using percent. When I import a logo into the titler, it’s often larger than the titler window, and it’s very awkward to find the corner handles and drag down the size (holding shift to lock proportions, of course) to end up with the right sized logo, in the right aspect, that fits in the Title space.

There should be a way to set the default font, size and color for the text tool. (On a new porject, it defaults to the first font alphabetically, which I rarely use.) Just as I can set the sample text (AaBbZz) I want to start with, say, Ariel, 30 Pt., grey. Even the style gallery defaults to 100 pts. (for new projects, otherwise it does last used, which is fine).

Selecting fonts from a large list is tricky. If I type “A” it goes to the fonts that start with A, but if I type “Ar” it doesn’t narrow down the search (for Ariel) but it goes to the “R” fonts. And scrolling through many fonts is cumbersome, so I’d like it to be more like a font search, as in Word, etc. I type “Tim” and Times New Roman shows up. Also, like your filter search.

How about ‘Paste Attributes” for text boxes? The workaround for making text look just like other text is awkward.

I would love to see some key framing in the text tool. Especially for Leading. It would be more like the text tool in Flash.

[bdrummer67]

(Again, I'm still in Premiere Pro 5. Will go to 5.5 soon.)

Premiere Pro titler should have “Save As.” Many times I start modifying a title design, but I’ve forgotten to hit “New Title based on current title.” I used to be able to “Save As” a new title.

Sometimes the effects in the Effects Panel don’t scroll down correctly. A good example is in Audio, Dynamics, or Audio, EQ. If I don’t have the Effects panel set really large, I’ll be looking at the custom settings, and as I get down to that effect’s bottom of the interface, it disappears before the bottom shows. It’s hard to describe, but if you play with those effects (show the UI “knobs”) and scroll down in the effect window, you’ll see what I mean.

BTW, I believe round “knobs” should never be on any interface, because they don’t translate well to mouse movements. “Sliders” are more intuitive.

In Premiere Pro, the Multicam Window, the Program Monitor, and/or the Reference Monitor should be able to run (with moving video) together at all times. I don’t know if the “one or the other” is because of my older video card. I’m getting a new Adobe-recommended (CUDA enabled) card soon, and I hope the monitors work together.

For instance, I can watch the Program Monitor and the scope at the same time, but the scope freezes until I pause the video.

In PPro, Time Remapping in Effects Controls is very hard to figure out. I would think there could be a key frame for the one speed, a key frame for a different speed, and a line or curve in between.

Your Temporal Interpretation for key frames, such as Linear, Bezier, Ease In/Out is very nice, and I use them all the time. But Time Remapping confuses me.

In Adobe Media Encoder, how about presets that group other presets together? For instance, I have a client who always likes to get WMVs and FLVs, and I like to make another version for Vimeo Thanks for those presets, BTW!). It would be nice to make a super-preset that I could name after my client, and when I click on it, my video would be queued up for WMV, FLV and H.264 in one step instead of three (or more, if you include finding the client’s favorite WMV, FLV and H.264 settings for each format). It would be listed as three encodes, of course.

In the Project Panel, Preview area, it would be nice to be able to make that a little bigger. You can make larger icons or thumbnails, but that little player in the upper right should have a bigger option.

In the source clip window, I’d like a button or some quick way to view the audio in a video clip. The Output button, with the list of all the options, is okay, but I thought there used to be one button to check audio.

How about some way to see video AND audio waveform at the same time (other than dropping it into a sequence).

In the Source Panel and Program Panel, there is a terrific little button to export a video frame. The options are: Name, Format and Path. But in older versions of Premiere Pro (3), I knew how to set the size, pixel aspect and deinterlacing. My client often asks for still frames, and it would be nice to not to have to go into Photoshop to make stills look right. (And I can never figure out how to convert pixel aspect ratios there anyway.)

I love Premiere Pro. Keep up the great work!

[a178Design]

PPro cs5

At the very least, cntrl +/- to increase/decrease zoom on the timline and preview monitors. This is a fundamnetal shortcut in other programs why not premiere?

I second the need to update the whole title creation tool, can I not just have a text tool and drag out a box on the preview monitor? then I can change the text via the text pallet like in the other programs

AE cs5

I second someones elses suggestion here:

The ability to hide/group layers in the timeline, sometimes you just have too many layers and they should be grouped in a folder out of the way!

Thanks for enabling my creativety Adobe but when are you guys bringing out a true 3D program so I can create 3d objects to use in my PPro & AE movies?

[Mylenium]

The ability to hide/group layers in the timeline, sometimes you just have too many layers and they should be grouped in a folder out of the way!

Ah, here we go again... Timeline folders, eternal bane of my existance. I really don't like the idea of having yet another redundant UI feature, when we already have nested compositions. You know, the whole concept very much sounds like shying layers, including the reasons why I never use it - too much trouble to assign the layer switch to begin with and then you still spend much time with it being not used. Same goes for locking and soloing such stuff - too many potential combinations of settings and I already hear people screaming when the accidentally bust up their stuff. I'd much prefer we stick with AE's current model, but I would agree that it might be useful to be able to reveal the content of a nested composition as "ghosted" and uneditable in the main comp for reference purposes just like it would be useful if AE finally got a marker system that actually works based on common sense rather than esoteric, unfathomable rules...

Mylenium

[Andrew Yoole]

And I'll mention it, although it's more than a true interface issue - the ability to move elements around within the render pipeline is long overdue.  Not necessarily true nodal control, but why can't I render Layer Styles before effects?  Or Masks post-effects?  Because of their position in the render pipeline, I find Layer Styles virtually useless in most of my work, especially when motion blur is used.  The ability to simply drag layer properties into a customised order within the timeline would be an incredibly powerful capability.

Naturally, pre-composing is the way around this issue, but it makes things so much more cumbersome.

[martinfernandez_tv]

It would be nice:
Layers into folders
Multiple instances of palettes (effects & presets palette and effects controls palette)
Composition navigator under the image, or next to Adjust Exposure
Editable palettes with buttons (C4D is a great reference)

[Rick Gerard]

I'd love to see collapsable palettes (Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator), Uber twril for pre-comps (and I love pre-comps by the way) instead of layer groups like in Photoshop, and in the absence of a true node interface for transformations, masks, and effects I'd love to have the ability to re-arrange the rendering pipeline in the timeline window by simply dragging things around. For example:

A simplified form of node editing could also be implemented in the flow chart. For example you could pick a mask from one layer and drag it to multiple layers. This would be especially useful for track mattes.

[SteveKirby]

Some of the best UI features of Adobe apps are ones that are universally intuitive, like: Space Bar = Hand Tool/Pan.

Often what seems poor in one application is the lack of a feature you’re used to from another, eg. a ‘group’ command, history palette, UI brightness control etc.  I really think that for starters the following features could and should exist across all three of these applications (and possibly others):

AE:
Save Incremental
Any numerical (and colour) value can be scrubbed
Is effectively fullscreen by default
Gradient editor
Dialog boxes always ‘Preview’ by default

PS:
‘Smart’ Control/Options (horizontal) toolbar
Vertically collapsible palettes
History palette
Brush/tool size can be altered on-the-fly with ctrl-alt
Brush/tool size is represented by cursor size

AI:
Mini top-floating toolbars (Pen tool etc)
Content present outside the active area can be usefully viewed
Swatches palette

Keyboard shortcuts are a slightly different matter.  It would be lovely if they were all the same but in reality having P in AE be Pen tool instead of Position would be hard to justify.  But anything which can easily be unified, should.  Such as:

‘Hide application’ shortcut
Scale from centre shortcut (alt in AI/PS, Cmd in AE)
Exit editing text shortcut (esc or enter)

Illustrator definitely needs the most work, it could be so much more intuitive and natural feeling, I don’t know how real illustrators can stand it.  Across the board I also think the UI’s could be more user-configurable, possibly via HUD’s (think C4D or Apple Motion), looking again at the way palettes dock/collapse (I used to like the old InDesign where they collapsed horizontally to the screen’s edge like a draw),

Generally speaking I think a lot of the UI paradigms are outdated in the sense that the GFX cards and OS's are so much more powerful now than they were 10 years ago, screens are bigger, and workflows are faster.  Most of the time, the UI is the only thing that stops your thought-process from happening instantaneously.  With this in mind, I think Adobe could benefit from revisiting notions of the 'intuitive' and think about ways to get the UI out of the way of the creativity as much as possible. This might be ultimately difficult as long as Adobe thinks like a 'software company', but the new Photoshop iPad apps were a step in the right direction.  Would a closer partnership with Wacom be worth considering? Or even developing your own physical 'Toolbar' keypad with dynamic, configurable LED buttons.  Massive cliché warning: You have to think outside the box to innovate! Even simple features like a universal shortcut to temporarily horizontally flip the art (a trick traditional artists have used for centuries to check their compositional balance etc.) or an option for a larger colour picker/mixer palette with various modes are easy to imagine.

[a178Design]

AE

ability to scroll through layer blending options (add, overlay, darken, ect) with the down/up arrow just like in PS. Im sick of manually mouse clicking through each of them.

(If this is a newbie thing and I should know the effect that each option bring than sorry but think of it from Adobe point of view, they should be making their programs accesible to new customers, while still catering for seasoned pro's of course.)

[RyanSummers]

Shift and + or - key moves through blending modes in AE.

[westonwoodbury]

Primarily using AE/PP with often PS as well, some illustrator.

I don't think the UI itself -- panels palettes workspaces etc -- need much work, they are overall greatly improved in the last 5+ years & for the most part much ahead of competition. More attention should probably be put into other items that need improved, many of which already came up listed here.

One thing, I wish text brightness was added as customizable as well as the UI slider; I don't like the text brightness on the lower and higher end of the slider, wish I could customize it.

_____

BUG since as far as I can remember, maybe CS3 or earlier: workspaces need to remember multiple monitor setups!

The problem is, I snap off my timeline into a separate window, and make it full screen.

Now, if have an explorer/finder window open on the screen where the project & monitors panels where, everything opens fine & my full, double screen layout opens just as I left it.

However, if I open the project from the monitor that say, my full screen timeline is in, the project/monitor panels etc come up in that same screen, undernearth the timeline.  So I have to nudge the timeline window down, and double click the primary premiere pro window, and for some reason that maximizes it to the other screen).  Then bring my timeline window back into place.

For this reason alone I kind of like making a single window layout that's just 2-screens wide (Avid-esk), however, I run different resolutions on the monitor and this really complicates things if I'm trying to use all of my screenspace, when two or more monitors have different heights for resolution.  Also, in this setup, all progress windows appear right in the middle, so it's split between the two monitors.  This could be improved.

____

Another request would definitely be to make hotkeys and things like timeline navigation more universal among your apps.  I run Avid+custom setup on my hotkeys in PP--I jump into AE, and every last button is different, and in AE it's not nearly as easily customizable. Same for Encore's, etc.  I'd LOVE for a change in PP's hotkey to reflect how it works in AE, Encore, and even PS in video mode, etc.

Simarly, as mentioned on this forum, I hate how blending mode changes in PS is arrows keys, on AE is shift + or -, and totally manual (mouse--annoying) in PP.  If there's one thing I wished was improved, it would be to make this particular task universal among Adobe apps.

I also really miss the hotkey property drop downs from AE when in any other program (c for opacity, a for anchor, etc).  I'd love to see them make it into other apps.

____

Try not to hide things in the panel's window, coming from "hamburger menu's", I like that CS5 has kept things well enough organized to not have a bunch of important options there that are easy to miss.

Speaking of buttons, I think you'd find it rewarding to add 'fit to fill' and other fit clip options into buttons. They are extremely hidden right now, because you only see the options if you set 4 in/out points and don't drag/drop, which most users will never do.  Additionally, "solo" & "mute" buttons for audio tracks, which are right there on the audio mixer, just makes sense, add them.

____

Another important one is you need to make everything keyboard mappable.  Like in MC, all buttons and actions need to be mappable--just the drop down menus and the few extras you have listed doesn't cut it.  I agree with others here, the keyboard visual layout would be dandy here.

____

Definitely a +1 to improving thumbnail views.  Really quite bad right now.  Need much more customization in sizes thatn just 3 sizes, and a thumbnail + info view (like script view in MC) makes it so you can both see and sort the info, and see the clip at the same time, which is ideal for me.  Be able to customize the thumbnail, maybe a special type of marker that's put in from the preview window?

____

Hope this helps.  For the most part the UI's are really great; it's the thing that most other NLE users are complaining about in their software, not Adobe users.  Often in their forums I'll see posts comparing things to PPro's UI and pointing out how much better developed it is & that particular app should do something similar to what Adobe did.  In my experience, anyway

- wb

[Andrew Yoole]

My thoughts on the above:  why can't I just drag an item direct from Finder/Explorer window onto a timeline?  After Effects should allow me to do so, and automatically place that item into the project for me, rather than require me to add to the project first, THEN drag to the timeline.

[david_kenneth_coleman]

you can do this in flash builder, dropping something in the project explorer, but this makes me think, why can't i drag a file into the code view of flash builder and have it automatically import it to the "default asset location" and then drop an appropriate embed tag in my code? this would be super slick!

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 22:19:33 -0600

From: forums@adobe.com

To: david_coleman_007@hotmail.com

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

Another thought: why can't I just drag an item direct from Finder/Explorer window onto a timeline? After Effects should allow me to do so, and automatically place that item into the project for me, rather than require me to add to the project first, THEN drag to the timeline.

>

[Swandive stream]

I use Photoshop and Flash a lot for my website (along with Dremweaver) and I find it illogical that in Flash, you can lock/unlock multiple layers but you cannot delete multiple layers and in Photoshop, you can delete multiple layers but you can't lock/unlock multiple layers.

I find this a pain sometimes, especially that in Flash let's say for example I have imported layered content from Photoshop and then I shift most of it to a few layers, I am then left with 5-10 layers which I have to painstakingly right-click, delete, right-click, delete... I find it a nuisance.

And why does Flash appear to have no alignment guides? And Photoshop does not allow me to modify the gradient after it has been added like Flash does and there is no primitive rectangle or oval tool that I can modify after placement.

[Mike_Susko]

The docking behavior on Fireworks drives me insane on a  daily basis. I never, never, never,never, never, never,never, never,  never want to open 17 docked palettes at once!

It’s a real pain trying to close them all. Also, they dock in ways  that aren’t useful. Get a pallete near another, and it instantly wants  to dock, or go inside it. This is not fun.
Sometimes I just want to move them around. Also, when a palette such as  layers wants to dock with the main screen, making your document window  smaller is completely useless as a default behavior. I always want the  palettes to float.

What would be nice is a pallete manager, where you could somehow choose and arrange a set of pallettes external of using them.

In Fireworks, the most important pallettes for me are in order: Properties, Pages, Layers, Align, History & Optimize.

I never use States! Surely most designers use it very sparingly, So  it should not be grouped with the two most important palettes: Layers  and Pages. I think this is a mistake.
One of the major weaknesses of the palletes in FW is the default  grouping. It seems to be designed by someone who actually does not use  the program on a daily basis.

[Paolo T]

I use a combo of InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop for my technical writing work. The user interface and integration in these applications is excellent. Adobe managed to keep the UI out of the way very well.

Since my work is mostly made of typing, I still miss some better way of zooming and scrolling without getting my hands away of the keyboard.

Also, the way automatic scrolling to follow the text input cursor could be greatly improved. Sometimes, I find myself typing out of the visible area, without InDesign adjusting the view.

I also use Premiere and After Effect from time to time, and find them as well integrated as the publishing combo. Making Premiere a bit less cluttered of unneeded controls (for example, making them appear only when needed) could be a good idea to clean-up things.

Dreamweaver, on the other side, is a disaster. I cannot see any logic in how commands are organized in menus and palettes. And there are menu ridiculously long, with no apparent hint of organization.

Paolo

[extrabyte101]

Please [removed by moderator] , please give us the ability to darken the UI in Photoshop the same way as in AE,Pr. etc.

[Guest]

I use the Production Premium CS5 suite. I use most of the programs on a semi-regular basis. It's nice that the UIs look more or less the same, and that the panels dock and undock the same way.

But it's the little things that are a killer. Adobe should think about standarizing the tools all the way down to the small details. For example, is it "delete", "cut", or "clear"? Pick one. Is transparency shown with a white/gray checkerboard (Photoshop) or black (AE), or something else? Again, pick one (I vote for black actually).

And for goodness sake, spend some time with some tech. writers on the actual words used in the UI. When I want to move from working on a project in PPro to working on it in AE, I do NOT want to "replace with AE composition" in PPro -- I want to continue working on the project I'm working on, just using another tool! IOW, I want to build on what I'm doing, not replace it with something else! And you wonder why newbies have such a hard time learning Adobe? I've been using this stuff for a year and I'm *still* a newbie, partly because of things like this.

For another example, what do I have to do in Encore to re-transcode a sequence? I have to "revert to original". WTF? Are you kidding me? What I want, is to do the transcode again, or at least to mark the sequence as un-transcoded so that Encore with transcode it again. Making me guess that the answer is "revert to original" is just user hostile. It's just not right.

I'd like to see dynamic link become more useful too. It's faintly rediculous that when I have to add some footage to a project in PPro, I see the sequence get longer in Encore, but not the timeline that Encore uses to run the sequence. Not even a warning -- it just lops off the end of your sequence on the DVD you just burned. And no way to manually increase the size of that timeline that I can find -- the answer seems to be to throw away the existing timeline and make a new one (and redo your entire flowchart in the bargain). I mean, come on -- think! How did this make it through testing?

I was a software developer for 25 years, I know a great deal about the complexites of architecting, designing, writing, and testing code. It ain't even slightly easy, and Adobe is to be congratulated on what they've done so far. I'm just sayin' that we aren't at the end of the path yet, so please keep going.

[westonwoodbury]

CFG,

just a couple notes, & I agree with you that Adobe is doing well and should keep it going & evolving, as well as that little things between the programs really need standardized (like my post about shortcuts!)

--

In AE you can turn off the black and it becomes a transparency grid, the grid is the stardard for showing transparency.  But designing on transparency grid can be tough so AE has it black by default (maybe the default should be swapped).

Also, deleting & cutting should be available in both forms in all software; delete just gets rid of the selection; cut "cuts it" and puts it on the clipboard to be pasted.  These are universal in all software (i.e. delete on your keyboard, versus ctr-x on your keyboard).

--

Anyway, great points.  Yeah dynamic link certainly has more potential and I seems to be further developed every version.  It definitely needs some fine turning, like the Encore issue.  I don't mind 'replace with AE comp' or 'revert to original', they make sense in my mind & seem to do what you'd expect.  I personally think Adobe's much easier to learn than any of the competition.

- wb

[atsayun]

Hi guys.
You need to look at this one site for reviews. [removed by moderator]

[Mike_Susko]

As a compliment to having keyboard shortcuts, it would be nice to be able to make a shortcut button and put it in the top menu bar.

I am tired of using inconsistent and deep menu structures to do things like delete pages, layers, etc. Since I don't believe Adobe is serious about making FW any better in a real way (othewise why have they not done it yet?), it would just be nice if I could take all those disparate, deep UI actions, assign them to a button each, and put them in the top bar.

That would be nice.

[dan_hin]

I'd just like some common shortcuts and capabilities between applications.

Duplicate

Move

Rename

Timeline fwd/rew

New project

New layer/comp

Group

If you have what is essentially the same function in one application, it should be standardised to the others.

Ideally it would be great to see Adobe adopt a versatile, customisable UI much like 3D programmes eg Cinema 4D where pretty much everything can be changed to suit the user, including macros, icon sets, tabs and palettes.

Dan

[Guest]

I'd like to second Dan's post. I would like to get rid of my shortcut cheat sheets and frequent, "I did I think it was here" moments. Though, by being a master of none, just an apprentice of all, it seems that I may not know the meaning behind certain design decisions that go into these programs. I figured that placing an object in InDesign and Photoshop would be the same, or that the shortcut for the pen tool would be the same across all programs, but I assume they aren't for a reason I won't know until I become more masterful of the software I use.

[dwburman]

I'm still stuck in AE CS3 so maybe this has been addressed, but it sure would be nice if, while rendering, you could reorder and check, uncheck the items in the Render Queue. Obviousely, this would run the risk of breaking comps if a later comp required the output of an earlier comp, but in most cases it wouldn't be a problem. I was hoping I'd be able to uncheck some comps in the Render Queue by pausing the render, but that wasn't the case.

I understand the prefered workflow now is to use Media Encoder to render in the background, but I don't have that yet.

[nickmilitello]

First, thanks for asking.  I believe you guys might see a huge increase in users after the FCPX nightmare.

I have been a long time user of AE and would really like to get into PP

AE:

     great if you could some how expand a pre comp to edit its contents.  A lot of the time in will be in a precomp make an adjustment, then I have to go the main comp and see if that was correct given all the other layers in the master comp.  It would be great, if you could hit a button and open up the pre comp, edit the layers and see how it will effect your project.

Premiere Pro.

     I think most of it has been covered, however, I would like to see a better color correction workflow.  My biggest grip is that you have to select the clip you want to edit everytime you want to alter an adjustment.  It would be great if you could some how create a mode that where ever the playhead is the effects of that clip are in the editor.  COLOR works in that fashion and it is great way to do color correction.  Also if you could group clips to have the same CC.  I love the built CC effects.  The curves are great and I think you guys are almost there.  That would be my biggest problem.  No real CC workflow.  Especially when dealing with a huge timeline.