Participant

Question

New, Darker, UI for InDesign CS6

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
May 7, 2012
9 replies
99215 views

I love the new, darker, UI for Photoshop and Illustrator CS6 but why hasn't it been incorporated across the full suite? I'd love to see this in InDesign, too.

This topic has been closed for replies.

PBR_PRINT

Participant

All these clever posts... i dont care, I dont care about what yout hink or your logic... i want the same Dark UI, get over it, its my option to want it, and therefore request it... period...

John Hawkinson

Inspiring

OK, I think this thread has run its course. Locking.

C

CaramelMacchiato

Inspiring

Steve Perry Creative,

Like you, I was perplexed about the inconsistency of darker UI in some apps, and others remain intact as it has been for years. From my perspective, it is confusing especially for those who are new to Adobe apps such as through Adobe Creative Cloud per se.

In my humble opinion, Adobe is already a well-established respected design software company that made billions of dollars in profit year after year and on. I find that it is very ironic that Adobe do not use the software engineering resource very wisely. Thus, it is inconsistency and failed UI design as a whole.

I strongly believe that every Creative Suite product users like myself, Master Collection CS6 Mac, should have the option to have UI options to my perference. I personally like darker UI - just to remove all kind of distractions.

Yet, I do understand on both side of issues, pro and con. But I would think it should give any product users the opportunity to have option whether you want it darker or not, just like famous simple "L" used in Lightroom. If it works nicely, why can't do the same for rest. Come on, Adobe. You can do better.

Brian

D

Dave_Breck

Known Participant

I agree with your sentiment but I really am not sure Adobe can do better. They've had some of these products for 20 years, others through ill-fated acquisition (Macromedia) and as one suite they suffer from poor UI guidance and it's really evident that some of these folks don't even work in the same city much less building. The lack of collaboration is stunning.

The fact that some gorgeous UI products all are products of Adobe is equally disheartening. The fact that clunkiness and inconsistency among command prompts between tools is such a disconnect obviously takes a back seat to the product that people create with these tools.Why Adobe hasn't hired a Jonny Ive (or fired the one who pretends to be his equal) to knock the left brain heads of each product group together I guess only Adobe knows.

I don't think it has much to do with anything other than Adobe right now has little to no competition in many of these areas, and most certainly not in a "suite" fashion that is dominating. Ironically it's also exposing these teams who simply don't talk to one another.Anyone want to put the UI from Acrobat next to Photoshop?

Except Marketing, of course. They sure make it look all pretty when it starts up, be it for the first time (or second, or third, etc etc)

Nicholas Petropoulos

Inspiring

If I may add my two cents. This supposed 'hot new look' in CS6 is nothing more than a red herring for anyone even the slightest bit concerned with asthetics. I suspect deep down, the 'designers' at Adobe are hell bent on removing all that is special about the MAC interface and slowly replacing it with the bland, square, god awful interfaces that the PC world has accepted as the norm for years. The inconsistencies in the palette designs throughout the suite is just plain lazy. Having vented that, is there anyone else experiencing the NON working spotlight feature in InDesign when opening a document? Please help!

John Hawkinson

Inspiring

Is there anyone else experiencing the NON working spotlight feature in InDesign when opening a document? Please help!

Huh?

Nicholas Petropoulos

Inspiring

John. In the dialogue box when opening a document, the search (spotlight) feature fails to respond. When in the PLACE dialogue box the search (spotlight) feature works as it should. MAC based.

It's a serious bug.

M

MrG3x266

Participating Frequently

The answer is simple. It will be a "new feature" in version 6.5 and all you will have to do is upgrade for a nominal fee and you will get an option that should have already been there.

It is sold as a "suite". You would think it would have the same look and feel. The same "theme". A company that specializes in "design" has a train wreck for an interface "new feature".

Adobe must have hired the same people who thought the "Choclate brown" zune would sell like hot cakes because everyone wants a musical turd in their pocket!.

As to keyboard shortcuts...

If there was only a means of customizing keyboard shortcuts and save those as custom sets. Maybe put it under EDIT->Keyboard Shortcuts. That way when Adobe releases Indesign 1.0 They can woo Quark users with a "Quark" keyboard shortcut layout. Who knows? Maybe after introducing that in Indesign 1.0 they could apply that to all of their programs and give true customization to all their flagship programs! Bundle them together (puppy) and call it something catchy like "Creative Suite". But what if Adobe spends all that time trying to figure out how to make a proper custom installer, snazzy splash screens, and spends years trying to figure out how to put flash on iOS and doesn't offer UI features across all products?

The important thing is almost every program has its own interface and we all know that having to stop and look for something is by far the most productive thing a person can do.

Choclate Zune anyone?

D

Dave_Breck

Known Participant

The lack of consistency in UI goes beyond just an option because "they were too busy making the product perfect" and other silly excuses being made here. It is usability. Adobe has long suffered from good usability across the product spectrum, at times almost defiantly so (like not enabling mouse actions to navigate clunky interfaces like Bridge that match that of Finder).

I love that Illustrator and PS snap right open when launched, a huge improvement for me. InDesign to me does feel like a redheaded stepchild.

But overall how about less excuses for the individual silos at Adobe and one person who manages interface and usability at the top of the food chain there? There's a company in Cupertino that pretty much does that. And while they're certainly not perfect either, they do work together across products and it makes a huge difference for usability.

This software should put USABILITY at the top of its list. It's clearly not.

John Hawkinson

Inspiring

This software should put USABILITY at the top of its list. It's clearly not.

It's worth noting that there is not universal agreement on this topic.

I recently filled out an Adobe survey for a bunch of Creative Suite products I use, and I was asked to rank Usability, Reliability, Functionality, Ease of Installation, and I think one other category I am forgeting.

In any case, I definitely didn't rank Usability first. For me, InDesign does the things I need to do, and it's much more important to me that it work and not crash than that it be friendly. And there are features I want and need to do my job and again, they are much more important than usability. I rank Usability over Ease of Installation (after all, most people only install once).

This is not to say I'm right. Not at all.

Merely that there are legitimate reasons why usability is not the top priority, and I agree with them.

But even worse, I think, there is not widespread agreement that the dark UI is important to usability. Or even UI consistency across the suite. To me, that stuff is pointless fluff and window dressing. Yeah, sure, I get annoyed that the keyboard command to Go to a Page is different between InDesign (Cmd-J) and Acrobat (Cmd-Shift-N). But for the most part, they are consistent enough to let me get my work done.

Usability is really how easy the software is to use. That doesn't necessarily mean suite integration. It can, for some kinds of users, but not everybody. A lot of InDesign users really don't use the other creative suite products the same way they use InDesign and don't need deep integration and consistency. For some users, maybe suite integration is important. But definitely not everyone.

Anyhow, in case no one mentioned it, there isn't really any reason to think this forum is actively monitored by the InDesign team. If you want to reach them, you can use http://adobe.com/go/wish/. Or perhaps David Blatner's http://indesign.uservoice.com/.

L

lvthunder

Inspiring

They should be more consistant between all the different products. They are selling it as a suite and now with creative cloud there are going to be a lot more new users to all these apps. All Adobe is doing now is confusing the new users when a lot of the commands are the same just with a different shortcut.

And yes Adobe is moving away from the MAC and WINDOWS specific dialog boxes. They want all the training to apply both to the Windows and Mac versions.

And Adobe started this whole trend to the dark UI with Lightroom when it first came out. In fact in Lightroom you can press L twice and the UI turns black and all you see is your picture.

A

Anonymous

I've been using InDesign since it's initial release, and PageMaker before that (although I preferred Quark 4 back then). The lack of Dark UI isn't a big deal—I’m still deciding if I even want to keep the dark option on Ps and Ai—it’s Adobe's constant lack of consistency and polish that irks me.

For all the money they charge for their products, they could at least clean up and unify their applications. I’m sure they employ enough programers and to get it done, they’re not a little shop developer trying to make do, mind you.

I wish they had a big competitor to keep them on their toes. Just about any company that lacks competition looses their edge. Microsoft was(is?) producing crap until they saw Apple and Android dominating the mobile market, and Intel really started to loose it to AMD until they revamped with the Core line. Competition breeds better products. Adobe if top dog, they just want to lay around and give us minor updates for premium prices.

John Hawkinson

Inspiring

For all the money they charge for their products, they could at least clean up and unify their applications. I’m sure they employ enough programers and to get it done, they’re not a little shop developer trying to make do, mind you.

Actually, I think that is pretty much the hardest thing you could possibly ask of them.

All the point products are managed by different management teams with different priorities. They have important priorities for their own constituencies, and generally those priorities get more attention than shared-suite issues. Furthermore, the codebases of the applications are radically different. Especially with respect to UI, it is pretty unlikely that most of them could share significant code without a huge rewrite. And then there are legacy issues -- there's no getting around the fact that Illustrator and InDesign both use Cmd/Control-D for different functions, and those functions are ingrained habits from the birth of those products. To change one (or both) would make a lot of users (or 2x a lot) unhappy.

So this "unification" you speak of is both technically difficult and politically difficult. I'm also pretty much unconvinced it would benefit users (but certainly some people think it would!). For instance, I work in InDesign primarily, and Photoshop, Acrobat, and Illustrator often but less frequently. I can see a lot of pain that would come from attempts to mak them more consistent and more unified, and a lot of places where I would much rather see development resources targeted. Yes, my brain has to switch gears when switching apps. Fortunately my brain has a transmission so it's OK.

Jongware

Community Expert

John, the sad thing is you may be right on this:

> If Adobe put development resources into a dark UI, I would find that wasted work and effort that would take away limited resources from development that's actually important.

... it may actually be the reason the Illustrator and Photoshop *do* have a Dark UI option.

"Guys, *no-one* has ideas for the new version? Nobody at all?"

".. A dark user interface?"

"Brilliant!"

C

Cerebral Ideas

Participant

I just opened up the new InDesign from CS6 and was very disappointed that the dark UI is not available. InDesign has always seemed to be Adobe's red-headed step-child. It's such a powerful, important application that tends to be the most neglected. Sad.

John Hawkinson

Inspiring

For what it's worth, a lot of us are glad that InDesign CS6 fixes hundreds of bugs and has features that people actually use. If Adobe put development resources into a dark UI, I would find that wasted work and effort that would take away limited resources from development that's actually important.

(Additionally, the apps that deal primarily with photos and video are much more likely to benefit from a dark UI. In InDesign, where you're typically laying out items destined for white paper, the alleged benefit is much diminished).

Anyhow, there are two sides to the story. Feel free to disagree, of course, but please realize that others have opinions counter to yours.

I also think there are significant technical reasons why InDesign doesn't have a dark UI, relating to its transition to Mac OS's Cocoa API, which is still not there are of CS6, but is probably coming soon in the next version.

I am puzzled at the characterization of InDesign as a "red-headed stepchild." It does not at all seem to me that InDesign is neglected compared to other Adobe apps. There are even ways in which it seems to get more resources than the others (in a good way).

A

Anonymous

Hi John.

Your points are all valid, however...

The option to darken would be great, the word option being important.

Users such as yourself could still elect to continue with the lighter UI. I prefer the darker UI in the other apps, and prefer to have the ability to adjust it as needed, the current offering allows for no adaptation.

A final point: not all projects involve white paper.

A

Anonymous

Being a heavy user of design software at a large format print company, Adobe's lack of uniformity makes them seem like a very poorly managed company. The Dark interface is the latest example of that.

I'm using the trial of CS6 right now, and switching from a dark Photoshop UI to a bright InDesign UI not only feels odd, but literally hurts my eyes until they adjust. This just adds to the pile of consistency issues, such as to change the file's size in Illustrator you type Shift+O, In Photoshop Command+Option+C, and InDesign Command+Option+P.

I wish they're get thir act together...they sure do love taking our money though...and lots of it...

Jongware

Community Expert

Having separate development teams for Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and InDesign is one of Adobe's weirder corporate decisions.

So I understand from this there is *still* no congruence in options, look, and feel of this "suite", even in its 6th incarnation? "You can now have a dark interface" was actually touted as "new! improved!" on the Illustrator forum.

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