IDE GUI Readability

[James_Wagner]

Sorry, but on MacOS (Monterey), it sucks! There is no more gentle way to put it.

Example: toolbar at the top of the IDE window. 2019 has a nice big triangle for the “Run” action. It is filled with a bold green and the enclosing triangle has a nice black, several pixel, border. 2023 has a wimpy little triangle that has a thin border and no fill. Ditto with most of the other toolbar “icons”.

Folks, if your eyesight is not that of a perfect 18-year old, you have made it far harder than it needs to be. I have to take a moment to focus on that tool bar, and decide which one to click, even if I had done the same action just a few minutes earlier. That is frustrating and slows everything down. And it is doubly frustrating because it does not have to be that way!

XOJO, you would do well to hire an “accessibility consultant” to go through the IDE.

As for the LR, I find it a mess. Yes, you have all of the different targets to sort out and there is generally more information that you are trying to provide rapid access to the user. But, here, the coloring just makes my head swim. Everything seems to be crammed together into small spaces with the coloring not assisting the user, at all.

PLEASE spend some time on human access. What a shame to create an innovative cross-platform development environment, then make it harder to use than it needs to be (and a lot harder than it used to be)!

Jim Wagner - Oregon Research Electronics

[Paul_Chance]

One thing (among many) that was pointed out to me with my first project was accommodation for those who are color blind. You can google for palettes that are color blind friendly - for example I believe green and red look about the same - note to traffic light designers - and neither is green or red. So those might be avoided.

[Douglas_Handy]

I suggest you learn the keyboard shortcuts. Which are also customizable under Preferences.

I rarely click the Run icon in the toolbar, instead using the keyboard to do it. But your point is taken, as I have older eyes myself…

[TimStreater]

@James_Wagner

Example: toolbar at the top of the IDE window. 2019 has a nice big triangle for the “Run” action. It is filled with a bold green and the enclosing triangle has a nice black, several pixel, border. 2023 has a wimpy little triangle that has a thin border and no fill. Ditto with most of the other toolbar “icons”.

Folks, if your eyesight is not that of a perfect 18-year old, you have made it far harder than it needs to be. I have to take a moment to focus on that tool bar, and decide which one to click, even if I had done the same action just a few minutes earlier. That is frustrating and slows everything down. And it is doubly frustrating because it does not have to be that way!

I’m afraid this is all part of the absurd modern tend towards having:

1. Buttons with no borders so you have to guess where you may click
2. Window title bars full of buttons so you have to guess where to grab with the mouse when you want to move the window
3. Window title bars the same colour as the window background and no border so you can’t even tell where you might be able to grab (see (2), above).

[MarkusR]

i know ide’s where the toolbar was an image strip which could be replaced.

[Julia_Truchsess]

@TimStreater

I’m afraid this is all part of the absurd modern tend towards having:

1. Buttons with no borders so you have to guess where you may click
2. Window title bars full of buttons so you have to guess where to grab with the mouse when you want to move the window
3. Window title bars the same colour as the window background and no border so you can’t even tell where you might be able to grab (see (2), above).

And my favorite: control elements one pixel wide, making them extremely difficult to grab and drag. Windows used to have clearly visible handles, now you have to find the edge. Grabbing cells to drag in Excel is excruciatingly difficult now. Disappearing scroll bars that even when visible are difficult to grab. MacOS window title bars are now full of controls that make it difficult to just move a window with activating something.

[AlbertoD]

@James_Wagner

but on MacOS (Monterey), it sucks! There is no more gentle way to put it.

Example: toolbar at the top of the IDE window. 2019 has a nice big triangle for the “Run” action. It is filled with a bold green and the enclosing triangle has a nice black, several pixel, border. 2023 has a wimpy little triangle that has a thin border and no fill. Ditto with most of the other toolbar “icons”.

That’s the “modern” way to do things (pushed by Apple and others). If you don’t like it, you can install macOS Catalina and you will get the old version:

[TimStreater]

@AlbertoD

That’s the “modern” way to do things (pushed by Apple and others). If you don’t like it, you can install macOS Catalina and you will get the old version:

Catalina is what I run, on my machine. SWMBO has an M1 so has to run a later OS.

[Arnaud_N]

@Julia_Truchsess

And my favorite: control elements one pixel wide, making them extremely difficult to grab and drag. Windows used to have clearly visible handles, now you have to find the edge. Grabbing cells to drag in Excel is excruciatingly difficult now. Disappearing scroll bars that even when visible are difficult to grab. MacOS window title bars are now full of controls that make it difficult to just move a window with activating something.

That’s so true… All these examples are hard to believe. Why on earth would a trend be just about making things harder to use?