Users complain boring user interface of my apps

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the.weavster
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by the.weavster »

chi wrote:But unfortunately not DPI-Aware, which is a No-Go these days...
How will I notice that's a problem?
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Mijikai »

the.weavster wrote:
chi wrote:But unfortunately not DPI-Aware, which is a No-Go these days...
How will I notice that's a problem?
Change the dpi of your monitor...
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by srod »

I don't understand how a canvas gadget, in itself, is supposed to be dpi aware when it is essentially image based?

Using the new DPI aware setting on Windows with the new desktop functions should be enough to correctly render the content appropriate to the DPI settings prior to the start of the application running. I am guessing that such a program will not respond to a change of dpi whilst the program is running (I still use Win 7 and so cannot test this) or when the main window is dragged to a different monitor with a different DPI, but at least it is a start.

If the DPI aware compiler flag results in a true DPI aware program (in the #PROCESS_PER_MONITOR_DPI_AWARE sense) then the #WM_DPICHANGED notification is all that would be needed for us to ensure our canvas gadgets are always rendered correctly regardless of when the user might change the underlying dpi.

Not sure how all this might work on other platforms mind?
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the.weavster
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by the.weavster »

If it is a problem it must be when the DPI gets out of the range of my monitor. In fact as I play with the settings the CanvasGadget() based widgets fare OK, it's everything else that doesn't look so clever.
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Zebuddi123 »

@Lord. Well I think it would suit Linux, big and blocky and yes ugly lol. pmsl and in reality we need something like Scite!

Zebuddi. :)
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Kuron »

chi wrote:But unfortunately not DPI-Aware, which is a No-Go these days...
Which is a non-issue for the canvas gadget.

The only potential issue with the canvas gadget is it is 24-bit and not 32-bit.
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by c-smile »

Kukulkan wrote: But people expect it to look like this:
Image
Disclaimer: I am an author of the Sciter Engine.

As soon as Sciter is already mentioned in this discussion...

I've added recently support of Acrylic (Win) and Vibrant (Mac) theming: https://sciter.com/sciter-4-2-support-o ... c-theming/

You definitely can do such UIs with PB + Sciter bundle.

In principle, with CSS, you can tune UI style to much target platform as close as possible. Or to use Sciter's "unisex" theming, check my http://notes.sciter.com , Win/Lin/Mac screenshots are on front page. IMHO, the Notes looks pretty native on each platform despite the fact that this is completely windowless UI (GPU accelerated, dpi-aware, all that).
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Kuron »

c-smile wrote: Disclaimer: I am an author of the Sciter Engine.
Welcome to the PureBasic community. :)
Best wishes to the PB community. Thank you for the memories. ♥️
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Kuron »

c-smile wrote:In principle, with CSS, you can tune UI style to much target platform as close as possible. Or to use Sciter's "unisex" theming, check my http://notes.sciter.com , Win/Lin/Mac screenshots are on front page. IMHO, the Notes looks pretty native on each platform despite the fact that this is completely windowless UI (GPU accelerated, dpi-aware, all that).
That is indeed a very nice theme being used on Notes. Much better than trying to clone the default Metro GUI theme.
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Dude »

Kukulkan wrote:people expect it to look like [Win 10]
Should Win 7 users expect it to look like Win 10, too? Win 10 (blue line) is only just slightly higher than Win 7 (yellow line) in market share (47% vs 39%, source: http://gs.statcounter.com/windows-versi ... worldwide/), and that share isn't even growing at a rapid rate -- it's petered off at the moment:

Image

I think it's unreasonable for them to demand everything look like Win 10. I'd point them to the above data and tell them that the world doesn't revolve around Win 10 right now and that you're currently keeping the backwards-compatible Win 7 look to cater for that large market segment. And/or even lie and say your app stats show that Win 7 users are the majority of your customers, and thus you're not switching to Win 10 until that changes. Your app; your rules. (I've spent far too much time and energy on bowing to the wishes of some customers and turning my apps into something I didn't want, and I refuse to do that anymore).
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Lord »

Zebuddi123 wrote:@Lord. Well I think it would suit Linux, big and blocky and yes ugly lol. pmsl and in reality we need something like Scite!

Zebuddi. :)
No, it's for the Teletubby generation. Hasn't anything to do with the type of operating system.
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Kiffi »

c-smile wrote:Disclaimer: I am an author of the Sciter Engine.
a warm welcome from me, too! :D

Greetings ... Peter
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Mistrel »

There isn't an easy fix for this because the layout of the controls in these windows is handled completely differently. Whereas Win32 was pixel-based, modern UIs tend to use a flow layout with containers and "layout managers".

Then when you throw DPI scaling into the mix it gets all pear shaped.

I don't think it would be possible to implement this correctly without a serious amount of rework, especially when considering cross-platform compatibility and consistency between styles. We already have to deal with classic/mordern (XP) theming.

GUIs have always been been a mess. And there is no easy solution. :?

For tools and small applications I am happy to use straight Win32 controls. But when I want something fancy I will often opt for using the web gadget and drawing the interface through HTML/CSS, especially for multiple "page" applications where you click previous/next, etc.
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Fred »

c-smile wrote:
Kukulkan wrote: But people expect it to look like this:
Image
Disclaimer: I am an author of the Sciter Engine.

As soon as Sciter is already mentioned in this discussion...

I've added recently support of Acrylic (Win) and Vibrant (Mac) theming: https://sciter.com/sciter-4-2-support-o ... c-theming/

You definitely can do such UIs with PB + Sciter bundle.

In principle, with CSS, you can tune UI style to much target platform as close as possible. Or to use Sciter's "unisex" theming, check my http://notes.sciter.com , Win/Lin/Mac screenshots are on front page. IMHO, the Notes looks pretty native on each platform despite the fact that this is completely windowless UI (GPU accelerated, dpi-aware, all that).
Thanks for your input, nice to have comment from the inside :)
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Re: Users complain boring user interface of my apps

Post by Karellen »

c-smile wrote: You definitely can do such UIs with PB + Sciter bundle.

In principle, with CSS, you can tune UI style to much target platform as close as possible. Or to use Sciter's "unisex" theming, check my http://notes.sciter.com , Win/Lin/Mac screenshots are on front page. IMHO, the Notes looks pretty native on each platform despite the fact that this is completely windowless UI (GPU accelerated, dpi-aware, all that).
Man, Sciter looks promising! Was already thinking about leaving PB because of the lack of exactly this - a modern, CSS based UI. Looks quite too good to be true! :D Will have a close look asap!
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