Lmms: Automation slope icons could use more contrast

[SirBothersome]

I've found that in the latest master, its a little difficult to distinguish the diagonal slope from the curved slope in the automation editor at a distance of around a foot. Here's what I mean

Compared to the legacy icons, I dunno, it just seems a little less clear, as there appears to be more on the bottom

[tresf]

Agreed.

[mikobuntu]

Perhaps a full sine wave for the curved slope, meaning the right side would be raised more, the diagonal slope could also be edited to make it look sharper .. mockup to follow.

[RebeccaDeField]

If we wanted to make the angles a bit more extreme:

@mikobuntu Looking forward to seeing your idea :)

[SirBothersome]

Pardon my horrendous graphic design chops, but I think something along the lines of

would be the least confusing (not leaving out the square, just as a comparison)

[Moth-Tolias]

what about inverting the phase of one of them?

[Spekular]

How about something like this:

(Pardon the sketchiness)

[RebeccaDeField]

@SirBothersome I believe this is what your idea would look like in action:

EDIT: Updated a minor detail to better reflect his original idea

@Spekular And your idea:

Please let me know if I have mocked up your ideas as you imagined so I can get some votes and we can decide on what route to take :)

[Spekular]

Looks about right! I like how they look when properly done.
The middle icon could have the second "point" more centered perhaps, the asymmetry/unevenness was mostly a result of sketching on my phone.
Either way my (definitely not biased) vote goes to my idea.

[SirBothersome]

I believe @Spekular 's Idea is more definitive. My vote goes to his.

On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 4:29 AM, Spekular [e-mail] wrote:

Looks about right!!I like how they look when properly done.
The middle icon could have the second "point" more centered perhaps, the
asymmetry/unevenness was mostly a result of sketching on my phone.
Either way my (definitely not biased) vote goes to my idea.

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[RebeccaDeField]

@Spekular Glad to hear that you like it! I'm not sure I'm understanding your tweak perfectly. Do you mean to make the second icon stairstep down symmetrically in three "steps" or to have it look the same as it down now in the program?

[Spekular]

I mean the "step up" could be centered as opposed to off to the left. The lower and higher regions would be the same width.

It's a bit hard to describe. If needed I can make another mock up to show what I mean.

[RebeccaDeField]

@Spekular Now that you put it that way, I think I actually know exactly what you mean.

Please let me know if this is accurate :)

[Spekular]

Yup! That's what I meant :+1:

[RebeccaDeField]

Would like to get some feedback on these options...

Redesigning the icons according to @Spekular's feedback

OR
Adjusting the angles to make the icons a bit more distingishable

@BaraMGB @tresf @Umcaruje @mikobuntu @SirBothersome

[Umcaruje]

@RebeccaDeField I vote the option 2, looks nicer to me.

[BaraMGB]

Option 2 don't really fix the issue, I guess.

[RebeccaDeField]

@BaraMGB Thanks for the feedback! I would love to get a more info about why it doesn't work for you, if option 1 is a better solution or what you might suggest instead. :)

[tresf]

I think what he's saying is option 2 suffers the same problems as the bug report describes... The linear and bezier both look somewhat bezier.

I'd vote option 2, with the linear swapped from option one.

[RebeccaDeField]

@tresf

Ah, thanks I think I see what he's saying.

That makes option 3 :)

I personally like this idea the best so far.

I also thought of this as a sort of in between for option 2 and 3

[Spekular]

:+1: option 3

[zonkmachine]

👍 The last one... option 4?

[BaraMGB]

option 3 + 4 both fixes the issue. :+1:
I vote for option 3

[RebeccaDeField]

I believe that option 3 is our winner here and I think it's a good compromise between the various ideas that have been posted. I just want to confirm before I make the pull request that we will want to update the linear icon throughout the rest of the program where it is used to represent automation.

@tresf @BaraMGB

[tresf]

I believe that option 3 is our winner here and I think it's a good compromise between the various ideas that have been posted. I just want to confirm before I make the pull request that we will want to update the linear icon throughout the rest of the program where it is used to represent automation.

Agreed. 👍 (main toolbar and song-editor icons too)

[Spekular]

Could we use one of the other two as the icon? To me they convey "automation" better since they have more points.

[tresf]

@Spekular I thought about that too. The problem I see with the other solutions...

1. The Bezier curve could be misinterpreted for an LFO symbol
2. The olympic stairs are just a confusing icon when taken out of the context of the automation editor.
3. The straight slope is a very, very common use of the automation editor for beginner producers to do a volume-fadeout. I think this is the widest adoption rate for beginners and advanced users.

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[Spekular]

@tresf fair points.

Adding actual points/handles to the editor icon might help, but could look pretty bad/cluttered.

[tresf]

@> Adding actual points/handles to the editor icon might help

I'll defer that to the designers. For reference, Gimp uses this artwork:

FL Studio uses something similar:

Personally, I think a beginner is confused by dots and lines. A ramp (with or without dot) seems quite logical, at least for now. 👍

[RebeccaDeField]

@tresf pretty much summed up my perspective on this.

@Spekular What do you say if we finish this idea and if there is any confusion over the icon, we can revisit it?

[Spekular]

@RebeccaDeField :+1: