My take on the FreeCAD GUI

A forum for research and development of the user interface of FreeCAD
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Shalmeneser
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Shalmeneser »

Pipe :
1) select Form sketch in the construction tree
2) select Path sketch in the construction tree
3) do Pipe
4) OK

1) do Pipe
2) select Form sketch : but the construction tree is invisible : active tree + select sketch + active task
3) select Path sketch : but the construction tree is invisible : active tree + select sketch + active task
4) OK

Selecting before running a tool is sometime quicker and easier.
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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

Shalmeneser wrote: Sat Feb 26, 2022 3:28 pm Selecting before running a tool is sometime quicker and easier.
It is sometimes quicker, but mixing both ways is even worse.

I have stated all the benefits of using the proposed way of doing it.
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user1234
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by user1234 »

Roy_043 wrote: Sat Feb 26, 2022 9:27 am I don't think post-selection (as your suggestion is called in other CAD programs) necessarily increases productivity.
Shalmeneser wrote: Sat Feb 26, 2022 3:28 pm Selecting before running a tool is sometime quicker and easier.
Just said, my experience is it is not often about speed, it is often about unambiguousness. Every rework, even while working in a task, costs more time then the few seconds to get into task. Of course the best solutions would be support both, preselectiong or at first the operation.

Greetings
user1234

edit: typo
FreddyFreddy
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by FreddyFreddy »

Greetings from a FreeCAD newb. Having invested hours trying to make sense of FreeCAD, hours reading forum, youTube etc, I was very pleased to find this post and congratulate you for taking it on! I have used a lot of software over the years, and FWIW would like to make some suggestions based on my brief but so far less than ideal experience. I include opinions and assumptions. Please don't be cruel!

1. I get the feeling that newb feedback is largely unwanted. RTFM etc.
1a. It appears well accepted that newbs do find entry to FreeCAD challenging, at best.
1b. It appears well accepted that the UI is the biggest impediment to new users.
1c. I have seen several comments like "CAD is complex, the user just needs to learn how to use it". I suggest this is not inherently true. Good design simplifies the complex and makes things obvious.

2. CAD providers have increasingly monetised their products creating strong demand for a genuinely free product.

3. How big is the POTENTIAL market for FreeCAD compared to the current active user base? I suggest huge.

4. Positive newb experience is hence critical to capturing new users.

5. There is obvious resistance to criticism and change, which is understandable. FreeCAD has been under way for 20+ years and the developers have spilled blood and guts to get it here. But if the user base is 10 times more, the number resisting development would be dwarfed.

6. Some suggestions seem to finish up with a lot of debate over some tiny detail, which is great. But it would take forever to get a uniform outcome. May I suggest the challenge is rather more central.

7. Perhaps in addition to debating every minutae detail separately there needs to be developed a core mission statement. A set of targets that everything else can be judged by. Core values like:
- the user interface shall be uncluttered and easy to understand
- the user interface shall be free of unrelated or invalid artefacts
- the placement and grouping of controls shall be entirely or largely configurable by the user
- where possible presentation will be themed in a way that permits theme changing
- actions shall be able to be activated with a minimum of keystrokes/mouse activity
etc etc

I am looking at a FreeCAD screen with over SIXTY (!) icons that do nothing and no visual clue how to proceed. UI design is a very specialist field of which I have only a little experience, but am happy to help debate the issues. Again I congratulate you on your efforts in what is a controversial area.

Cheers.
chrisb
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by chrisb »

Hi, welcome to the forum and thanks for your input!
FreddyFreddy wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 4:50 am 3. How big is the POTENTIAL market for FreeCAD compared to the current active user base? I suggest huge.
...
5. There is obvious resistance to criticism and change, which is understandable. FreeCAD has been under way for 20+ years and the developers have spilled blood and guts to get it here. But if the user base is 10 times more, the number resisting development would be dwarfed.
...
6. Some suggestions seem to finish up with a lot of debate over some tiny detail, which is great. But it would take forever to get a uniform outcome. May I suggest the challenge is rather more central.

7. Perhaps in addition to debating every minutae detail separately there needs to be developed a core mission statement. A set of targets that everything else can be judged by. Core values like:
- the user interface shall be uncluttered and easy to understand
- the user interface shall be free of unrelated or invalid artefacts
- the placement and grouping of controls shall be entirely or largely configurable by the user
- where possible presentation will be themed in a way that permits theme changing
- actions shall be able to be activated with a minimum of keystrokes/mouse activity
etc etc
Reading your post it seems to me that you have a professional or semi professional background in doing those projects. Alas, you miss the point that this is no professional environment.

The first thing to be questionable is that a bigger user base is benefitial. For whom? For what? Outvoting the developers doesn't help anything. Perhaps it is chasing some developers away, which I personally don't see as an advantage.
Willl it bring more developers? I doubt it - although I admit that I had this opinion for a long time. Developers interested in developing a 3D application for free are not waiting for a bigger user base. And if they want to develop something special for themselves, they may be already here.

The other questionable thing is your point 7. These are excellent ideas, and in a company such decisions can be made and then, from one release to the next it could be possible to have a team breaking them down to more concrete goals and finally implement such major changes in a consistent way. During that redesign there possibly wouldn't be any parallel development of great features which don't follow such design principles.
But what should be done with an extraordinary function to be added to FreeCAD, which doesn't respect the major goals. Should it be rejected because the selection lists work differently than elsewhere? Probably not. Should another GUI-master-developer be advised to fix it? Sure not, because he cannot be forced to if he doesn't want to.
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obelisk79
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by obelisk79 »

FreddyFreddy wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 4:50 am ping
First off, thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions. I have a few thoughts related to your post.

1. The FreeCAD UI, while not without its limitations, is extremely configurable and customizable. Any 'hard' changes to the UI will be met with fierce resistance by existing power users, because of this, there are also options for nearly everything. That is a good thing.

2. Because of the customizable nature of FreeCAD and it's UI, I'm trying to coordinate a community driven effort to identify things related to the interface and more importantly the user experience to help refine the "out of the box" experience for all users.

Read here: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=66967
and here: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=66984
with more targeted discussion threads to follow.

So far participation has been, a bit disappointing. Particularly considering how many complaints about the UI/UX that crop up on a regular basis. So, as a new user, if you notice things like "Why aren't these icons grouped in a drop-down?" or "How come the button positions aren't the same between this group of functions?" or "Why is this input field named differently between functions even when the data is the same?" or "Why is the naming of this function not more clear?" or "This tool bar arrangement doesn't make sense" or "why is this context/right click menu stuffed with options that are of little/infrequent use instead of other options?" etc. then use your fresh set of eyes and take notes. Share them in my threads so I can track potential problem items and look for practical solutions to address them with minimal developer intervention necessary and help address them for those who come after you.

It's easy to criticize, people come here to do it all day, and now that I'm trying to coordinate just pinpointing problems which requires actual effort it's all crickets and I'm left researching this crap by myself which is way less effective. So feel free to pitch in.

I apologize for the small rant at the end there, it's frustrating to have my own complaints, see all the other complaints regarding this issue and when I finally step up to do something about it; I get minimal or misguided input + resistance.
keithsloan52
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by keithsloan52 »

FreddyFreddy wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 4:50 am Greetings from a FreeCAD newb. Having invested hours trying to make sense of FreeCAD, hours reading forum, youTube etc, I was very pleased to find this post and congratulate you for taking it on! I have used a lot of software over the years, and FWIW would like to make some suggestions based on my brief but so far less than ideal experience. I include opinions and assumptions. Please don't be cruel!
You are not the first and will not be the last to make such comments, criticisms and suggestions, in fact this is a common occurrence.

What you and many others that have gone before you have failed to realise is that FreeCAD development is very very laissez faire.
An analogy for me would be that FreeCAD is like a startup company that has for a startup had a lot of success but has failed to morph into a
more mature company. Other Open Source software like Blender, KiCAD have successfully transitioned to more mature and professional environments, they do planning, have release cycles, conferences etc. Other Open Software like Fritzing are struggling. It is very much as case of survival of the fittest, don't get me wrong I don't think FreeCAD is going away but it is not going to go from Strength to Strength like Blender, KiCAD etc

This thread to me is 16 pages of wasted thought keyboarding etc. There are just too many Armchair developers happy to make comments suggestions but not actually get involved. Even if somebody was to provide for FreeCAD the sort of leadership that Ton Roosendaal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_Roosendaal brought to Blender, I don't think we have large enough set of core of developers to make the sort of changes you and many others would like to see, it is just not going to happen. Also a number of core developers don't want to move away from laissez faire way of doing things.
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Kunda1 »

In my experience, getting UI/UX traction takes a lot of perseverance. Don't let it jade you or burn you out. The way I've pushed for changes is through persistence and diplomacy Don't give up. Also little changes at a time. To much change and folks get overwhelmed. I started adding feature requests for improving the Addon manager several years ago...it took a heroic effort of chennes to get it where it is today (but he benefited greatly from the work of yorik and microelly and others). UI/UX Is a long game in FreeCAD development. buckle up and lower expectations is the way to stay positive about it.

If you can find a dev that will help you to show what you propose that is even more powerful..like in a screencast.

As for freecad's approach to development, yes..it's starting to mature rapidly in the last several months. There are dev meetings happening (this is very novel territory). So changes are happening.
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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

keithsloan52 wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 12:48 pm This thread to me is 16 pages of wasted thought keyboarding etc. There are just too many Armchair developers happy to make comments suggestions but not actually get involved.
I think you misunderstood the reason for this topic in the forum. I never said, that I expect anyone to implement this. This is a documentation of my and other peoples thoughts with possible improvements on the UI/UX. I may or may not implement those on my own at some point of time.

On the other hand I am happy that you slightly came back to the center, as in your previous posts were very aggressively promoting against doing any kind of changes.
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FreddyFreddy
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by FreddyFreddy »

chrisb wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 11:50 am Alas, you miss the point that this is no professional environment.
Yes (!) but isn't that a bit defeatist? Great things have come from small ideas.
The first thing to be questionable is that a bigger user base is benefitial.
I don't know if it is questionable, but certainly my opinion may be different to yours. However, surely the size of the user base reflects, in large part, the usefulness and quality of the product.
For whom? For what? Outvoting the developers doesn't help anything. Perhaps it is chasing some developers away, which I personally don't see as an advantage.
Willl it bring more developers? I doubt it - although I admit that I had this opinion for a long time. Developers interested in developing a 3D application for free are not waiting for a bigger user base. And if they want to develop something special for themselves, they may be already here.
Why does anyone do anything in open source world? Certainly not (usually) for monetary reward. But thousands do, and there are loads of very successful open source projects. Obviously the core developers set the style and pace of the project. I don't know what their goals are. I do know its difficult for them -- they make a shiny widget, put it out there, and then along come the whinging hordes with their complaints and opinions and demanding solutions! Equally I have always found in my small projects that users are very reluctant, some simply too polite, to express an opinion. Witness the trouble successful organisations go to to get feedback. What is the goal of this project?
The other questionable thing is your point 7. These are excellent ideas, and in a company such decisions can be made and then, from one release to the next it could be possible to have a team breaking them down to more concrete goals and finally implement such major changes in a consistent way. During that redesign there possibly wouldn't be any parallel development of great features which don't follow such design principles.
We're talking concepts here. Any project of any size can can make a start down this way of thinking to bring some order to proceedings.
But what should be done with an extraordinary function to be added to FreeCAD, which doesn't respect the major goals. Should it be rejected because the selection lists work differently than elsewhere? Probably not. Should another GUI-master-developer be advised to fix it? Sure not, because he cannot be forced to if he doesn't want to.
With respect, a you-beaut funtion is not a issue for the UI. It is an implementation of functionality. How the user interacts with it is the UI issue. If every new function brings along its own idea of UI then obviously you'll have a mess. If there are guidelines, perhaps a library, life actually gets easier for the function developer. In programming terms, "separation of concerns".
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