[Sketcher] Clearer icons for : Polyline, toggle construction, toggle constraints, toggle active constraints, ext geo

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nm2107
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Re: [Sketcher] Clearer icons for : Polyline, toggle construction, toggle constraints, toggle active constraints, ext geo

Post by nm2107 »

paddle wrote: Wed Mar 02, 2022 7:20 am The idea to use arrows is interesting, the only issue I has with it is that while it looks good in big here, when it will be a small icon it will probably look very small and not very clear because you have 4 elements (2 arrows and 2 elements) so each element in itself is fairly small.
Indeed, this would be hard to read / design. I just wanted to point that out, maybe some people would come to a solution for this. Meanwhile, the slash choice is indeed closer to what we could be used to, as it is already present in some toggle icons that are used for now.
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paddle
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Re: [Sketcher] Clearer icons for : Polyline, toggle construction, toggle constraints, toggle active constraints, ext geo

Post by paddle »

What about that :
icon3.png
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chrisb
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Re: [Sketcher] Clearer icons for : Polyline, toggle construction, toggle constraints, toggle active constraints, ext geo

Post by chrisb »

The arrows at the ends of the red and blue lines are a bit cumbersome, because we never have them in FreeCAD. Pure lines should be enough.

I'm not aware of such diagonal layout from toggles in other applications. Is this some kind of de-facto standard?
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Re: [Sketcher] Clearer icons for : Polyline, toggle construction, toggle constraints, toggle active constraints, ext geo

Post by chrisb »

Shalmeneser wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 11:23 pm ...
I meant other applications. Currently toggles seem to use frequently a switch symbol known from mobile phones. So something like this could be appropriate for toggle construction. It is scalable and recognizable at small sizes as well:
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fred-3d
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Re: [Sketcher] Clearer icons for : Polyline, toggle construction, toggle constraints, toggle active constraints, ext geo

Post by fred-3d »

@ adrianinsaval
I don't mind the diagonal divider line either. If it is retained, I also think that all of the "toggle" settings should use a consistent divider color and use a color that would make it easier for colorblind users to see it, maybe yellow. (see https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/).

I like your example of reusing the simpler "contrain distance" arrow icon and spitting it in two with a diagonal yellow line (no gradient).

I also like the idea of showing the current state of each of the "toggle" icons by having a different icon for each state. This could be as simple as "graying out" the half of the icon that is currently inactive. There is already a precedent of using "grayed out" icons that are not available in the current context.

@paddle
+1 for the PolyLine icon rework.
+1 for the larger External Geometry icon.

In general, I am of fan of having icons that are too easily confused with other icons. Having four different icons that all have "a square in the lower left corner and a square in the upper right corner" is confusing.

Also, icons with many small details can be a problem for people using laptops where 16bit icons can be are hard to differentiate from one another. This forces these users use larger 24bit+ icons and give up precious screen real estate just to be able tell icons apart.

Thank you for your efforts!
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Isabel
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Re: [Sketcher] Clearer icons for : Polyline, toggle construction, toggle constraints, toggle active constraints, ext geo

Post by Isabel »

chrisb wrote: Thu Mar 03, 2022 11:45 pm Currently toggles seem to use frequently a switch symbol known from mobile phones. So something like this could be appropriate for toggle construction. It is scalable and recognizable at small sizes as well:
I like these switches. They could easily show which one is on, but I think that this is not necessary, because the geometric elements icons switch already their color.
If you are interested I can try to create them in the style of the other icons.
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paddle
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Re: [Sketcher] Clearer icons for : Polyline, toggle construction, toggle constraints, toggle active constraints, ext geo

Post by paddle »

As previous offered icons didn't meet approval, here's a new proposal for toggle constraint:
toggle constrain icons.png
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There are two icons because the idea is that the icon of the tool change when you toggle it.

For Toggle active constraint, I was thinking the same concept but with a tangent constraint red / gray. But first I wanted feedback on that first one.

SVG enclosed
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Re: [Sketcher] Clearer icons for : Polyline, toggle construction, toggle constraints, toggle active constraints, ext geo

Post by chrisb »

paddle wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 8:32 am toggle constrain icons.png
I like the idea of reusing one of the dimensional icons and the angle symbol is good. As the most frequently used dimensional constraints are vertical and horizontal distance, I would appreciate it even more, if it was based on the horizontal distance icon.
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