GUI options

[prmod3d]

First of all, Layerling is a phenomenal project that greatly expands the features of Tinkercad, and I'm enjoying the exploration and testing of the app so far! I look forward to contributing suggestions to make it even better as it continues to evolve.

One thing I didn't like on first use though is the colour scheme choices of the background and some of the object feature colours. Of course it's a purely subjective thing, but I prefer to use the light background and the yellowish off-white colour drives me nutz <!>. Is it possible to include more colour pallette options in the settings like there currently is for choosing the Workplane grid colour?

I also find the colour used on the edge-defining line of objects to be difficult to see at times (especially with certain colour combos which tend to make an object look flat and non-descript) and would like to be able to define that colour myself as well. Personally, I prefer the black edge-line that Tinkercad uses, but having the option to use any colour choice would be ideal.

[henmedia]

Thanks for the kind words, @prmod3d, and for the clear description.

Where it stands today: the light theme uses a warm cream, the dark theme is brownish, and Graphite is a neutral grey but only dark. So there is no neutral light look. The work-area background in the light theme is a stored value without a setting to change it; only the grid colour has one. For the lines on bodies there is no setting either. As far as I can see in the code, complex shapes (cone, tube, imported meshes and the like) get a dark line, a plain box shows none until you select it, and a selected body gets the blue outline.

Both are reasonable to add: a colour setting for the work-area background, possibly a neutral light palette for the whole interface (the way Graphite is for dark), and an option for the line colour, including black like Tinkercad. Two questions: do you mean only the 3D work area or also the panels and the toolbar around it? And which shapes look flat to you, so I look at the right lines?

[prmod3d]

Thanks for considering more user-defined colour options. Although having colour options for all the panels and toolbars would certainly be welcomed, I can also see that many options getting quite overwhelming. Mainly just options for the general background colour and Workplane are what I'm proposing for now. As for shapes looking flat, basically all of them, especially on the darker colours. I had to go and compare the difference with Tinkercad, and as far as I can tell the only difference is the black edge-lines that Tinkercad uses which really make the objects more visible. although there may be more contrast in the lighting of the side shades as well.

[henmedia]

@prmod3d Thanks, you're right: only the centre cross and the border grow so far, the other grid lines stay one pixel wide, so they fade as you zoom in. I'll give every grid line a narrow band too, so all of them grow with the zoom as in Tinkercad, while they stay visible when you zoom out. It comes with the next update.

[prmod3d]

Here are some screen captures of how the zoomed grid looks in Tinkercad.

Contrary to my earlier report, I made an error with regards to the Sketch grid -- the line thickness does NOT increase with the zoom, presumably because Sketch mode works at a much higher resolution (and zoom levels) than the standard Workspace and Sketch control points would quickly become dwarfed by the line thickness, thus affecting plot accuracy.

The grid on the standard Workspace does enlarge with zoom, thus making the secondary grid lines easier to see. The captures below are standard workspace followed by Sketch workspace. Each small square represent a zoomed 1mm grid, and the darker border grid is 10mm:

[henmedia]

@prmod3d Thanks for the captures, that is just what the next update does: in the 3D workspace every grid line lies on the plate as a narrow band, a twentieth of the grid step for the fine lines and twice that for the darker 10 mm lines, so at your zoom they come out about as wide as in your first picture. The sketch grid is untouched and stays thin, as in your second picture, so the points and lines of a sketch are not swallowed by it.

[henmedia]

@prmod3d 1.58.0 is out: every grid line in the 3D workspace now grows with the zoom.

[prmod3d]

Great. I think that covers all the Tinkercad emulation for the GUI, with the exception of the shadows being too light -- which you said was a function of how the shadows are affected by the contrast setting. Maybe there's a futures solution, otherwise I guess people can just bump up the overall contrast if they like (although they may not be aware of the correlation).