Hey guys, I’m currently in the process of redesigning the icons so that they work well with the dark theme. I’ve also got a few suggestions that I’d like to share as well.
Suggestions:
#1: Default Synfig to the Dark Theme. Photoshop, Clip Studio, ToonBoom and even Krita have already done this. The dark theme is easier on the eyes and I have to assume that it’s a better choice from a marketing position as well. (BUG: While in dark theme, the number of the current frame is black which makes it hard to read.)
#2: The toolbar must be able to be compressed down to a single column. At the moment, it can only be compressed to three columns. The color picker and everything with it will need to be rearranged and scaled down in size to save toolbar space.
#3: Make the tool buttons more square instead of rectangular and make them larger so that the user can see more of the image icon.
#4: Give the option to change icon sizes in the view drop-down menu. There should be options for normal, Large, XLarge for people with various size monitors and eyesight.
#5: Change the font. The current font is too thin and is difficult to read. The font should focus on being clean and readable.
#6: Icon location in Synfig is a total mess. All icons for the program should exist in a single, easy to find, folder. This will help artists organize and update icons.
#7: When changing to a different tool, don’t have the tool properties tab automatically active. Some people have their tools already set to the way they want and find it annoying when the tool property auto-activates. In my case, I have to keep reactivating the layers tab due to the tool tab turning itself on.
#8: After drawing with the spline tool, it would be nice if the tool completed the shape when a hotkey like ‘space’ or ‘enter’ was pressed.
#9: Give an option to collapse animation channels in the timeline. Usually the user just wants to see channels that actually have keyframes in them. All unused channels are essentially just wasting space and making the timeline harder to read.
#10: Remove any incomplete tools like the brush tools from the stable release. I can’t stress this enough, but you can’t afford to have beta testing stuff in the stable version. Basically, it makes Synfig look unprofessional. You guys need to make it a rule that only polished and complete tools go into the release, everything else is forked to experimental builds.
#11: Combine Tools together to keep redundancy low. You guys really don’t need a circle, square and polygon tool. You could just have a single draw shape tool and have the shape type as a tool setting. Aim to reduce the toolbar to one line of very concise and well polished tools.
#12: Give us a ‘grid’ in the timeline. This makes it easier to see what frame number a keyframe is on.