Styles issues in V11?

[braj]

I have to admit styles always throw me for a loop, I just get confused by it constantly, but it rerally seems something might be broken in V11. It just doesn't seem like changes are being reflected or updating correctly. Has anyone else seen styles weirdness? I am so confused about it that I don't feel I can coherently describe my issues right now. Ugh. This is one area of the UI/engine that I think is in need of a major overhaul.

[wovenskin]

Yeah, I gotta agree with braj on this one. My biggest gripe with anime studio. Every version I cross my fingers and hope it's better but nope. I admit I'm just a casual user. I will do a fun little project then not touch the program for a few months then do another little project. And each time I need to re-learn or re- deal with the way styles work. It just doesn't work the way you EXPECT it to. Very frustrating. Eventually I'll get around to posting a video. There must be a "right" way of doing things. I just wish it were a little more natural.

[GCharb]

Styles are easy really, you create a new style, select fill and stroke colors and the such, then you create a shape, select the shape(Q), then apply the style of your choice to the selected shape through the Style 1 or Style 2 drop box in the styles window, and 11 makes it possible to save and load styles, nifty.

[synthsin75]

Older tutorial, but it all still applies.

[braj]

Yeah, I know how it is supposed to work, but I was seeing it behaving strangely, I was creating a shape, setting the style, then seeing some layers accept the style and some ignore them. Anyhow, it is confusing. There might be a bug, but I am not quite sure because the whole feature is a bit hard to comprehend at times. I think I had two styles named similarly, like Head and head, maybe it wasn't handling these two similar names as two separate properties and getting messed up somewhere. I deleted the project, it was just some test of FBF, but maybe I can duplicate it when I have time.

That said, I'd like some table view that listed all the styles and their assigned properties that you could see and edit from one place instead of going through the drop down list and picker UI. That would be a big improvement to styles I think.

[GCharb]

Most peoples mixup the styles creation part, which is at the top, and the styles assigning part, which is at the bottom.

If You create a new style, and create a shape while another style is selected in either Style 1 or Style 2, You usually end up with both styles applied.

To me, the best way to use style, is to create the style in the top part, then either reset, or select none at the top, then you select the style you want in either Style 1 or Style 2, that way only the proper style gets applied when You create a new shape!

These are two different operations, create, and assign, but you should always reset or select none when you are done creating the style(s)

[braj]

I used to be a software QA manager, I would call this a usability bug, the fact that so many struggle with it shows it needs fixing.

[GCharb]

I would not call it a bug, at worst a workflow issue!

[braj]

Yeah, a bug isn't necessarily something that is broken, a usability bug is something that is not ideal from a user perspective, it is certain kind of defect that gets specific testing. I would be surprised if the developers haven't been considering how to improve this area, and am guessing, like the color palette chooser, it is an area that eventually will be overhauled.

[synthsin75]

I used to be a software QA manager, I would call this a usability bug, the fact that so many struggle with it shows it needs fixing.

Except that many people use it every day without any problem. QA also has to balance the complex needs of pro users versus the inexperience of new users. You just cannot lose functionality to cater to new users and hope to grow your market.

Maybe you should make a video of you working that shows where you run into trouble. It just may be user error and a simple solution.

[braj]

Oh it is user error, but led by the design of the interface. I'm not saying it is the world's largest problem, just that it can definitely be improved. If you think it can't, well, we'll have agree to disagree about that.

[synthsin75]

If you have ideas, mock up some UI improvements to suggest.

[DeCay]

braj, you might want to look at this viewtopic.php?f=13&t=27629#p156610 and see if it helps any.

[braj]

braj, you might want to look at this viewtopic.php?f=13&t=27629#p156610 and see if it helps any.

That's great, I understand this, but what I was seeing was independent of the override checkboxes, I just tried my theory about it being related to similarly-named styles, but couldn't reproduce the issue. Maybe it was just a session issue, a memory performance problem, I had several projects open at once, lots of stuff happening, and I didn't take detailed notes. All I can say is AFAIK it should have been working but wasn't. Bug or user error on my end for that one? I dunno. But the very fact that it is so confusing for so many so often, even someone that understands how it SHOULD work, makes it a usability bug from my perspective. This quote from that thread is insightful, you shouldn't have users feeling this way:

//That seems like a bug or a bug disguised as feature.//

Anyhow, for someone wanting more info on what I mean by usability and why I think it should be addressed, this is helpful:

https://uxmag.com/articles/quantifying-usability

[braj]

OK, I can say there is a refresh issue with styles. It apparently will refresh all items using the style eventually, but I am having to click on objects to get them to accept the style change across layers. So basically I:

1. Created two layers, each containing a circle with the same style associated with both objects.
2. Edit the style and notice that only the selected layer will be refreshed when altering the style. I need to click on each layer to see the style updated.

So that is probably what was underlying the weirdness I was experiencing. It seems like a definite bug. If I create a third layer with nothing on it and select that before editing the style, I won't see any style changes in my objects using the style until I click on them.

Maybe this is just my machine, but that would be surprising to me.