UI redesign?
Thread poster: Gregory Lassale
Gregory Lassale
Gregory Lassale  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:59
English to French
May 2, 2019

Hello,

Are there any near-future plans to redesign Cafetran's UI ? I love the program. It's lightweight, fast, is updated regularly and runs natively on Mac, which is great. But to be honest, I find the interface very dated and unpolished. The icons remind me of Windows software circa 98/Vista. Some of them are unecessary (those placed on the New and Open buttons, for example). The buttons use a 3 effect that could be dropped to make the UI more streamlined. The color scheme is good
... See more
Hello,

Are there any near-future plans to redesign Cafetran's UI ? I love the program. It's lightweight, fast, is updated regularly and runs natively on Mac, which is great. But to be honest, I find the interface very dated and unpolished. The icons remind me of Windows software circa 98/Vista. Some of them are unecessary (those placed on the New and Open buttons, for example). The buttons use a 3 effect that could be dropped to make the UI more streamlined. The color scheme is good but the colors themselves could be tweaked a little. The text could be resized and reformated in places, including submenus and the main UI (why the italic there?), and I don't understand the point of having textured panes. That actually detracts from from the experience. The website looks great, (great colors, fonts and overall flat design) and I don't understand why the program's interface doesn't take more direct cues from it.

I think that Mac users are generally pretty sensitive to how the apps they use look and feel. I know that unpolished UIs are a turnoff for many that I know, including myself.

Just my feedback. I hope to see this great program get the facelift it deserves soon.

Thank you.

Greg Lassale
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Jean Dimitriadis
Jean Dimitriadis  Identity Verified
English to French
+ ...
Customizable UI May 2, 2019

Hello Gregory,

CafeTran offers various appearance and layout customization options. Some UI/theme related settings work better depending on your chosen OS.

For instance, I currently enjoy a CafeTran appearance which integrates nicely with my own GNU/Linux OS and Gnome shell desktop environment/theme.

Would you consider sharing one or two screenshots to illustrate the points you are raising?

I am just another user, so I can’t use this feedbac
... See more
Hello Gregory,

CafeTran offers various appearance and layout customization options. Some UI/theme related settings work better depending on your chosen OS.

For instance, I currently enjoy a CafeTran appearance which integrates nicely with my own GNU/Linux OS and Gnome shell desktop environment/theme.

Would you consider sharing one or two screenshots to illustrate the points you are raising?

I am just another user, so I can’t use this feedback to improve the program, but you could receive some pointers to address some of these issues (others may indeed require developer intervention).

I too find it important to be able to set up and work in a enjoyable CAT tool environment.

Jean

[Edited at 2019-05-02 16:11 GMT]
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Gregory Lassale
Gregory Lassale  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:59
English to French
TOPIC STARTER
Oui May 2, 2019

Salut Jean,

Yes, I explored the customization options, but they are quite limited and don't change much to the overall design. Very minor tweaks that don't do much, tbh, at least on macOs.

The website looks great. I wish Cafetran adopted a similar language.



 
Jean Dimitriadis
Jean Dimitriadis  Identity Verified
English to French
+ ...
  May 2, 2019

With three different look and feel settings (Metal, Nimbus and MacOS/Windows/GTK, depending on the OS), various Themes (Bright, Dark, System, Bright or Dark with an image background, and with or without a transparency slider), six layout options (each with a reverse layout option), a detached window mode (which depends on the layout), horizontal or vertical segment editors, the ability to show or hide the segment editor buttons, customize various color and font settings (UI size, and various ele... See more
With three different look and feel settings (Metal, Nimbus and MacOS/Windows/GTK, depending on the OS), various Themes (Bright, Dark, System, Bright or Dark with an image background, and with or without a transparency slider), six layout options (each with a reverse layout option), a detached window mode (which depends on the layout), horizontal or vertical segment editors, the ability to show or hide the segment editor buttons, customize various color and font settings (UI size, and various elements font face/size), and the fact CafeTran runs on three different OSes and many different screen resolutions, the situation can vary greatly.

I wouldn’t call this level of customization “very minor tweaks”, but your mileage may vary.

Without visuals, I’m not sure I can provide more details, but I will comment on specific points from the original post:

- Dashboard buttons: Yes, I too feel the 3D effect could be dropped on these (Dashboard) buttons.
- Dashboard: I too dislike the default texture background images used in the Dashboard. Please note these can be tweaked. Here, a user explains how you can customize the background images used in the Dashboard (that has a standard and a Dark theme, which use texture1 and texture2 in reverse). https://cafetran.freshdesk.com/support/discussions/topics/6000055400 Here’s a screenshot of what my custom Dashboard looks like: https://i.imgur.com/Npf3FAi.png (I use a dark user theme, the coffee shop image is provided by CafeTran). It would be nice to be able to customize the Dashboard directly from CafeTran’s interface, though.
- Text should be resized: View > Fonts allow customizing various elements font face/font size, and the general UI font size. I don’t have italics in my menus. Maybe providing specific examples will help.
- Textured panes: Which Look and feel (Preferences > Appearance) and Theme (View > Themes) are you using? You don’t have to use textured panes if you don’t want to. Uniform color is possible, depending on the settings.
- Icons: You can hide the segment editor icons from view if you wish so or make them smaller if they appear disproportionately large. I agree they could be improved upon, though.

For the rest, I guess Mac users will have to comment and/or the developer might want to chime in.

Jean

[Edited at 2019-05-02 18:50 GMT]
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Gregory Lassale
Gregory Lassale  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:59
English to French
TOPIC STARTER
Hmmm... May 2, 2019

Looks like I missed a bunch of customization options. Thanks Jean!

 
Jean Dimitriadis
Jean Dimitriadis  Identity Verified
English to French
+ ...
Getting comfortable May 3, 2019

One of my reference documents, which can also be found via the official CafeTran knowledge base called “Solutions” - https://cafetran.freshdesk.com/support/solutions take you through the process of customizing the program to your liking, and provides some additional po... See more
One of my reference documents, which can also be found via the official CafeTran knowledge base called “Solutions” - https://cafetran.freshdesk.com/support/solutions take you through the process of customizing the program to your liking, and provides some additional pointers especially targeted at new CafeTranslators.

I’m posting a direct link to this document here, as it could come in handy to others:

CafeTran Espresso - Getting comfortable: https://github.com/idimitriadis0/TheCafeTranFiles/wiki/6-Getting-comfortable

Jean
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Hans Lenting
Hans Lenting
Netherlands
Member (2006)
German to Dutch
Customisation / new Mac theme? May 3, 2019

Gregory Lassale wrote:

Are there any near-future plans to redesign Cafetran's UI ? I love the program. It's lightweight, fast, is updated regularly and runs natively on Mac, which is great. But to be honest, I find the interface very dated and unpolished. The icons remind me of Windows software circa 98/Vista.


Here is my customisation:

Screenshot 2019-05-03 at 08.02.45

And:

Screenshot 2019-05-03 at 08.06.21

You can make it even more 'minimalistic' by selecting the monochromatic icons:

Screenshot 2019-05-03 at 08.13.01

The selection colour for Mac is: b4d8fd

The 2 files with the background colours for the Dashboard are posted here: https://cafetran.freshdesk.com/support/discussions/topics/6000056459


 
Jean Dimitriadis
Jean Dimitriadis  Identity Verified
English to French
+ ...
Nice integration May 3, 2019

I'm no MacOS expert (anymore), but both the customized Dashboard and the translation interface seem pretty well integrated to me!

Also, good catch for the monochromatic icons, I had forgotten about these. They can be found in Edit > Preferences > Appearance.

[Edited at 2019-05-03 07:18 GMT]


 
Gregory Lassale
Gregory Lassale  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 17:59
English to French
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks May 3, 2019

thanks for the tips, guys. I'm happy with having a white background, which is easy enough. I'm still trying to figure out how to change the color of the pane borders and the text in them. Knew about the monochromatic icons. I still find them pretty unsightly, regardless. Higher res icons or replacement with buttons could go a long way IMO. Some UI elements also need to be centered. The italicized text I was mentioned is the blue pane headers on the dashboard. Speaking of which, I like the color ... See more
thanks for the tips, guys. I'm happy with having a white background, which is easy enough. I'm still trying to figure out how to change the color of the pane borders and the text in them. Knew about the monochromatic icons. I still find them pretty unsightly, regardless. Higher res icons or replacement with buttons could go a long way IMO. Some UI elements also need to be centered. The italicized text I was mentioned is the blue pane headers on the dashboard. Speaking of which, I like the color scheme there but would just like to get rid of the texture.Collapse


 


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