UI Thoughts

[Rhinesel]

Please take this as just discussion and by no means criticism. I know nothing about programming and am eternally thankful to all those that have worked on this great program.

My use case for QLC+ is community theater. I use it with a laptop and 4 universe ArtNet interface as a "travel rig". I got 2 theater groups to install QLC+ in permanent systems and am working on getting 3 more area groups (hey, it helps me just have to learn one program) to use it. We often have people that are learning lighting for the very first time. Some are just fill in people to "Press Space Bar" to run a chaser for a show.

Even after using QLC+ 4 for years, I find the UI for QLC+ 5 to be utterly confusing. I feel like I'm having to look all over the screen bouncing from one side to the other when doing things like creating scenes. Having panes extend from the right is not natural (a majority of the world has a left to right, top to bottom focus format). There are add buttons, but items like fixtures are not "added" to a scene, just selected. There is no feedback, like seeing your scene in the list until you change screens or seeing your fixtures added to a scene show up as sliders (instead you only have confirmation if you look at the visualizer). Sometimes there are multiple Add buttons in proximity to each other, like the add button to add a scene to a chaser while the add new function button is right near it. This causes confusion. Everything feels like visual overload.

What I always thought made QLC+ 4 stand out from all the other programs is that it did not pretend to be a console. It was a COMPUTER PROGRAM that ran lights. After explaining this to people that came from ETC or other consoles they "got it" and picked up the program very quickly. As such, if you look at other programs like Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, basically everything else, you see a similar layout. Navigation and item control along the top, section navigation along the left side. Work space in the middle. Right side maybe ancillary items, bottom ribbon usually macro type items if needed at all.

While some may think that QLC+ 4 looks dated, I think the navigation is almost perfect as a computer program. The tabs on the bottom I think can be moved to the top or the left side as a vertical pane but that is miner. My test for UI is if I can understand the structure of a program in 5 minutes. I may not know how to use it, but I understand how it is structured. I worked with QLC+ 5 for about an hour adding various lights, making scenes, adding widgets to the VC, and it still was making my head spin. If this is the planned layout, it seems to have the same shotgun "stuff all over the screen" as Chamsys MagicQ or Onyx.

I know I'm one person and I feel no need to have my voice heard, I am just giving the opinion of a lay person that found a program that helped theater groups find a simple (though powerful) cost effective solution.

While I can't help with programming itself, I would be happy to help with design, layout, and navigation if desired.

Thank you to all those that work on the program, you are Rock Stars in real life!

[mcallegari]

I think the point here is that the lighting world is full or reluctant people.
DMX for 50 years with XLR cables....that explains all.
Just because you're used to QLC+ 4 doesn't mean you can't get used to QLC+ 5.
If v4 never existed, people would probably consider v5 as normal workflow.

Believe me, when I will do video tutorials for v5 everything will be much clearer.
I have designed it with a plan in mind...not for random fun.
Then obviously the UI can be improved, but some main concepts will stay, sorry.