The two sides of ugly
by
, January 11th, 2020 at 01:05 (11227 Views)
I'm right now in the process of converting FG:s default sidebar to something... ..."prettier"?
FG:s sidebar is in my opinion the ugliest part of the default skin. The default skin has a theme that is noisy and distracting. It is there to wow users into thinking that it's cool at first glance, but it's not designed for ease of use and it's not easy on the eyes. The icons in the side bar are some sort of banners, but they're so shiny that they look like they're made out of shining metal instead of fabric, and the light is even coming from the top right instead of the top left. The drop shadow is huge, and it's so huge that it's cut off at the bottom.
That's a low bar to set for making something prettier. My icons are just a frame with a tiny drop shadow. They're not even embossed, because they're not meant to stand out. All they need to be, is readable enough, and a simple Impact Condensed font is tall enough to make it so.
I also changed the background and the chatbox. The chatbox is the last element that should have texture noise in it.
Once I've fixed all these things that's been continuously bothering me from day one, I'll finally continue exporting the sheet again.
Update:
Also those eight small buttons up top, they're so small (for some reason) so it would be more legible to make them icons, right? No, not really. You'd have to learn what those icons do - really memorize them - and the Effects button is the worst offender of them all: It's just a guy standing in a pose.
I'm doing much, much better deciphering a tiny written font, than I did with those images. I'm not afraid of that cluster of buttons anymore now.