My take on the FreeCAD GUI

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Aleks
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My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

I have spent the last months thinking about how I would like the FreeCAD GUI to look like. Here is my take on the FreeCAD GUI. I have created wireframe mockups for all the important gui features. The goal of this mockup is to come up with a revolutionary UI that is better than that of Fusion360. The reason I worked on this is that the most requested feature/ bugfix of freecad, not taking the topology fix into account, is a redesign of the GUI. This was the result of a survey I did some time ago in the facebook group.

Powerusers, dont get scared away, your beloved FreeCAD UI wont be replaced by this. But this might become a separate build. So lets have an open discussion about this specific UI design.

This UI is intended to be used by beginners and non-specialist users (users that only use most popular functions).

IMPORTANT:
Please dont post any screenshots from other CAD Software, as I dont want to get influenced by them.

Credits for used icons:
Icons made by Freepik www.flaticon.com
Icons made by Pixel perfect www.flaticon.com
Icons made by dmitri13 www.flaticon.com

Overview:
Folie1.PNG
Folie1.PNG (55.1 KiB) Viewed 10828 times

Workbench Help with description of suggested workflow:
Folie2.PNG
Folie2.PNG (57.21 KiB) Viewed 10828 times

Tooltips with tool description and self-explanatory image:
Folie3.PNG
Folie3.PNG (57.56 KiB) Viewed 10828 times

Example of command usage:
Folie4.PNG
Folie4.PNG (60.26 KiB) Viewed 10828 times

Example of new sketch command usage:
Folie5.PNG
Folie5.PNG (57.74 KiB) Viewed 10828 times
Last edited by Aleks on Mon Jul 12, 2021 2:47 pm, edited 11 times in total.
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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

Workbench Selector:
Folie6.PNG
Folie6.PNG (55.85 KiB) Viewed 10825 times

Git integration (maybe using CADCloud):
Folie7.PNG
Folie7.PNG (78.91 KiB) Viewed 10825 times

Share models with others:
Folie8.PNG
Folie8.PNG (61.25 KiB) Viewed 10825 times

Settings:
Folie9.PNG
Folie9.PNG (57.94 KiB) Viewed 10825 times

Debug console:
Folie10.PNG
Folie10.PNG (61.17 KiB) Viewed 10825 times
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user1234
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by user1234 »

What is the problem with the GUI now? I agree some commands need refinement, but in general the GUI FreeCAD is awesome, or in newspeech: dope.

I worked with commercial CAD before. They had all tabs and fat ribbons. That costs only space, more to click and not faster. And the overview is also not better.

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user1234
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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

While creating this I thought about new users of FreeCAD. I have made a survey in the FreeCAD facebook group asking about what users want the most and the result was that most people want the UI to be reworked.
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by user1234 »

Aleks wrote: Sat Jul 03, 2021 4:47 pm I thought about new users of FreeCAD
FreeCAD is a CAD program for engineers and hobbyist, no marketing firm. Do not set style over substance.

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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

Thank you for your feedback. This is why I created this topic. I am curious to know if others think the same as you.
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by user1234 »

I wont be unthankfull, but i see not the benefit. And when i see, that you searched in facebook, i do not think the are represented engineers and working hobbyist. Pretty very technician i know do not have any kind of so called "social media". I think (do not know) you trapped in that case in the Beobachterselektionseffekt (there is no english word for that). Maybe i am total wrong.

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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

As far as I know, there are 2 million downloads of freecad. Most of those downloads probably dont come from engineers.
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kaktus
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by kaktus »

Hello :mrgreen:
I'll throw in my five cents.

The appearance of the application certainly does not determine its functionality but it is an important touch.

If GIU was unacceptable and options buried in "strange" places, it certainly would not encourage to use the program.

Fortunately, this is not the case.

For me, as a person who spends a lot of time in front of the computer screen, it is important not to strain my eyes too much. Therefore, thanks to the possibilities of the operating system, I could adjust the GUI appearance to my individual needs. :roll:
.
GUI_Screenshot_20210703_193609.png
GUI_Screenshot_20210703_193609.png (175.57 KiB) Viewed 10683 times
.
It's no great achievement, but the GUI looks tasteful, thanks to the dark OS theme.
And most importantly my eyes can rest while working with FreeCAD.

Certainly the inconvenience is a large number of shortcomings in adapting the interface to translations into other languages. I am trying to help in solving this problem. :ugeek:
Twórca polskiej wersji Wiki dla FreeCAD, współwórca polskiej wersji GUI.
"Cierpliwym być musisz, by wiedzę zgłębiać tajemną, gdyż ciemna strona mocy niszczącą i silną jest".
user1234
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by user1234 »

Sourcecode downloads? Binary downloads? Do count a appimage update (full downlaods)? Only on github? What if installed per repositories (they often do not count)? Self compiled (in combination of sourcecode) downloads? How many use the program? I also have programs installed, i am interested but never used. When i think on people, when i repair their computer, how extremely cluttered they are with programs they never used (maybe with FreeCAD, maybe with 3 installs of FreeCAD). In what for duration?

What i want to say with that is: the number says really nothing without to say how they get the number. Like very kind of statistic. And if they are from github, which is marketing driven, the maybe count every fart.

But that is more than enough from me and my opinion.

Greetings
user1234
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