Hi again, and thank you once more for creating FreeFileSync!
Since I like your program so so much now, I want to help make it even better, so more people will start using it. Here's a few ideas to help do just that!
1) When I first installed FreeFileSync 3 years ago I never started using it back then (until a month ago) because I was overwhelmed by the User Interface (UI) the first time I opened the program - it looked too confusing to me. What struck me immediately was the vertical column of numbers from 1 to 10 listed under Relative Path. So if those numbers could be visually removed, it will make the program look more clean and less confusing visually, as some people like me will think that they need to do something to fill in those 1-10 lines (as silly as it sounds, it's true)...
2) The Overview and the Configuration panels could be placed at the bottom of the program's window by default.
3) The "Drag & Drop" text on the left and right side (above the folders to sync) could be replaced by an customizable title area that the user sets himself (ex: "work laptop", "Backup USB key", "Home computer", "Originals", "Old Folders to update", etc), which will be more informative for him regarding which files are most current and should go where.
4) There could be a button to hide the list of folder paths for sync, so everything looks neat. This button could be placed right in front of the customizable title area, where the "Drag & Drop" text currently is
Hope this is helpful to made FreeFileSync even better looking, more visually attractive and intuitively looking!
Suggestion for UI improvement
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 2 Oct 2010
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 2 Oct 2010
I forgot to add that since above suggestions remove the "Drag & Drop" text, it could still be put in the field where the folder path is to be. Like the new CSS web forms that have gray text appear in the empty field to tell you what to put in the field, but the gray text disappears as soon as you click in that field and now you can type in it.
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- Site Admin
- Posts: 7211
- Joined: 9 Dec 2007
> 1) [...] So if those numbers could be visually removed, it will make the program look more clean
Not a big deal, but you may be right. I've removed these empty rows, let's see if this confuses someone else.
> 2) The Overview and the Configuration panels could be placed at the bottom of the program's window by default.
Both Overview and Configuration panels grow vertically, so they should be placed somewhere on the left or right.
> 3) The "Drag & Drop" text on the left and right side (above the folders to sync) could be replaced
The drag & drop text serves two purposes: 1. it reminds the user that the tool supports drag and drop 2. the text is replaced by a full folder path if what the users enters contains placeholders like %username% or [drive name].
> customizable title area that the user sets himself (ex: "work laptop", "Backup USB key"
The user can set the configuration file name accordingly or use the [drive name] syntax.
> 4) There could be a button to hide the list of folder paths
The ideal solution would be if the user could rearrange the height of the list and it would stay at that level. Unfortunately this is currently a technical limitation, so it's an open point on the backlog.
Not a big deal, but you may be right. I've removed these empty rows, let's see if this confuses someone else.
> 2) The Overview and the Configuration panels could be placed at the bottom of the program's window by default.
Both Overview and Configuration panels grow vertically, so they should be placed somewhere on the left or right.
> 3) The "Drag & Drop" text on the left and right side (above the folders to sync) could be replaced
The drag & drop text serves two purposes: 1. it reminds the user that the tool supports drag and drop 2. the text is replaced by a full folder path if what the users enters contains placeholders like %username% or [drive name].
> customizable title area that the user sets himself (ex: "work laptop", "Backup USB key"
The user can set the configuration file name accordingly or use the [drive name] syntax.
> 4) There could be a button to hide the list of folder paths
The ideal solution would be if the user could rearrange the height of the list and it would stay at that level. Unfortunately this is currently a technical limitation, so it's an open point on the backlog.
