Prefix between real nodes and mirrors sometimes is little bit too subtle
Don't get me wrong here. I love that the prefix between real nodes and mirrors is really subtle so it doesn't distract or bother the uniformity of all the prefixes in the tree.
Having said that, sometimes, especially at night when my eyes are already tired and especially if I am reading a reduced view of WorkFlowy (80%) I start to not even recognize which needs are original and which ones are mirrors.
I really wouldn't like WorkFlowy to change this super elegant and subtle pattern for everyone because some of us (the old ones haha) are having difficulty at night differentiating a little circle from a diamond. But I think it could be a nice idea to have a settings option to make this difference a little bit more noticeable and shortsightedness friendly :)
My suggestion here is that the rhomboid shape of the mirrors could be a little bit more diamond-shaped, meaning that the lines curve a little bit to the center, therefore, making them a little bit lighter and easier to recognize without making it too obvious and visually distracting.
● This is like the current regular node
◆ This is like the current regular mirror
✦ This is the icon I'm suggesting, which is quite similar to how it is right now, but just with its edges being curved towards the middle (instead of straight as the regular rhombus).
some other options to consider:
● ◆ ✦ ⟐ ◇ ○
-
Even a better solution for this would be to just leave the subtle icon prefix as it is now (circle vs rhombus).
But add the super useful little superscript number at the right end of the line of each mirror indicating how many times that item is mirrored!
This solution is amazing because not only increments the visual differentiation between normal nodes and mirrors, but it also adds a super useful functionality, which is to see how many times that node is mirrored, not only that, but if you hover over the little superscript number, you can even see the paths where those mirrors are located and directly navigate there by clicking on any of them!
This is the way the most modern outliners like Roam Research, Legend, Logseq, Remnote, etc are doing it. And I don't mean WorkFlowy should replicate everything they do, I love WorkFlowy minimalistic style and extreme simplicity; but in this specific case, I believe this solution must be implemented as it helps in many ways and solves many problems:
- It adds a more prominent visual cue to differentiate mirrors,
- it provides the user with an extra bit of crucial information (how many mirrors of that node exist), and
- it also gives the ability to jump straight to any of those other nodes within a single click!
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
1 comment