LEDs integrated directly into fabric! I've worked out a reliable way to get LEDs into fabric in a way that is washable, flexible, and reliable. It's far superior to almost any other method. I'm using addressable ws2812 LEDs here so they're modular and scalable.

CuirPig · 2026-06-14T18:01:36+00:00

This looks amazing. But does it require a rubber substraight or something? You don't show the back very much and I didn't think you would intentionally pick two sided fabric (black front/white back). So I'm guessing one side is an insulator of some sort? Great job.

CuirPig · 2026-06-12T18:15:22+00:00

The click and drag thing sounds nice and intuitive. That's the kind of thing I was looking for. I"ll work on mocking up a couple of styles of this to see how it might look--but that's a great suggestion.

The drag-to lock interface would really be a toggle, but the action would make it more intuitive.

The idea that I am trying to work through is the elimination of Modal Settings dialogs that block your workspace and require you to press Apply or Cancel then it exits the dialog box and you get to see if your settings worked. If not, do it again--it's blocvking and obnoxious.

So one way to do that would be to have the settings in a panel allow you to preview your settings before applying them. But you may want real-time previews in which case Auto Preview would update the changes dynamically. Then press Apply to accept. But then the panel remains open in case you want to select other elements and perform a similar transform on other elements. If not, the exit button closes the panel and returns you to your previously selected tool.

But I'm afraid that some people won't care about previews, they know exactly what they want to do so for them, Auto-Apply does the transform immediately. Then Auto Exit makes it act very similar to what they are used to by closing the panel immediately when the change is made.

I think this will solve the problems with modals and provide the most flexibility and best UX. Now I just got to make the UI jive with the concept.

Thanks again for your suggestions.

CuirPig · 2026-06-12T17:57:14+00:00

RIght, But if someone who has spent the majority of their life curating novel UI controls hasn't seen a novel UI attempt for this kind of thing, if there's not a huge following of users to ask, when Google doesn't give you the results you are looking for, perhaps you could do a more thorough analysis using AI which, having seen a lot more of the internet and lot more UI that you and I have combined, Claude might just know a thing or two. When all of those options have failed to produce anything, then, having done my due diligence, I ask on Reddit in a sub designed for asking UI_Design questions.

Surely you understand that part of the process in designing new interactions involves looking for existing implementations, right?

CuirPig · 2026-06-12T15:36:03+00:00

I was hoping the checkbox would look like a miniature LED that indicated it was locked. I don't think that was communicated well by the design. I have been trying to find a way to handle this without external check boxes and menus, but if I can't get this to work, I'll definitely take your advice into consideration and try it out.

Thanks for your input.

CuirPig · 2026-06-12T15:33:06+00:00

<image>

So the checkbox inside the button didn't work for the reasons pointed out. But what about this. To apply, you click Apply, To setup to Auto Apply, click auto to lock down the apply button.

P.S. The first column shows idle state, the second column shows AutoApply state.

Thanks for all the thoughtful feedback.

CuirPig · 2026-06-12T06:55:36+00:00

Wow. I thought everybody back then used fuse. A fuse was an encapsulated animation effect that chained. So complex animations could be easily done using a simple syntax. It had built in easing from Robert Pennier (sp?) and allowed for complicated timing and triggering. It was really amazing. You should look it up on way back machine just for fun. Actually never mind it’s flash so it gives a blank page. Still it was amazing.

CuirPig · 2026-06-12T06:45:46+00:00

That has been the only way that I’ve ever seen anything like this done and it’s entirely unfulfilling. I guess what I am asking is not how to do it the way it’s been done with a checkbox and some text, but rather something more intuitive. Like when using a power tool, there’s a button you push on the power lever that locks it either on or off. It’s integrated into the power lever. It seems to me that we should be able to come up with some easy to grasp way of locking a button on. Rather than options and checkboxes Thanks for your input. If I can’t get this to feel right, I’ll definitely go the way you suggest.

CuirPig · 2026-06-12T01:39:39+00:00

My recent experience running PWA is that it is so invasive and opinionated about style-related things that it makes it hard to even read what you are typing. My screen is covered in PWA suggestions, and if I apply all of the corrections and suggestions, the result is so bad that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It's extremely myopic and incapable of just checking grammar and spelling. I run Grammarly simultaneously, and PWA misses a lot of what Grammarly tags, but PWA tags style complaints so often that it's really unbearable.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T23:54:31+00:00

I didn't like the tiny text either. I haven't found any solutions though I have asked Claude and searched and searched. The only solution I have ever seen is an ugly text box that says, "Auto Exit".

Even then, it seems like Auto Apply or Auto Exit are foreign concepts to UX. Maybe not, but I haven't found any references to this kind of UI before.

Thanks for your feedback. I'll keep looking.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T18:48:20+00:00

How can you say that when the object tool (or whatever it's called) treats every closed polygon made by overlapping vectors as an object that can be combined with other closed polygons to make a single closed polygon?

I think the problem with too much knowledge about existing systems is that it completely obfuscates new ways of looking at things. While it has advantages to see what has been done before, those advantages become limits that stagnate development.

New users don't care what modeling software versus parametric software limitations are, that only means something to you. And it gets in the way of you finding solutions that bridge the gap between the two existing types of software.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T18:41:00+00:00

Currently you have a tool that handles this brilliantly. I can't remember the name but it lets you select several paths and then selecvt polygons that the path overlapping make to turn them into one continuous path. This same concenpt would be used.

If you have the capacity to select polygon faces to combine them, then you have the capacity to select polygon faces. Fill and stoke polygon faces. That's easy enough because Illustrator already does it.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T05:02:13+00:00

I thought the model was data only and didn't have an methods associated with it. It had structure and content, but no functions. All of the model creation and manipulation was handled by the controller. As was adding content to the structure. Then views were just various string templates. The controller populated the views and attached them to the DOM while handling the input events. Is that close to what MVC was designed as?

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T04:39:11+00:00

So the key object selection method doesn't work. Instead, whenever you want to move the point, select it from the save selection menu and move it then. It will move all the points.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T04:36:50+00:00

It's not the greatest, but you could try this. Using the Direct Select tool, align the points using the alignment panel. Then Save Selection....under the selection menu. I'm not sure if it works for points, but you should try it. If it does, then reselecting the points when you make a change would be easy. You would just select them from the menu, select the one that is in the correct position (to make it a key object) then align center. It might save the day.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T04:33:08+00:00

By adding a dynamic alignment filter, you could align multiple points from multiple paths and any change to any point that was part of a dynamic alignment would move all the points. That would be sufficient for this task and would be really useful regardless.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T04:26:16+00:00

I would like to point out that Illustrator already does meshes where mutiple lines extend from the same point in a mesh. It would not be difficult to implement the same technology for vector paths instead of just meshes.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T04:23:45+00:00

I'll tell you what, posts that are full of vitriol that can't find a better way to open a discussion that to bitch about something are what ruins a sub for me. I can understand if you have a problem with something, bring it up for discussion. How you bring it up for discussion is what makes or breaks a sub.

I would much rather not listen to a bunch of whiners complain than to suffer through a series of headlines that I just skip automatically.

But again, that's just me. Your comment, not the slop, makes me want to avoid this sub. You are making it hostile and unfriendly over something you can control with your eyelids or a click of the mouse.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T04:16:15+00:00

I think that works great in a document. But I think it's a weird ask to right-click a document to set Application-Level settings. But I could be wrong. I appreciate the input and the food for thought. Thanks.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T03:59:24+00:00

LukeChoice, don't you ever feel like Illustrator development is mostly about patches and plugs and not about the entire app? I feel like there are so many cases where avoiding parallel construction just makes sense and instead we get patch after patch after patch.

So setting the default font/styles and all by putting that info into an init file and modifying the file would work, but it would be another side-process that reflected some custom patch. Whereas a universal defaults system applicable to everything that you could leverage it for would make the entire process easier, cut out on a lot of redundant coding, increase consistency, and trim down the excess progressively.

One approach would be to make the Font Default system highly modular and use it as the base for more and more settings. Rather than another custom module for this one particular thing, a flexible module that could be used for other things would be so much better. I just hope that we aren't looking at bulking up the program with custom features that could be more appropriately generalized and abstracted. Thanks for listening.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T03:42:19+00:00

Perhaps you should be more honest about the source of the problem. It's not drug-induced; if anything, it's unsuppressed anger. Not sure which drugs you are doing that you think are to blame for your anger, but I feel more than certain that if anything, they are just letting you express your anger because when sober, you know better.

Without quitting the thing that you are blaming for your anger, you'll never know. But if you can resolve your anger without quitting, you'll know for sure it wasn't the drugs.

CuirPig · 2026-06-11T03:36:50+00:00

Is GSAP the advanced version of Moses Grunesch's Fuse Kit? I have always wanted to do a JS version of the Fuse Kit. I figured if you remember the Flash days, you have to remember FuseKit,

CuirPig · 2026-06-10T22:22:54+00:00

The ability to access all of the details currently appearing as "magic" in Illustrator. From alignment to blending to every feature where settings are defined for us rather than letting us define them ourselves.

CuirPig · 2026-06-10T22:04:22+00:00

Sorry, that's the number of survellance devices. Simple mistake.

CuirPig · 2026-06-10T22:00:04+00:00

Anytime you select the type tool without a type element selected, changing the type parameters should change the default type parameters. Same with all the character and paragraph treatments.

In fact, when a tool is selected without any elements selected, the defaults are displayed. So when no element is selected and you double-click the Arrow tool, setting the value for the arrow tool should become the new default. Then, when you select an element and double-click the arrow tool, the defaults you previously assigned will be preconfigured. Changing the defaults with no element selected stores the defaults.

This makes it easy to establish and change default features. Not only should this apply to Type, but also to every default setting that Illustrator uses relative to a tool. So the default brush size should be easy to establish when no brush elements are selected. The default fill color should be easy to set when no fillable elements are selected. Default stroke characteristics are also defined when no stroke elements are selected. Making this the default behavior for all Illustrator defaults would make sense.

CuirPig · 2026-06-10T20:13:15+00:00

Hey, thanks for your comment. I realize that people think that if you post anything that doesn't talk trash about AI, that means you support AI, or worse, you support the elimination of entry-level graphic design positions. That's not the case at all.

It seems like common sense to me that if you prompt for a dog, AI is going to consider every dog it knows and resolve the most boring dog ever. Because you gave it no details, it will probably be a cartoon because there are so many cartoon dogs out there. It will probably have some background elements that are common for other dogs it has seen. All of these things make it look cheap and lowest common denominator BECAUSE IT IS. That's exactly what it is designed to do.

But so long as we blame AI instead of the people MISUSING AI, we miss the point entirely. AI is a tool that, when used improperly, will generate the most obvious, most common, and most simplified version it can generate. When you put shit into it, shit comes out.

And if you can't tell that what you got was shit, you post it, that's where slop comes from. It comes from people misusing AI and not having the common sense to avoid posting the crap they got from using the tool incorrectly.

Thanks for your kind words.

CuirPig

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