Ease of use is one of SOFA’s main goals (along with “learn as you go”, and “beautiful output”). Unfortunately, as new options were added to SOFA for exporting data, the simplicity of the output section of the user interface suffered slightly. New buttons were squeezed in one by one and the interface was getting more and more crowded. Something was going to have to change. And in version 1.4.0 it finally has! – I hope you like the change. It not only removes two interface items but it also adds room for more export options in the future. And there is more horizontal space in the drop-down control to describe each option more clearly and distinctly.
Here is the old design:
Not too bad, but lots of buttons, and more needed in the future. Here is the new design:
It drops two items. There is also scope for adding more export options. Here are the current options available as displayed in the drop-down control:
Obviously, it wouldn’t be hard to add a few more given it is a list. The Show Results button is larger, and its relationship with the report is more obvious by adding “Also” to “Also add to report”.
Only modest changes in many ways but hopefully another step in improving the user experience. Merry Christmas 🙂