I did not mean to do a full vertical side panel, there are not enough options to fill it, so it does not make Sense, that would be even worse than panels. A panel does not make sense either though, because of the reason I mentioned (it forces you to zoom out a lot to see the whole image).
You only have these 3 options:
Panels
Vertical side toolbar
Horizontal toolbar
Since panels and vertical toolbar don’t make sense , only a horizontal toolbar at the bottom is left for adjustments. Because all the options that you have there are mostly horizontal sliders, and only a few, not many, they easily fit down there. And then you only have to zoom out a little bit to see the whole canvas while making adjustments.
Problem 1: how to add new items when the toolbar is full?
Solution: first of all, which of the panels has more than a handful of items anyway? Almost all of them have very few, so that’s not even going to be a big problem. But let’s say there is one with many items. How to add more? Easy: make it swipeable to the left/right, and you have a whole new page to fill with new items. Put the less important ones to the second “page”, but they are still just a quick swipe away and easily accessible. (Even better, let the user arrange the items how he needs them)
Another solution: put the text/ description above the Sliders. That saves a lot of horizontal space without making the toolbar much bigger.
Problem 2: not much space on small iPad in vertical orientation
Why is that problem bigger with horizontal toolbar than with panels??? The opposite is true, Panels are vertical, and take like half of the display when in vertical orientation, they are terrible in that case for small iPad’s.
Solution 1: when the items don’t fit into the horizontal toolbar when in vertical orientation, you can do what I mention above, make a swipeable Toolbar.
Solution 2: make 2 rows when in vertical orientation. Even a few rows in vertical orientation take muuuuch less Space than one panel.
So, there you have easy solutions for your 2 small problems. I don’t understand how you can accept the many problems that panels have, but not even consider the very few and easily solveable problems of horizontal toolbars, when they make much more sense than your other options. Procreate has horizontal toolbar for all adjustments , and people love them. That is good and thoughtful UI Design (although they could certainly do it better too).
3. Tool options: My main point here is, for tools like the move tool, they should not be hidden behind a menu in a panel. These options are needed, you change them often. They need to STAY on the screen. You already added an options icon to the left side. Remove that, and place the options that are currently in a panel add them as icons to the left, like I illustrated in the image. There is no reason to hide them in panels.
I am an experienced UI designer so this all is common sense for me, but Artstudio team, PLEASE be more thoughtful with your UI. There is so much potential for your app. You have the best functions, now it’s just the UI that’s holding you back