This thread is meant as a complement to Kjells thread about technical issues where we can discuss ideas on how to improve usability in the editor. I think it is vital that we finds ways to lower the learning curve for new users. This is equally important to improving the technical areas. Maybe we can make a top-ten list of usability issues also to match the style of Kjells thread. Then we can try to balance our efforts on both sides of the product: engine and editor.
Here are some questions as inspiration to topics we can discuss:
1. What about the user interface confused you most when you first tried ZGE? (And what was it that kept you using it instead of giving up?)
2. Now that you've learned ZGE what frustrates you most about the user interface today?
3. Any ideas on how we can improve the usability? Both minor and large adjustments are worth discussing.
The Usability Thread
Moderator: Moderators
One thing that REALLY annoys me is the following:
if you get some kind of error while creating a bitmap, the code will keep trying to update the bitmap again as soon as you close the error message. This will put you in a really difficult situation: you must be able to deselect the bitmap component in the tenth of a second you are given between the 2 error messages. You can quit the editor by killing it, but this way you are loosing ALL of your unsaved work... And sometimes you are working hard for 20 minutes without saving and stuff like this just makes you RAGE about the editor xD
if you get some kind of error while creating a bitmap, the code will keep trying to update the bitmap again as soon as you close the error message. This will put you in a really difficult situation: you must be able to deselect the bitmap component in the tenth of a second you are given between the 2 error messages. You can quit the editor by killing it, but this way you are loosing ALL of your unsaved work... And sometimes you are working hard for 20 minutes without saving and stuff like this just makes you RAGE about the editor xD
- Attachments
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- BUGGED.zgeproj
- WARNING! your editor will hang when you click on "App" or "Bitmap1" or "model1"
- (1.6 KiB) Downloaded 557 times
In the fall of 1972 President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection.
-=Hugo Rossi=-
-=Hugo Rossi=-
Hi guys,
Since these kinds of things are "right up my alley" I'll try to compile a list similar to the engine dealbreakers one asap.
But just to get some feedback on Ville's questions already.
1) What confused me most when first using ZGE was .. how do I do anything
Jumping right into the Editor without taking the time to do the basic tutorials was a bad idea. And the sole reason for sticking with ZGE is "Real-Time Preview". I absolutely hate waiting for code to compile, exe's to build, data to be parsed ... instant feedback is a god-sent.
2) Hmm .. if I have to choose one thing it's probably that you cannot set the resolution of the Preview Window easily ( which is something that probably won't take long to implement ). What I do now is take a screenshot of the editor, measure the Preview Window size in GIMP and then adjust the LowerRightPanel.Height property in the .ini file
3) Coming up ~
K
Since these kinds of things are "right up my alley" I'll try to compile a list similar to the engine dealbreakers one asap.
But just to get some feedback on Ville's questions already.
1) What confused me most when first using ZGE was .. how do I do anything
Jumping right into the Editor without taking the time to do the basic tutorials was a bad idea. And the sole reason for sticking with ZGE is "Real-Time Preview". I absolutely hate waiting for code to compile, exe's to build, data to be parsed ... instant feedback is a god-sent.2) Hmm .. if I have to choose one thing it's probably that you cannot set the resolution of the Preview Window easily ( which is something that probably won't take long to implement ). What I do now is take a screenshot of the editor, measure the Preview Window size in GIMP and then adjust the LowerRightPanel.Height property in the .ini file
3) Coming up ~
K
You are right:Kjell wrote: But just to get some feedback on Ville's questions already.
1) I agree with "What confused me most when first using ZGE was .. how do I do anything
"Jumping right into the Editor without taking the time to do the basic tutorials was a bad idea." I would like to add that we must also help people by telling them some ways to easily organize their work: messing around a little can EASILY make yourself loose track of the components you are using ^^ Now we got the magic button so that was good. But still organization is a big concern (mainly since it completely depends on the end user!) I once could open a zproj of an old vers of VectorLocust by JPH... Well, that WAS organized... Apart from some minor stuff (bad hacks to get something done), I could easily find what I needed to tweak! 
2) +1 for the resolution lock, maybe expecially when editing textures, even if this is low priority. Something to reset the App.Time could come handy. we should keep working on some easy way of texture and mesh creation. Maybe we can even get some other "trees" done, but dunno what.
3) When you open the window that lists all the components, well, we must give the user a better feedback about what he is looking for. As an example, we could:
-split up the stuff in some categories
-Instead of graying the unavailable components, remove the whole related category
-Made MORE stuff only available as a sub-category (like the bitmap and mesh producers are). EG: why the hell on earth would you place a "RenderSomething" component out of the "onRender" tree? This actually just provokes an error (since Ville fixed the program crashing), and you can't imagine how many times I crushed my head against this (Just I made an error and put some Render into the OnUpdate)
-We could even go further and get the whole a little strict... I mean, ZExpressions inside a mesh are fine, loops are fine too. But ZLibraries and bitmaps ARE NOT ^^
In the fall of 1972 President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection.
-=Hugo Rossi=-
-=Hugo Rossi=-
I'm addressing most of my complaints by morphing the docs. Two things - If a components comment is not used, it's a mystery. How about a comment component to place in the tree? It could be a ZExpression that doesn't get called but displays in Code editor. You can do it now with commented lines, but it needs a unique title in the tree.
"great expectations"
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jph_wacheski
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Hay Kattle; "bad hacks to get something done" tell me what, so I can improve! If you have more efficient ways, I would like to know them too. As you know when I get inspired I hack quickly and yeah some times poorly,. (I do always say to myself 'I will go back and fix that latter' )
The idea to add context selectability to some areas is a great one,. would make things easier to undertand for new users.
Yeah the realtime preview seems to interest ppl that I have been evangilising ZGE to. jon mak (everydayshooter) is always keen on this, when we have spoken of it.., I never use this myself for the actual game testing just to design objects, and bitmaps, etc. I just tryed it and indeed is is a good thing,.(fixed some array bounds!) it seems I got scarred from some attempt using it when ZGE was much younger,. and locked up on me
Also I like to see the game fullscreen, and since I use basicly no imported content, actually running the game is nearly instantanious to me anyhow!
Perhaps if we organise a group of Libraries for people to import, that could be used to build a few basic games,. or at least help get some stuff moving around, without haveing to build it themselves? I know for me when I try a new system I want to see some running interactable examples (even dead simple stuff) just to gage IF i can do something like what I want with the system. Then I start disecting how it is wired together,. . I will keep this thread in mind and post more.
)The idea to add context selectability to some areas is a great one,. would make things easier to undertand for new users.
Yeah the realtime preview seems to interest ppl that I have been evangilising ZGE to. jon mak (everydayshooter) is always keen on this, when we have spoken of it.., I never use this myself for the actual game testing just to design objects, and bitmaps, etc. I just tryed it and indeed is is a good thing,.(fixed some array bounds!) it seems I got scarred from some attempt using it when ZGE was much younger,. and locked up on me
Also I like to see the game fullscreen, and since I use basicly no imported content, actually running the game is nearly instantanious to me anyhow! Perhaps if we organise a group of Libraries for people to import, that could be used to build a few basic games,. or at least help get some stuff moving around, without haveing to build it themselves? I know for me when I try a new system I want to see some running interactable examples (even dead simple stuff) just to gage IF i can do something like what I want with the system. Then I start disecting how it is wired together,. . I will keep this thread in mind and post more.
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