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Editor Redesign

Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:21 pm
by Kjell
Hi everybody ~

Decided to give this another ( more conservative ) shot. Still very much a work in progress, but with these kind of things it's best to get feedback early on.

K

Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 11:43 am
by VilleK
The Welcome-dialog is great. There should be a button to display the all the sample project which would be the default view when ZGE is first run, to let the user quickly find the samples.

Also the property editor with categorization in groups look good and makes it easier to quickly comprehend which properties fit together.

I noticed you've reduced the log-window to a single line in the status bar. What's your idea here, that if the user clicks on the line the log window will appear at the bottom of the screen? It could auto-appear if an error occurs that the user needs to know about.

Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 1:41 pm
by Kjell
Hej Ville,
There should be a button to display the all the sample project which would be the default view when ZGE is first run, to let the user quickly find the samples.
That's a really good idea yes, I'll make sure to put it in the next mockup.
I noticed you've reduced the log-window to a single line in the status bar. What's your idea here, that if the user clicks on the line the log window will appear at the bottom of the screen?
Exactly, the alert icon should only appear when something that requires your attention has occurred ( perhaps there could be other icons for specific events such as a time-out ).

K

Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 3:52 pm
by Lupo
Hi Kjell,

Nice ideas!

One thing I would really love to implement ( or to be implemented :) ) is below the project tree, add a component list, so you could pick and drop (new) components into the project.

I could make a sample shot to clarify, if needed.


Lupo.

Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 3:56 pm
by Kjell
Hi Lupo,

How about next to it :wink: When you for example click on App:Content, a contextual button-list appears with all the Components you can add to the selected node. That way you don't sacrifice any Project Tree space either.

Component icons are still missing from the screenshot obviously ..

K

Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 7:54 pm
by Lupo
just love it

Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2010 2:11 pm
by Kjell
:idea:

As replacement of the current "Add Components" popup, a simple browser that allows for both local and remote ( cached locally ) libraries. This enables users to maintain & share their own libraries independent from ZGE releases.

K

Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 10:29 am
by VilleK
That's a great idea with remote libraries. Just a clarification: do you mean that this dialog should replace both "Add from library" and "Add component" dialogs and combine their functionality? Or just replace "Add from library"?

I'm still working on scripting but I hope I'll be able to use at least some of your ideas for the next ZGE release because they all look really good.

Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 12:29 pm
by Kjell
:)

It's a bit of a switch-a-roo .. the idea is to replace the current "Add Component" popup with the "contextual Component button list" ( as mentioned in my reply to Lupo ), and move the current Library functionality from the right-click drop-down menu to a / the popup.

There's probably little use for being able to add individual Components from a popup when you have the contextual button-list.

K

nice ;)

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:13 pm
by jph_wacheski
I like these suggestions, more organizing of the componets/properties and context sensitivity when picking/working will speed up finding them as there are quite a few now,. and if you add in scripts and libraries,. . endless.

I also quite like the tag line "the rapid development solution with a tiny footprint" clear and more general than "The tool for creating 64kb games!"

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:00 pm
by VilleK
I also like that tag-line. I've changed the forum title and included the tag in the wiki-main page now.

Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 6:36 pm
by Kjell
:)

Thanks guys ~ Originally I wanted to incorporate "lightweight" into it somehow, but couldn't come up with anything catchy. Anyway, here are some additional pictures to explain behavior in previously posted mock-ups that might not have been very obvious.

More coming up ..

K

Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2010 7:24 pm
by Lupo
Liked it!

Yes, I like "the rapid development solution with a tiny footprint", but I think it would be a good idea to mention that its good for "procedurally generated content" somewhere?

As a side note:
I was showing a friend ZGE the other day, and he loved it, but get a bit nostalgic about the days when you do not need a GUI to dev a game.
And I opened a zge project in notepad and say to him: "that is one of the good things of ZGE, you could hand-craft the xml yourself, hardcore to the bones"

He paid for the beers that night. Another reason to thank ZGE...

Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 3:20 pm
by y offs et
Just my two cents. Love everything you are doing.

It looks nice, but I find myself lately changing application backgrounds to a mid gray because the bright bleached white tends to irritate.

Of course I'm also enlarging the fonts, but that's just old eyes and can be fixed with glasses.

Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 6:33 pm
by Kjell
:)
Bright bleached white tends to irritate.
Don't worry .. just like the current version, the idea is that the appearance depends on your Windows Theme ~

K