Are discussions of the state of the product welcome?
First off, the disclaimer: I do not want to offend anyone, just trying to be constructive.
Having said that, I noticed that most topics here are based on mapping, as they should. But from other products forums I'm used to a lot more discussion of the tool itself. So my first question would be: Is it alright to adress and discuss feature wishes and parts where there's room for improvement?
Hoping for a yes, as most developers welcome constructive feedback, I'll just go ahead now. If no, please just delete this thread.
As someone who just comes back to CC from a 9 year hiatus, I can't help but notice a few things that are either missing or could be improved. Of course, some things are simple restrictions due to the existing code base, but as a user I have little insight and can only offer the feedback on my experience. Now I could just start and list the few little things I noticed and written down so far, but I'd like to get two important things out of the way first:
1. Is there an open wishlist, backlog, trello board or the like, where I can see what the devs already know about and have on their lists. Because so many experts here on this forum, that most things I notice will most likely have already been posted by others.
2. I know CC is based on FastCAD, but judging from the FastCAD website, this underlying product is dead. Their last update is from nearly six years ago. This doesn't mean that it is not a functional product, but it means that ProFantasy can not rely on new features from Evolution Computing and instead need to do everything themselves. So basically this is not really a question, more a concern about the future development options for ProFantasy.
Having said that, I noticed that most topics here are based on mapping, as they should. But from other products forums I'm used to a lot more discussion of the tool itself. So my first question would be: Is it alright to adress and discuss feature wishes and parts where there's room for improvement?
Hoping for a yes, as most developers welcome constructive feedback, I'll just go ahead now. If no, please just delete this thread.
As someone who just comes back to CC from a 9 year hiatus, I can't help but notice a few things that are either missing or could be improved. Of course, some things are simple restrictions due to the existing code base, but as a user I have little insight and can only offer the feedback on my experience. Now I could just start and list the few little things I noticed and written down so far, but I'd like to get two important things out of the way first:
1. Is there an open wishlist, backlog, trello board or the like, where I can see what the devs already know about and have on their lists. Because so many experts here on this forum, that most things I notice will most likely have already been posted by others.
2. I know CC is based on FastCAD, but judging from the FastCAD website, this underlying product is dead. Their last update is from nearly six years ago. This doesn't mean that it is not a functional product, but it means that ProFantasy can not rely on new features from Evolution Computing and instead need to do everything themselves. So basically this is not really a question, more a concern about the future development options for ProFantasy.
Comments
Profantasy have themselves mentioned CC4 a couple of times in the past, so whatever the state of Evolution it looks very much like PF might be more self-sufficient than you think.
Facebook though... the one network I try to avoid. Haven't logged in for 3 years or so. Is it worth it? Is there a condensed list of feature wishes? I had hoped for an open jira or trello board...
So maybe its just time for another suggestions thread like this one :)
I really don't know what a trello board is.
You mentioned the problem with the vanishing of threads, be it here or on FB (except if it is stickied, of course). That's why I thought an external tool could/should be used.
It took me maybe a minute to set this up: "http://campaigncartographer.idea.informer.com/
The problem is the content of course. All the ideas and feature wishes already mentioned need to be aggregated there.
Many new features have stemmed from people expressing a need for a feature here on the forums. Of course, not every suggestion will be taken into account, many people have some weird ideas, and other ideas are really difficult to implement into the current frameworke even if they are great.
So... what suggestions did you have?
- Seamless Glow Effect - if possible
- Light sources that are not only points but lines and polygons
- A copy sheet option would be nice. I know I can create a new sheet and copy/paste the sheet effects, but just copy, rename, done would be even smoother.
- 64bit should be a no-brainer
- Better UI!
I'm not really understanding the light source thing. You can set up the current lights to give angled beams...
And concerning the lights - I can make angled beams, but they always originate from a single point. I want them to originate from a line or polygon - think neon tube or led plate. There are likely work arounds, but it was an idea I had, when I created that outhouse map. There I wanted light to shine into the courtyard from a door. In this case an open door is a line-like feature where the light originates and I had to jump through some hoops to end up with the desired effect.
An ordinary light set up some reasonable distance away from the door in question could work. Remember that there is no real limit to how far away you can put the light on a virtual and almost limitless 2D plane. Just watch you don't zoom extents at any point!
The code base is not dependent on Evolution Computing, nor has it been for many years. All our code is written in-house to work with the latest OS developments and toolkits. It uses multithreading and other hardware boosts where they are available. Backwards compatibilty is a consideration but that's all. I don't know what a seamless glow effect is. Can you enlarge on this?
Copy sheet option. Do you mean add a Duplicate button to the Sheets and Effects dialog?
What benefits are you hoping to see in the software from 64 bit technology?
"Better UI" what do you mean by this?
thank you for taking the time to respond and the clarifications! It's good to hear that you're not held back by a legacy codebase - seen it happen before to other products.
Concerning the addressed points:
- I stumbled upon the fact that the glow effect offers percent values but is actually a stepped effect. See her: http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=9815&page=1#Item_15
- Yes, duplicating a whole sheet including the effects and renaming it would seem like a small quality of life improvement.
- When I tried to export maps with a huge pixel count (<10k x 10k) I got a out of memory error - or something the like. Don't have the program in front of me. Checking my system panel showed that CC only used 2.x Gb of RAM out of my 32. So in short: better performance through more memory. But I'm an interested layman at best when it comes to these things.
- Well, I know critizing the User Interface is opening a special can of worms, but I think it can't denied that CC's interface shows it's CAD heritage. This can be a huge threshold for new users. Newer competitors like wonderdraft offer a much easier to learn user interface. I know that they also offer A LOT less features and I don't have a suggestions ready on how exactly am easier to learn UI would be achieved, but I feel like it is an issue that should be addressed in some fashion for a major update or new version.
A GUI is both the least and most important thing about an app. Least, because it has no effect whatsoever on the scope and agility of the engine behind it, and most because people really hate a functional but non-beautified GUI and end up looking elsewhere.
A good GUI is one of the hardest things on Earth to design, simply because what people generally want to see is based on what those same people are used to seeing elsewhere - at which point the producer of a new GUI is faced with the almost impossible task of making something almost exactly but not quite like A or B and dropping themselves straight into some incredibly hot water with copyright issues and law suits, or trying to somehow better those other interfaces with a completely new design of its own - a time consuming and shockingly expensive thing to do.
The question is - is it really worth spending all that money on a complete revamp of the interface, when it will likely mean that all those new styles, symbol sets and other art assets that are made available every month for all us users might become a thing of the past for however long it takes to fund the development of a GUI? Bear in mind that there is no guarantee that a new GUI will make anyone any the happier either, so all that money would have been wasted.
EDIT:
There is the other matter of concern for me at least, and this is that whenever a company completely redesigns its GUI I start to get a bit uncomfortable about what this says about that company. I start to wonder if everything is ok, or if this is a last ditch attempt to save everything. That might just be the way I see it because of the personal experiences I've had with other companies when they have been in their last throws of failure, but it would certainly have me quite worried if PF suddenly threw something at me that was nothing like the old GUI, but an awful lot like one of its competitor's GUIs!
I don't believe PF will ever be in that situation, but its the message that people get if changes are too sudden and dramatic.
But seeing the many posts of people who come here struggling with the GUI and posts I read elsewhere of people who gave up on the software because of it's arcane handling, make me think there should be at least an overhaul. I'm confident that the existing GUI can be improved by changing some things to make it more like other programs people are used to.
Just two examples that pop into my head right now:
- Redrawing - this was really weird to me at the beginning. Why do I have to hit the redraw button all the time? Change that around, auto-redraw by default and add an option to redraw manually for people with slow computers.
- The "right-click -> do it" thing. Feels like bumpy UI to me. Why so many clicks? For example, as a new user I click "change properties", mark some objects and then nothing happens. I'd expect the change properties gump to pop up immediatly. Then let me shift-click to add further objects while the gump is open, instead of having a glass pane over the map.
It's things like this that could be streamlined without throwing the whole UI out of the window.
I'm really not sure how I might expect anyone to get rid of the "do it" system. It's kind of built into everything like a basic building block, but maybe PF are better placed to say.
Other things are the ability to be able to:
Delete nodes from paths/polygons when using the drawing tools (instead of the symbol catalog tools that have the capability) as well as tracing. (I know I can make my own drawing tools, but it hasn't worked out well for me.)
Be able to scroll the map using the arrow keys or the numeric pad instead of having to use the mouse on the scroll bars. This always results in wierd artifact appearing on the map which are distracting, if harmless.
However, as an advanced user, I'll have to say that CC3+ has one of the best selection systems out there. It is extremely powerful.
You can kind of skip the Do It already by setting your selection mode to '1 each click', this makes commands complete immediately on the first selection, although it isn't possible to select more than one thing at a time using this though.
(I bet Remy will tell me now that this also exists already! That's part of my trouble - I don't know half of what you can do with CC3)
A slightly different variation would be a Favourites palette of tools in a small floating box that pops up when you hit a button for them and stays where you chose to put it until you hit the close button. To be able to save a group of tools you seem to use in every map you draw would be a huge help.
(@System\rclick.mnc)
You could also edit the global toolbar (fcw32.imn) and put buttons there for tools. Each button could be a direct tool, or pop up a menu with a selection of tools.
I don't think there is a good way to automatically get a list of recently used tools though.
I'm much more of a graphic drag and drop sort of person than a macro or menu writing person.
It's not an easy thing to do. I work with lots of other apps as well, and even though Krita has a favourite brushes AND a history of brushes panel on tabs adjacent to the main tool box, the history doesn't always record what you used every time and its the Devil's own business getting what you want in the Favourites to stick and not have it vanish next time you open it! LOL! (the number of times I've muttered nameless curses and re-re-re-re re-re-recreated the same old favourite pen I use isn't something I like to think about)
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