My 2.5 beta 1 review

[curry]

Here's my take on 2.5b1. (A bit late; I finally had a chance to try it!)

- The new tool cursor:

No, its appearance is not right. A pointer should be something fairly 
stable to look at, such as pointing in a direction (arrow, hand) or 
marking a location (cross, i-beam). This thing is chaotic; it has 
arrows pointing in five directions. Having the small crossed four 
arrows would tend to suggest resizing or moving things, and this is 
not the case. Is this intuitive, or misleading and confusing? Even it 
we were moving things, four crossed arrows would not be something to 
overuse; as a dragging icon it would be appropriate. Using it all the 
time is radical. They are separated from the main pointing portion of 
the cursor, and this enhances the confusing effect. Solution: a 
cursor-designing contest?

(Reading the Readme, I assume that "hand" will still be hand and 
"arrow" will still be arrow, and there will be another keyword for 
the tool icon--if so, good. Also, while defaulting to arrow is best 
for many apps, educational and some games are just as well done with 
the hand. This will be fine if it's easy to set the defaultcursor to 
the hand when desired.)

- The tool palette:

Yes and no. The advantage of dragging out a control is that you see 
its exact shape and position all the time while placing it. So, it 
has its good points as a method, and it's pretty smooth. However, it 
does have its limitations. It requires constant pressure on the mouse 
button; one-click creation is cleaner in a way. But even more 
importantly, the other old capability of dragging to create and size 
at the same time is superior in terms of what can be achieved with 
your motions. Lacking anything like this makes the new tool palette 
pretty clumsy. Double clicking to create a centered control is really 
too basic for an easy-to-use yet advanced tool like Rev. (It's more 
like what we would expect in Hyperstudio.) Rev would do better with a 
power feature, which is what we have with double-clicking the old 
tool palette.

Form should follow function. This is form striking out on its own 
with function stumbling along behind. It could be a step forward in 
both respects if the old and new palette capabilities were combined; 
after all, if you click and don't drag in the new tool palette, you 
get no result. This is wasted and unintuitive. Use the new way when 
the user drags, use the old way when he clicks or double-clicks. 
Simple, and then you have a truly superior interface, not just one 
that's "in fashion."

Including the paint and expanded draw tools is a good idea and will save time.

- The documentation window's dictionary:

Filter and Search are fine, but Scroll to term is a good thing and 
could still be included. I've used Filter many times (including every 
time I have to reset prefs, and also when I choose to use it for a 
purpose) and have always ended up setting it to Scroll as the default.

- Revolution online

Interesting way to get community going. "Cool."

- The player

Yes and no.

It's great to have Rev stacks play on all platforms; I think that is 
just as it should be. And a player is an ideal way to do this, so 
when I read about the idea, I was enthusiastic.

However, this particular player is too radical. If someone wants to 
distribute their software, they do want people to actually look at 
their software, and the people downloading also want to actually see 
that software. This player prevents that, jumping to the front and 
offering other options with the opened stack shoved to the back. 
Worse, closing the online browser quits everything. At best the user 
will be completely distracted from the program they downloaded, at 
worst they may give up before even getting to it. Either way, any 
software distributed the traditional way will seem much less valuable.

This is one of the most self-promoting players I've seen so far. So, 
selling something made with DreamCard would be very unlikely, but 
even freeware distributed as a traditional download package would 
just seem like part of the background when opened up. Was it worth 
downloading?

When browsing for online contributions it's not so bad, but on the 
other hand, this assumes a "community" point of view where the user 
is interested in trying whatever's out there, good and bad, big and 
small, all there together. What if a user downloads a distributed 
stack and just wants to see that stack and do whatever it does--not 
in community frame of mind, not interested in seeing other things? 
The DreamCard player is so IDE-centric and focused on the new 
community idea that it stops filling the original role of a player.

If there is still going to be any traditional distribution of stacks 
(on web pages and download sites) for use with the player, then the 
online browser should not take over. It could be available from a 
menu or button rather than popping out. And the Revolution 
message/promotion should be toned down and balanced. If someone 
downloads a distributed stack then they don't necessarily want to 
make their own; they haven't indicated that they want that, but they 
have indicated that they want to try the stack they downloaded. They 
should be able to play and exit the software without actually 
declining a trial download of Revolution or seeing too much 
advertising; otherwise stacks distributed in download sites won't be 
worth much and the online DreamCard community, good as it may be, 
might be all there is.

I think new concepts associated with the player should be added in a 
way that doesn't kill off the old ones!

The pitch for Buy/Try Revolution could be in a window reached from an 
"About the Player..." menu item, and the online browser could be 
available from that same window or from another menu item. If the 
user is opening a specific project (by dragging or by double-clicking 
that project) then keeping things focused on that project will be 
respecting the user's wishes. In this case, a splash screen would be 
better on exit (a traditional "Made with") rather than startup, 
because the user should be "in" the software with the assistance of 
the player, rather than "in" the player.

If the user double-clicks the player, then the intent is different 
and there's no reason not to go right into the online browser; they 
want to be "in" the player. However, opening a file stored on the 
user's hard disk should also be an option, in a menu item and 
probably also in a dialog or a button on the browser window.

-- 
Curry Kenworthy
--
Curry K. Software
http://www.curryk.com/

Christian xTalk Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cxtalk/