Those of you that have been with Studio Artist from the beginning know that we switched to the generic Editor palette starting in V4 and continuing in V5.
Now is actually a really great time for me to hear any feedback you may have about the Editor.
Likes? Dislikes? Don't care? Speak up!
I ask because i'm thinking about re-implementing it for the future. And i certainly have my viewpoints about what i like and dislike about it's current form.
Some of that viewpoint is about what you the user of the program see and work with in there.
Other parts of that viewpoint are what you are utterly clueless about, but what i have to deal with when i program it to add new controls.
And i don't think we'll be going back to the way we did it in Studio Artist V1-V2-V3-V3.5.
Obviously if you feel differently about this let me know.
So again, you have a unique opportunity to state your viewpoints on this particular piece of the Studio Artist interface. At a time when your opinions can highly influence the overall design of what is coming in future releases.
Replies
Hi. I am a relative newbie to SA, far from having a complete picture of it. Here are a few things I would like to have in the editor, and apologies if they are already there, unknown only to me:
-click-on editing of preset names
-multiple preset selection and editing, incl. help-tip editing
-option to view all the categories in the editor pulldown menu at once (= no scrolling)
-ability to step back to the previously edited tab (navigation)
-ability to step back to the previously used preset or non-saved configuration (without having to resort to recording functions)
-ability to reset individual editor tabs to their 'default' state
-ability to copy-paste editor settings by tabs across presets
-ability to copy-paste brush or path characteristics across presets
-at-a-glance review function for presets
-comparison function for presets, localising hierarchic points of divergence
-automatic dimming of settings not relevant to the present configuration (less confusion)
-search among favourites
Thanks for the feedback.
There are buttons at the bottom of the Editor panels you can use to init or randomize that panel (shift click to init or randomize all panels).
The Editor does try and hide settings that are not active at the moment. You see this in the paint synth and vectorizer a lot (you turn on something and then more parameters are available indented below it).
There are issues where you might turn on vector drawing parameters in the paint synth and then most of the controls associated with the raster paint nib generation and compositing are not relevant but do not just vanish. Of course if you are using a setting that is vector-raster hybrid, then they are relevant.
There are paint memory buttons at the bottom of the Editor panel you can use like copy/paste.
You bring up a good point about making them panel specific, so i'll think about that. We could probably add that as a key modifier action for them.
John,
Can you either describe - or post a screenshot of what you mean by "generic Editor palette"?
Thanks!
Awesome!
Every app has some menu system to be learned - this one in SA is no worse for me than any other. I am sure you could make things much larger, tabbed, graphical... But I have no personal problem navigating the present SA menus. If I was live performing or something along those lines where I needed several menus available at a glance - I might want some way to easily float and ground subsets of menus.
If I had a request with the present arrangement, it would be to make the visual aids for the Paint Synth (Brush Source, Brush Type, Background Texture) bigger and make them active buttons that jump to the editing controls/menus related.
I have only one outstanding "problematic" experience with the present menu style:
The sliders (in the image you posted: Region Spacing). The actual sliders are extremely small and usually require several hit or miss clicks to slide-change a number. This can be a little frustrating because it can break into a "groove" by forcing me to focus all my attention on the slider. I am not sure if it is possible to make the whole (number and grey bar) surface of the slider the focus area? Presently it appears to be just the grey bar below the number.
A very specific (mostly user) issue:
I also noticed with Apples Magic Mouse that it is very easy (for me) to accidentally scroll the popup menus if I have my cursor hovering over them and touch down or twitch my finger on the mouse surface, and not notice.
I haven't looked to see if there is an application specific setting I can turn off to avoid this. I used to use only old fashioned mice... The accidental scrolling wasn't an issue with the old hardware. The Magic Mouse can be twitchy.