Mudlet - Forum

How is it currently:
http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/9821 ... hot145.png
on a netbook: http://www.ubuntu-pics.de/bild/32468/sc ... 79gmNf.png

New design:
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/3026 ... ot143w.png
http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/4323 ... hot144.png
http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/3606 ... hot147.png
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7559 ... hot148.png

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/4232 ... hot157.png

LP report for this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/mudlet/+bug/488823

Anyone approve?

What I like about the new design is that it's certainly more accessible for new players who don't use much of the advanced options in the beginning. It looks better also.

However, I when you look at large profiles like Caled's, Ramiel's or Ronny's profile that have way more than 1000 triggers with many triggers having a large amount of patterns, you are faced with two major usability issues:
1. You need to be able to see all relevant trigger option at one glance, because an and trigger, an or trigger, chain or a filter etc. would be completely different to a standard multi pattern trigger. Clicking the view option button each time would drive you mad quickly.
2. Today, more and more people are using small notebooks with smalls screens that are very wide, yet very short in height. These people are faced with the problem that they don't have enough room to write their scripts if the pattern & option area is too high.

All things considered, I think that it's the right time now to discuss improvements in the script editor - and the trigger area is certainly the one field that needs most attention at the moment -, but the 2 points I mentioned above need to be taken into account as they have been a matter of many complaints from our heavy duty users which led to the trigger area's current design eventually.
The other option we could chose is to offer a newbie view and an advanced view, but I think that we may well be able to find a perfect solution without going the newbie/advanced view route and I hope that this topic will draw the attention of many users and generate fresh ideas.

Heiko wrote:1. You need to be able to see all relevant trigger option at one glance, because an and trigger, an or trigger, chain or a filter etc. would be completely different to a standard multi pattern trigger. Clicking the view option button each time would drive you mad quickly.
2. Today, more and more people are using small notebooks with smalls screens that are very wide, yet very short in height. These people are faced with the problem that they don't have enough room to write their scripts if the pattern & option area is too high.

1) True, I'll look into that.

2) This actually makes this better! Users can change their font settings via the global qt menu, and Mudlet will now obey them there. Before, because it was using its own size, global settings didnt affect it.

I like the new design, personally. Heiko draws up some great points with the 1000+ trigger lines problem, however I might have a possible solution in mind.

Instead of having to click the "Add" button to add a second trigger line, why not just have a "ghost form" underneath the main line input.

Now, unfortunately, I'm not good at all at drawing anything, so bear with my description. You have your main Trigger form, where you paste in the appropriate trigger line, click the appropriate option from the trigger "type" drop box, hit "Save", done and done. Now, add a sort of "ghost" form directly underneath that for easy adding of new triggers. It will have the same trigger type drop box next to it, but it will be grey'd out, showing you cannot use it until you add in a new trigger.

This will hopefully save precious time when filling in many more triggers that fire off the same command, and it will show them in the same easier-to-read format that they are currently displayed in now.

What Heiko was talking about were the trigger options that I moved into the new dialog. When you're scanning your triggers (not patterns), getting to the options would be a pita to click the button each time.

Solution: make the trigger options dialog to auto-update whenever you click on a new trigger and have it open. That solves it

I also updated the ui files on lp. Added a close button to the dialog + some signals/slots.

Mockup: http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/4232 ... hot157.png

Any feedback on this?

Please don't! Or if you must, (why? The trigger editor is awesome as is, and from what I can tell, that wouldn't add anything but an annoyance) please at least make it a toggleable setting.

Not all that awesome when you can't read half of the text:

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/4295 ... hot158.png

I don't see a problem with it on large resolutions (like I said, options dialog is updated for new triggers you select) but I'll work on optimizing it for small screens.

I go along with goose here that an improved GUI must not be a step backward as far as the usability of Mudlet would be reduced for heavy duty users who need to see everything quickly and change the core parameters easily without moving to another dialog.

However, I also go along with Vadi with respect to the need of improvements for low resolution screen users. The new design needs to be better than the current one without reducing usability for the heavy duty users who know Mudlet and its interface and simply want to get the job done as quickly as possible.

We need new ideas and new ways to either find a good solution for everybody (preferred) or split the trigger UI into a low resolution and a high resolution view or possibly even add a third newbie view for beginners who would be confused by too many options.

This thread is meant as a brain storming idea generator and UI usability discussion thread.
So keep it comming, whatever your point may be.