Hi,
just did a bit of dabbling with MetaCard, and since Eric's first
stab at the UI is changing what's bad in MetaCard's UI, here's what
annoyed me this time:
-> To edit a group (aka Background), you have to choose "Groups"
from the "Edit" menu, then select a group from the list in the dialog
and then hit "Edit". When you're finished you have to choose "Stop
editing BG" from the menu.
1. Inconsistent naming, we should make sure we use only
"group" and not "background", since a bg is really just a specialized
group in MC.
2. There's no one-click solution. We need a "Start editing
Group" menu item that works on the selected group and turns into
"Stop editing Group" so there's one place where you start/stop
editing a group. If you're frequently switching between groups, e.g.
when setting up tabs in a tabbed dialog, it's awkward.
-> When we start editing a group, all items not in this group become
invisible. You don't even know where the group's bounds are anymore,
which is awful for positioning items in a group relative to items
outside it (e.g. when setting up buttons to be at the lower-right
corner of a tab button. This is something we might not be able to
change, but we should remember this for FC's implementation of groups
in 2.x or whenever.
-> The "Menu bar" option in the "Stack properties" dialog shouldn't
be a text field. Rule one of good UI design: Don't let the user type
in things the program already knows. Since the only viable options
here are the name of a group to use as the menu bar or the name of a
stack to use as the menu bar, it would be cool if there were two
radio buttons "Group:" and "Stack:" with popup menus next to them
that let the user select a group in the current stack or a currently
open stack. We should also have an "Other..." menu item that brings
up a modal stack that lets you select a non-open stackfile and one of
its stacks.
Of course, neat things apply: When the user selects something from
the groups popup, the group radio should be checked automatically and
vice versa. And this should all be placed inside a neat group box.
-> I find it inconvenient that the properties window is a palette,
as every time I click its "Script" button, the palette stays on top
of the newly-opened window. Some solutions:
1. Make script window a palette, too.
2. Make properties window a modeless window.
3. Make script window a modal window (like in HC 1.x)
4. Have property window hide itself when a script window is on top
The 4th option sounds best to me: Just hide the property window
whenever a non-editable stack is frontmost (i.e. a stack that's not
of "toplevel" mode).
-> It's an obvious feature we can always add later: A help button in
the upper right of every window (a small icon, maybe 20 x 20). It's
always convenient if you can bring up the online help chapter on the
current window by clicking at the same location.
Cheers,
-- M. Uli Kusterer
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