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/
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