Big thank you
Adam Gibson
the development of betaflash, I had my first little play with it
tonight and found it quite good to use and have no doubt that I'll get
good use of it in the future.
Just a few bits of user feedback, I was testing it by using it to make
photo topos of a local crag. Found it a bit fiddly to select the
corner tabs of the bounding box when scaling the image to the right
size, so maybe increase the clickable area?
Was the intention to add all of the bolts for a route in one hit so
that they're then collectively scalable? Thats how I was using it and
it seemed okay, except where I accidentally double-tapped on the
keyboard and added an extra bolt inside one bolt 'item' and had to
delete the entire group to remove it, so being able to select one bolt
inside a group would be fantastic, also it seemed logical that hitting
backspace when laying out a route or adding bolts would remove the
last route node or bolt placed.
Rescaling rap stations didn't seem to work and as I'm dealing with a
18-22m high crag, it means they're disproportionately large.
Now I know the intention of the software is probably aimed more at US
big walls, but there's a few items I'd love to discuss to make it work
just as well with smaller crags, such as including descriptions of the
protection (sport, mixed, trad).
Anyway, I shouldn't go on too much, none of it is intended as
criticism as I'm a really huge fan of the software but I figure it's
better to give the feedback from the outsider's perspective.
Regards,
Adam Gibson.
Bartek
exactly what I am looking for - opinions of people who will be using
it.
Yes, I noticed that control points can be a little difficult to work
with. In the next version I can make the selectable area a bit
larger. In addition provide feedback to the user by changing the
control point's color when the mouse is over it.
The way editing (and, in fact a number of other things) is currently
working is a compromise of usability and time required to write it.
My goal was to release the first version that would have enough
features to be useful and not to spend a very long time working on a
final product that would or would not see the light of the day.
Editing on control point level (adding/deleting points, bolts, etc.)
was one of the things that would introduce complexity I did not want
to deal at the beginning. So... I think deleting points will be
introduced in the next release.
The issue with rescaling can be handled differently. Another feature
that had to be put off for the next release was setting grid
parameters. I decided that the grid would be most important in long,
multi-pitch routes, so my suggestion is to turn it off for single
pitch, crag routes. That way, you're free to scale your picture and
route to whatever looks pleasing. Some time in the future I will
incorporate changing the scale of grid, and then you can turn it on
and scale it appropriately to match your drawing.
The intent of the software was to be as universal as possible (even
reach into ice-climbing and mountaineering worlds). In the next
releases I intend to include more support for having multiple routes
on a map - as one would find on a typical crag, as well as the type of
route (sport, trad, etc.). Is there anything else you had in mind?
Again, I appreciate your feedback!
Bartek