My Wishlist
aangel
Fabulous app! I learned about it at the first CPCoderNight in San
Francisco a few weeks back. I've used it all day today for a project
I'm working on. My email is angel (at) mac (dot) com if you want to
see my layouts.
I've laid out about 15 screens big and small so I have a good idea of
the strengths of the app as well as where some additional
functionality would make a big usability difference (at least for me).
But it's a testament to the quality of the app that I was able to get
real work done with it all day. Bravo!
Now, below is what I'd love to see. I'm quite sure many of these are
already on your development list, but I'm listing them because I
noticed they weren't there when I tried to use them and also to give
you one user's perspective of priorities.
I've put them in two lists: "Rush to the Top of the Queue" and "Eh,
Take Your time." I think you're not very far from having an app that
I'd pay for so that my client and I can work on layouts together.
Rush to the Top of the Queue
1. Distribute objects evenly horizontally and vertically.
2. Autosave. What happens if I lose my connection during a work
session?
3. Word wrap on text fields. I'd like to be able to move the right
text boundary of a text field and the text inside wraps and grows
downward. Right now moving a handle on a text field changes the size
of the text. That can be done with the font size already.
4. Large nudge. Instead of moving one pixel at a time, move five or
more pixels when Shift and an arrow key are pressed.
5. Lock objects in place (not selectable, not moveable until unlocked
-- maybe a slightly purple highlight?)
6. Be able to upload images (for icons and other graphics)
7. Ability to reverse the checkbox (i.e. put box on the right)
8. Colors and different fonts.
9. When centering two objects with each other, any object selected
after the first one should be centered with the first one. Right now
it often moves the wrong object thus adding extra work to move them to
the correct spot.
10. Export to PDF. Set page size…the page stops at the right and
bottom edge of the outmost objects and it looks weird.
11. Permit editing of objects in a group (like Pages permits)
Eh, Take Your Time
1. Select All (Cmd-A). Right now the browser highlights the whole page
rather than the app capturing it and selecting all objects.
2. Sortable data grids, tables, etc. That would be really great.
3. Add a dirty document flag if you don't save after every edit (to
know that an edit has been made).
4. Move Font size to an inspector and give it +/- or dropdown with
choices.
5. Please allow shift return to create new line for bullets and text
without creating new paragraph
6. Add tooltip text that appears in preview mode when mouse hovers
over an item.
7. When duplicating a Parent Page, duplicate all child pages as well.
8. Constrain circle and rectangles when drawing with ctrl or shift key
(ensures perfect circles and squares)
9. Inspector for the datagrid that allows me to set row colors, etc.
10. Once positioned and sized, objects need to stay the same size even
when the internal text changes otherwise the layout gets ruined.
11. Ability to insert special characters like bullets
12. Ability to put commas in text of grids.
13. Visible alignment grid (very light grey).
14. On second paste of new object, place same distance away from
second object as first pasted graphic was from original object (smart
paste positioning).
15. Custom palette. Allow me to put the custom objects I've lovingly
crafted onto a handy palette so that I can find them easily for new
pages.
16. Zoom. Allows better precision when positioning.
I hope this helps! If anything is unclear, just write back or we can
have a phone call, too.
-André Angelantoni
Saikat Chakrabarti
Thanks so much for the extensive list. Most of these are on our
feature list already, but it helps to get a sense of what issues
people are having most often. But just had a few comments:
On the "Rush to the top of the queue" list:
3. You should try using the Text area widget. That has word wrapping
built in
9. Good point - right now it tries to calculate the center of the
selected objects and centers around that. What you're saying probably
makes more sense
10. Working on that one as we speak.
on the "take your time" list:
3. This should be happening already (your document icon at the top
gets dim when there are unsaved changes). Is it not occurring for
you? If not, sounds like a bug (and if it is a bug, can you tell me
your OS and browser?)
4. I think I might change the font size box to have a better UI, but
I'm pretty against the idea of inspectors.
Thanks again for all the feedback, this is really great! Do let us
know if you come across anything else.
- Saikat
Andre Angelantoni
> Thanks so much for the extensive list.
You're welcome :-).
> Most of these are on our
> feature list already, but it helps to get a sense of what issues
> people are having most often.
I figured that but as a software developer myself I know that user input is almost always valuable.
Thanks for addressing some of my points so quickly. When I tried the text area widget somehow I got the impression it had a scrollbar even after it was placed...I'll check again.
I'll also check out the dirty document indicator.
If I had to pick one feature I'd like next, I'd have to say the distribute horizontally and vertically one. I had to fuss quite a bit to lay out the Report Icon page without it.
I'll keep telling people that your app exists and that even it it's beta it's already quite useable.
Why no love for inspectors?
----------------------------------------------------
André Angelantoni, President
Are you prepared for the peak?
Follow me at www.twitter.com/PostPeakLiving
Watch 'Preparing for a Post Peak Life'
www.postpeakliving.com/preparing-post-peak-life
Saikat Chakrabarti
Definitely, and do keep it coming.
As for inspectors - I've always found them to be cumbersome to work
with and unintuitive to find in the first place. This is definitely a
very subjective observation, but it often feels like a "catch-all" for
everything you can't figure out where else to put, and I think, in
most cases, there is a better place to put these things/a better UI
for changing the property you want to change. Having said that, I
haven't thought of a better idea for changing lots of properties for
widgets, but I also don't think our app is complicated enough to
justify a Inspector just yet. I suppose we'll see what we do if/when
it gets to that point =).
On Jan 20, 10:15 am, Andre Angelantoni <aan...@postpeakliving.com>
wrote:
Andre Angelantoni
I've been down that road before and there aren't that many options, really:
Panes: like in Eclipse
Drawers: like in some Mac apps
Ribbons and Toolbars: MSFT and others
Inspectors and Toolboxes: Everyone else
Accordions insides panes: Adobe
Eventually real estate gets tight. Panes (especially with accordions) can work but they are still limited by the screen size so they eventually run out of steam. The user ends up being forced to choosing what they want to see. Ugh.
I concluded that inspectors/toolboxes were the best solution most of the time, but I understand other points of view.
----------------------------------------------------
André Angelantoni, President
Are you prepared for the peak?
Follow me at www.twitter.com/PostPeakLiving
Watch 'Preparing for a Post Peak Life'
www.postpeakliving.com/preparing-post-peak-life