I've been holding back subjective complaints and suggestions regarding the GUI knowing that the staff has enough to attend to in the simulation department. However, now that Early Access has been kicked off, I feel perhaps the time is right to air my suggestions for improving the user experience. I realize they'll probably be less important than other things and thus not prioritized, but I hope these matters will be addressed at some point. I've listed them in descending order of subjective importance:
Menu/Settings related:
- Allow Universe Sandbox to remember View and Simulation settings between simulations and sessions. My pet peeve is Trails; I most often prefer 0 in width and around 50-75 in length. and having to adjust parameters every time I create or load a sim is somewhat tedious (to be fair, the length already does stay at its set level when opening new sims. Width and projected path do not). I thought the Remember Dialog Choices would do it, but apparently it's for something else. A similar button with the described function would be immensely appreciated.
- Bring back the option to set object parameters by sliding mouse up and down in real time, in addition to the +/- buttons. Bring back said feature AND +/- buttons to inner/outer diameter of rings, etc. These things used to be some of my favorites, much due to being fun and intuitive. Now it seems unnecessarily complicated. (I know, first world problems..)
- Include "Stop time when" option, for e.g. long-term climate simulations
- Include list of recently loaded sims under "Open".
Shortcut/Key related:
- [Ctrl-Z] for undoing added objects should also remove the fragments of said objects, or perhaps one ctrl-z per fragment?
- [Ctrl-R] or Reload Simulation should switch and apply to your latest saved document if you've saved since you Started New (empty) document.
- [Enter] should double for left-clicking OK after naming documents and objects for saving.
Sim related:
- Loaded simulations that were saved in a paused and unmoved state should not show fully developed trails for the objects.
Just my $0.02. I hesitate to post this, as you're already rocking everybody's socks off to an unimaginable degree, but I know I'd want the input if I were on the dev side of this. Keep up the amazing work.
Topic: Suggestions for GUI / menu (Read 2092 times)
