C3 UX Feedback

Hello oosyrag, as you may or may not know I am in charge of everything regarding the Animations Editor. Maybe you have noticed that I end up closing all the bugs in it

I find it a little frustrating that the toolbar to the left switches between Animation Properties and the Color Palette depending on what tool is selected. Particularly when real estate is mostly available as there really are not too many animation properties. I'd like to suggest the Animations Properties be docked on the right either above or below the Animations List. Makes sense to me, especially as they are related. Then the left toolbar can always have the Color Palette open.

I have thought about this myself and even came to the same conclusion, the Animations panel has way too much empty space and the Properties panel would fit perfectly below it. I have just been quite busy with other things and haven't been able to get to that.

This leaves us with the Image Points dialogue. I feel like this is a huge feature that is hidden behind a tiny button. I think something should be done to make it a bit more prominent, maybe having it's toolbar always open as well, docked below the Color Palette. But then it might start getting too cluttered... Also related to the image points, is that a fairly common problem is when someone moves the origin point for one animation frame and not the others. Maybe there could be some way to present the "Apply to whole/all animations" more prominently as well. By the way, thanks a ton for the new quick assign option!!

Additionally, I think it would be nice to have the option to show all imagepoints at once, maybe as a toggle. They can be differentiated by color or shape, like how the origin looks different from imagepoints currently.

I think the Image Points panel is fine where it is, after all it is only relevant when the tool is activated. Just a few days ago I also thought about an option to show all the image points in a frame at the same time, even if only for reference. Don't know when I might get around to doing that though.

For the Color Palette, !PLEASE! allow for the picker to be constrained to the palette and continue picking even when the mouse is not over the palette! This behavior is already implemented in the new configure grid color popup dialogue. This allows for more precise picking of colors around the edge of the palette (the ones I'm aiming for 90% of the time). I feel very strongly about this, and it is literally one of the first things I noticed when I started using C2 5 years ago. When Construct is described as a "tool for artists", it is especially noticeable.

I am not too sure I understand this. What do you mean by "allow for the picker to be constrained to the palette and continue picking even when the mouse is not over the palette". How can you pick a color if the pointer is not on top of the palette

If you are having a hard time picking colors from the edges, you might want to try to expand the palette to the side to make it wider. You can do that by dragging the panel separator lines, the thick grey ones in between each of the panels. They aren't there for show only If you hover the pointer on top of them, you will see that the cursor changes, indicating they can be dragged. This should make it easier to pick different colors. After you are done saving all the colors you are going to use, you can make the palette small again so it doesn't take so much space.

A minor thing I think would be nice also would be to include one more row of swatches above the palette - a preset row of basic primary and secondary colors.

That doesn't sound too terrible

A huge request would be layers and transformations with tweening support, but I understand that isn't exactly easy, so I'll leave it at that. But I will add that it's something I definitely missed coming from Flash. (Shoutout to Spriter here for saving the day!)

I am afraid both of those features exceed the scope of the Animations Editor.

It's primary function is to create and edit animations that the runtime can understand, import graphic files and edit properties which are specific to Construct such as image points and the various properties a frame and an animation can have.

Graphics editing, although the most noticeable, is the secondary function, and because of that we are not interested in trying to compete with far more competent software that has been available for years, and I am not even talking about Photoshop here. Tools such as GIMP or Paint.Net are freely available and are already leaps and bounds ahead of anything we can muster. Basically we are not trying to replace your favourite image editing program, because it would be a monumental waste of time

I think that covers everything.

Thanks for the detailed response! You're my hero.

Just some perspective the interface is already most excellent, I'm really just nitpicking at whatever I can here...

For the color picker, maybe it is easier to explain visually.

And here are Paint.net's and Gimp's pickers respectively:

It really isn't anything particularly important, I understand especially as you mentioned the graphics editor is a secondary feature. But again it was something that I definitely noticed right away.

Ah, I get it now. I'll try to wedge that in at some point. I am all for the small improvements that don't seem like much by themselves, but when put together really make the difference.

I found that arrow and lines for sub event still confusing to get aligned feels right.

Back button still kills the project without warning on Android. I'm assuming that will get fixed. Raising here as was raised in one of the previous posts in this thread.

Back button should close the current open menu window / dialogue box, or if there are none open should give a close project warning.

Also, sticking with android, it is mad annoying that the keyboard pops up every time I open a menu window as it blocks the selection. Leave the keyboard closed unless I deliberately select a text field

I'd love to test more on Android but I keep pressing the damn back button.....

Ps the preview button is currently 2 menus in from menu list. It should be directly under the menu list or even better on the main menu bar at the top. The preview button, for me, and I'm assuming most others, use is second only to save and so should have priority in the UI

i also find the android keyboard an immense flow breaker, it pushes the whole window, takes halve of the height, and is slow..

i think a customised keyboard could bring a much better tablet experience...

if found this rather cool project:

https://mottie.github.io/Keyboard/

you can have different key-layouts, numpad only , custom themes, its much faster, compact ...

There are many keyboards available to download for android, this would most likely best be served by the user picking and using their own preferred keyboard. If Scirra decides to program one in, what will work for one user may not be liked by another.

The back button problem renders mobile editing absolutely unusable, at least for me. There is no way I'm getting anywhere without eventually accidentally hitting the back button and instantly losing all unsaved progress.

I've been using C3 for a few days and I'm consistently impressed with how rich and full-featured it is. Scirra is hitting it out of the park IMO and it's a super solid base for the inevitable stable release.

That said, my complaints are mostly cosmetic (it looks... quite ugly, haha.) My other three nitpicks so far:

1. The tab bar wraps and it looks hideous... TBH I'd suggest Menu/Save/etc. and Username/Avatar on one line, and the tabs on the next, and then have all the other panels below them. Horizontal space for tabs is at a premium and if the properties and project panels, for instance, have to scroll an extra 30px or whatever I'd prefer that.

2. There's inconstancies with dialogs, where OK/Cancel are reversed in some cases.

3. Sometimes the fade/show animation on menus, like the user one, feel really slow. Make 'em 0.1ms.

So...how exactly do we modify the themes/colors of the editor now? I rather have my dark one back...

Cryptwalker themes are a work in progress keep an eye on the blog for more news!

Andrex Thanks for the feedback! If you dislike the delay on the animations then you can disable them in the settings menu for the time being.

Cryptwalker themes are a work in progress keep an eye on the blog for more news!

Andrex Thanks for the feedback! If you dislike the delay on the animations then you can disable them in the settings menu for the time being.

Glad my feedback was useful! Keep it up guys.