General Usability Suggestions
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1. Zoom slider at top for people playing on laptops.
2. Ability to rearrange menu order.
3. Ability to pin menus open.
4. Ability to change order of the icons in the drop-out menu.
5. Map different views to different keys (H to Heat, F to Fire, etc.). Alternatively, a Control Panel at the top or bottom, which includes one-click buttons for all of these, the previously mentioned zoom slider, and everything that's currently at the bottom.
6. Dual/Tri/Quadview. Views of same simulation, different views (heat, pressure) side by side.
7. Help text accessible by pressing F1.
8. Ctrl+N for new simulation.
9. Tabs for working with more than one simulation at one time.
10. Better Server UI
10a. Popular tags should only be listed when a "Tags" link is pressed. Maybe tell us how many times that tag is used, or make each tag font size bigger the more it is used.
10b. Ability to place simulations into a category when saving. Then we could select which category to view from the server UI.
10c. Improve rating system. 5-star ratings, ability to view rating without opening simulation. (graphical representation under name). Let us rate directly from the simulation window.
10d. If possible, track IP addresses to prevent self-voters. (Proxies could bypass this, but still a nice measure.)
10e. Have a note encouraging users to delete tests and older versions.
10f. Delete useless ones yourself or appoint trusted people to do it.
10g. Quick tags. Remove, Cool, Complex, Artwork, Circuitry, etc. Simple buttons in each tagging window. Allow people to search easier.
11. Pin elements to the top. I'm thinking the actual rectangle itself, so it's a one-click access. Ability to rearrange these elements easily.
I know some of this is hard and may seem minuscule, but I hope that most of these suggestions are implemented in future versions of The Powder Toy. It's the little things which count.
Some are kinda hard to understand (not that great with words), so I can just make a quick Photoshop mock-up of what I'm trying to do if you just ask. -
Nice ideas!
They seem so small but I think they'll make a huge difference to how polished the interface is.
I agree completely. -
bchandark
For point 10, the next version is going to change a lot of the tags stuff, voting is going to be per save (not the tags of the save) self voting isn't possible any more, it's tracked by UserID.
Point 5 has been implemented for version 36. It uses the 1-6 number keys to change the view.
