Rank: Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 13
Points: 39
Location: Utah
|
Preface: I'm a UI nazi, I'll admit it now. Please don't take my passionate pleas for UI consistency and standardization as a lack of appreciation for all the effort that's gone into the program to date. Also I recognize that UI issues often take a back seat to underlying and important program functionality. And thus I recognize that some of my [UI] requests may be ignored for a long time. I too would rather have a program that does what I need than a perfect UI that is still missing important features and has lots of bugs. That being said, there are a lot of UI issues that are very simple to fix, and I strongly encourage the developers to jump on them at their first convenience. Some should only take a few minutes to implement.
Before further ado, here is my feedback from working on my first Blu-ray title in DoStudio, feedback is based on version 1.1.02 (some items may have been addressed in the current build):
1- [Serious Bug] 2nd Title Set: I accidentally added a 2nd Title Set by right clicking in empty space and selecting and couldn't figure out how to delete it.
2- [Serious Bug] Title Rearranging: Re-arranging titles in the playlist seems to wipe them out of existence. They are still there visually, but I can no longer jump to them and if I save, close and reopen the project they are gone.
3- [Serious Bug] Multiple Main Menus: I managed to create multiple main menus which makes the program very unstable and eventually crashes. Then when you try to re-open you get an error. I did this through Mosaic.
4- [Bug] Save perspective as default doesn't seem to work. I always get DSA default when I open the app. Also, the idea of storing perspective settings as external files is annoying, just store them internal to the program. Needing to go find a file for a preference is odd. (Squeeze does this too and I don't like it.)
5- [Bug] If you have more than 1 condition and then you remove the last one, it will say the one before it is incomplete. I think it's because there is an "or/and" pop down on the condition but nothing below. However, I can't seem to figure out how to get rid of the and/or without deleting the condition and re-creating it.
6- [Subtitle Workshop DoStudio Export Bug] - It's quite common to get subtitles that look like this:
01:00:48:22, 01:00:56:13, JULIA: After Father went to Carthage, | Mother never smiled with her eyes.
A simple workaround is to remove the spaces after the commas, then it imports correctly. The Subtitle Workshop folks should to be aware of this issue.
7- [Feature Request] On Compile complete how about a button that automates launching your default BD player and loads the disc image.
8- [Feature Request] Anything in the button tree or playlist tree that actions or conditions on it should have some kind of visual indicator that there is code inside. And all it's parents should show a similar indication. Something as simple as Bolding the text. For example if I have a condition assigned to my Button "MM_Setup" which is inside Main Menu Set which is inside Main Menu then all of those items (Main Menu, Main Menu Set and MM_Setup) should all be bold. This makes it MUCH easier to find stray code wherever it's hiding.
9- [Feature Request] I'd like to have an "Edit" button next to the "..." button under Image Properties for Buttons. Clicking the button will open the png in photoshop so you can make tiny tweaks.
10- [Feature Request] Per Title Multiplexing: The ability to turn multiplexing on/off for specific titles. Right now if I make a small change to a short title that I need to see if it worked, I have to recompile the entire disc including the feature. This takes my mux from 2 minutes to about 90+. Be forced to do that a few times, and that can be the difference toward getting the title out on time or not.
11- [Feature Request] Media info. It would be very helpful to have some basic information about linked media. Duration would be the most helpful, followed by average bitrate, media type & format and whether the link is active. I suggest an [i] info button next to the [...] button.
12- [UI] Okay & Cancel: Consistency on the location of "Okay" and "Cancel" buttons. In my opinion "Okay should always be in the lower right corner of the dialog box and "Cancel" should be just to it's left. This is the Mac way, and more and more Windows apps are adopting this configuration. DoStudio is inconsistent and switches back and forth. Oh and for the record, it should be spelled out "Okay" not OK, or OKAY or Ok... okay?
13- [Bug] Subtitle Popup Menus: Subtitles don't like to show up in the actions pop down menu. You have to leave the dialog then come back and suddenly your subtitles are in the list.
14- [UI] Vague Errors: Sometimes I get and error (usually an IO error), when muxing. And after a little trial and error, I realized it was because WinDVD was open and was keeping some files busy. A better error report on this with the suggestion "Is your software Blu-ray player still open?" would be helpful.
15- [UI] Spacial Consistency: Action list options seem to change order in the pop up menu. This is frustrating because it forces me to read the list every time rather than being able to resort to some motor memory based on spacial consistency. Spacial consistency in menus is a very important GUI convention, because many people (myself especially) are very spatially oriented. I tend to remember where a function is, rather than what it says. Specifically I seem to always be searching for "Set Advanced Parameter" sometimes it's near the bottom of the pop up list and sometimes it's closer to the top. Kind of strange.
16- [UI] Editor screen position: I can deal with the preview window not being scalable (I have a 30" and 24" monitor connected), but the Layout Preview should be centered in the space you give it, that way it doesn't feel so unbalanced. Plus grey space around the image is better than black as black and taint our opinion of contrast and color, a 50% gray will not influence our perception of those things. See Photoshop for how this should work.
17- [UI / Feature Request] Hierarchical sub pop menus, especially in button lists. All the buttons of a set should be combined under a sub menu of the pop up menu. See DVD Studio pro for a perfect example. I have a lot of buttons in this project and it's very time consuming to scroll through them all every single time.
18- [Feature Request] Automatically generate temporary Application and Organization numbers, so we don't have type in these long numbers every time. Alternately, pre-populate the fields with the first part of the numbers, which never change. Or at a bare minimum, let us highlight the text examples so we can copy and paste them in and tweak from there.
19- [UI / Feature Request] Some kind of audio beep when Compile is complete. Preferably not the standard system beep as that should be reserved for errors. Something along the lines of After Effect's Render Complete sound. However, if the compile fails a beep is very much appropriate.
20- [UI] Add PSD file should be in the File menu not Edit.
21- [UI] Lose Mosaic as a separate module, just have it be in the main File Menu as Import -> Photoshop Document. (use the term Document rather than "File")
22- [UI] When you open a project the Playlist Hierarchy should be collapsed by default. Otherwise it's too busy at the beginning. Also an alt/option click on a + or - should open or close all. For example if I option click on the + next to a Title set, everything inside that title set should expand. This is a Mac standard feature that needs to make it over to more Windows apps.
23- [UI] Re-think button sets. Add simple tinting and partial button selection. More on this in a future posting.
Drop the [Yes] [No] from dialog boxes. The new way of doing dialog boxes it to have the answer in the button. Example Dialog Box:
Your current application has not been saved. Do you want to save it?
[Yes] [No][Cancel]
This forces the user to read the text and make a calculation in their heads as to whether this is a positive or negative oriented question and then answer appropriately. The question could have just as easily been: "Are you sure you want to quit with out saving?" This would have switched the [Yes][No] functionality. Admittedly, this isn't common, but you never know and so a careful user will double check and this takes extra time. However if you used the same question as you currently do but changed the buttons to read: [Cancel] (left justified) [Don't Save][Save] (right justified):
Your project has not been saved. Would you like to save it before closing?
[Cancel] [Don't Save] [Save]
The user doesn't even have to read the question to know what the buttons are going to do. This is a much better way of doing it. Yes this methodology also started on the Mac, but it is finding it's way to many Windows apps as well, for good reason.
24- [UI / Feature Request] Antialiasing. I know this isn't standard and may be difficult to pull off, but antialiased text throughout the programs buttons, tabs trees etc would make the text much more readable. Vista got this right (one of the few things).
25- [UI] Ellipses... Proper use of Ellipses in menus is not followed anywhere in the app. The rule is: if the menu item will need additional user input you always put an ellipse after the menu item text. For example. "Save" does not have an ellipse due to the fact that when you select the function, it does it's job and returns the user back to what they were doing. However "Save As..." should have the three period ellipse, this tells the user that they are going to be asked more information probably in the form of a new dialog or window. In this case they will get a Save File window. Briefly looking through the menus, the following menu items should have elapses: Import Photo Shop Doc, Open, New, Add Main Menu Block, Load Perceptive, Save Perspective, and probably all the items in the Help menu, though I guess you could argue either way on those.
26- [UI] Control-A. "Control A" should ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS be "select all", no matter where you are, no matter what program you are in. You have Control A as "Save As...", Save As... should always be Control-Shift S, (this is a newer standard but is being adopted pretty much across the board). I know what you are saying at this point, we don't really have anywhere that a Select All makes sense, I disagree. For example, I was attempting to rename a chapter point, and I clicked and got it into rename mode, but the text wasn't select, in EVERY Mac program I've ever used, I would hit Command-A and boom the text is selected and I can just start typing to get my new text. (I warned you all that I'm a nazi when it comes to UI and I'm VERY passionate. I know this seems like a minor thing to you all, but in my opinion, this is the difference between a quality UI and a hacky feeling UI.)
27- [IU] Triple + clicking. Following along my previous item... Proper Use of Triple Clicking (and Quad Clicking). Again I was trying to rename the same blasted chapter, currently named "Chapter 4", knowing that Control A wasn't going to work I used the next standard UI convention for selecting all the text, I triple clicked the text. Nope didn't work. Triple click should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS select an entire line of text. And Quadruple clicking will select and entire paragraph and is some programs 5 clicks will select an entire document. Instead in DoStudio the first two clicks selected the word "Chapter", which is correct, but the 3rd click in a row deselected all the text forcing me to start over again. Stymied again by a non standard UI... So in the end I had to resort to Click Down at end of text field (taking extra time to make sure I click accurately, heaven forbid I miss that blasted 4 again, and I'm on a 30" monitor, that target is pretty small), then drag to the beginning of the text field, then let up the mouse and start typing. That takes extra seconds vs the other two options and multiply that by dozens throughout the day and I've lost minutes, minutes I'd rather be home. (Yes I realize that when it's first switched to rename mode, it was selected and I could have started typing right off the bat, that's fine, and will help in most cases, but it doesn't negate the fact that there are times when the text is going to get unselected and people are going to expect certain behaviors (like perhaps I started typing with my fingers on the wrong keys and ended up with gibberish, a simple Control-A and start typing is what I should absolutely be able to do.)
28- [UI] Unnecessary beeps. Why does the program beep, when I finish entering text into a timecode field? I feel like I've made a mistake every time I do it. And in fact, the cursor remains at the end of the field, which is further disconcerting. I find myself clicking to another chapter point and back just to make sure the text change stuck. Usually, once I hit return the text field should become unselected and I should see the text I entered. And it certainly shouldn't beep.
Also, in general that text field acts weird. If I click in the middle of the text field, it should let me type the rest of the timecode, instead, as soon as I enter a single digit, it jumps my cursor to the end. See Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Premiere Pro, DVD Studio Pro for how timecode fields should respond to typing text into them.
I've also noticed beeps when entering text in the Size and Position fields. Every single time I think I've made a mistake.
29- [UI] In general, I find "Are you sure?" type dialogs very annoying. For example, when you remove an action from an action list, it always pops up with "Are you sure?" Yes I'm sure, or I wouldn't have done it. However, I can see your dilemma, what if the user spent a fair amount of time with that action and inadvertently chose the remove function, oops... So you pop up an "Are you sure?" You are being cautious, and I get that. But I can think of two standard, less in your face ways of doing that. First and most preferred is allow the user to Undo if they make and accidental deletion... but so far DoStudio doesn't have any undo, and rather than take the time to program undo, you are concentrating on core functionality and compatibility... that's fine... you aren't adobe and you don't have the resources for both. I too prefer you work on core issues. That being said, I have a second suggestion. One more column in the list box with a delete icon (preferably a circle with a slash), however if putting in graphical buttons would take time away from core functions, then a text minus "-" in the column. Or even better, simply support the user deleting the action by selecting it and hitting the delete key on the keyboard (this of course is the most standard UI convention of all). Doing any of these options would allow you to remove the "Remove Action" from the contextual menu further re-enforcing the spacial consistency of the menus.
More feedback forthcoming!
|
Rank: Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 7/7/2008
Posts: 13
Points: 39
Location: Utah
|
As I flesh out my text document, I'm going to keep posting my thoughts, ideas and opinions in this thread until an admin tells me "Enough already!"... So here is:
Round 2
[UI/Feature Request] - There needs to be some way to tell the property specifics on each of the items in the Action List in one glance. Currently in order to see the specific properties you have to click on each item in the action list. This is very time consuming when you have to verify a bunch of actions on a bunch of buttons.
[Feature Request] - Make the program more "event based". So that we can do things like "on button select me all buttons in set"special features" = normal". I can think of dozens of places where this kind of object oriented event based functionality will make authoring MUCH easier and faster.
[UI] Inappropriate use of pop up menus. Pop up menus (I think they are called something else in windows terminology, but no matter) are used in areas where they should not be. For example: Disc Settings -> Complie Configuration -> Multiplex Audio/Video PopUp:Yes|No. Pop up menus should only be used if there are more than two options, preferably only if there are many options. If there are only two options and they are Yes and No then this sould be desgined with a check box instead. So in this example it should be: [ ] Multiplex Audio/Video; and then the user can check it on or off, this reduces the number of clicks neeed to toggle the function. Also, and I'm not sure this applies anywhere in DoStudio, but if you only have like 3 or 4 options and enough screen real estate, radio buttons are preferable to pop up menus, that way the user can see all the options without any clicks needed.
|
