New Settings Panel Prototype
 

I've showed a new prototype Settings panel for the Aquarium to Jim and a few others in the chat and generally got warm responses. I showed them Settings Panel A below:

Settings Panel A

Settings Panel B (Fri, Nov 30)

All comments below refer to Settings Panel A.
To see the comments about Settings Panel B, click here.


To explain a little about the Settings panel, I've gone ahead and put in 3D background settings even though I don't have a beta (I swear!).

On the Fish Selection panel, the Aquarium defaults to having the checkbox at the top turned on. That means you have 7 random fish just like the present Aquarium, each with the same odds that it will appear.

If you change any settings below, then the checkbox at the top will be unchecked and the fish preferences in the bottom panel take effect. You can set some fish to never appear, some fish to sometimes appear, some fish to appear often, and then you can manually specify fish to always appear (like you do in the Aquarium now).

I haven't figured out how to accomodate the people who want a tank of 9 percula clowns yet. Maybe if you specify "Always", a box appears next to it where you can type in a number. And if you try to type in a number more than the number of available "Always" slots, it will beep at you.

The ability to give preference to some fish and prevent other fish from appearing is one of the most often-requested features. I hope this settings panel is a good start at fulfilling it.


By the way, there are some rumblings going on behind the scenes to instead replace the settings panel we have now with a new one that lets you drag icons of the fish into the tank. No provision is made for setting some fish to "never", "often", or "seldom". It would basically work the way the Settings panel works now; the plan is to make it easier for users to select fish.

There is no guarantee that this Settings panel or anything we discuss here will make it into the Aquarium. It's just a prototype/idea.

Obviously you would click on the tabs at the top to alternate between the 3 panels. This is just a simple prototype website I made.

Wow, already hearing lots of confusion on this one in the chatroom, so I'd better clarify.

Ok, the "Enable seven random fish - Ignore the settings below" box at the top does just that. It means the Aquarium will ignore any of the settings below and will set the Aquarium to 7 random slots. That means each of the 20 fish has a 1/20 chance of appearing in the Aquarium. Basically it defaults to the 99L behavior, which is having 7 fish slots each marked as RANDOM. That's the "old" way of doing things.

As soon as you start fiddling with the sliders below, the "Enable seven random fish" checkbox will turn off, and the new settings below take effect.

This new settings panel allows you to set randomness for all 20 fish. I can pick 12 fish as often, 4 fish as seldom, 2 fish as always, and 2 fish as never and I'll get a good mix that matches my taste.

I could always get a Wimplefish and Yellow Tang, never get a Royal Gramma or Forceps Butterfly, and then the remaining 5 slots are divvied up between the other 16 fish. In those 5 remaining slots, I'm likely to get 3 of my "often" fish and 2 of my "seldom" fish.

"I want lots of Wimplefishes, I always want 2 Percula Clowns, I rarely want the Flame Angel, and I NEVER want the Royal Gramma." I could do that with this Settings panel, if I make it so picking "Always" puts a little number box on the end where you can type 1-7.

If someone tries to add more than 7 fish, they get a dialog box telling them they can't.

The Invertebrates would be on a separate panel, with a tab at the top next to Fish. Just to reiterate, there will be 9-10 fish in the Aquarium (With the forthcoming 3D background) and then 3 or more Invertebrates. They are independant.

Also, you'll notice this Settings panel has been adjusted to fit on a 640x480 display. The current 99L settings panel is too big for 640x480.

A final summary:

You use the fish page to determine which fish you want in the Aquarium and with what frequency, and there is a "master randomize" button at the top.

The same thing with Inverts.

I have NO plans for an "at a glance" view of what's going to be in the tank because it would never be accurate. The randomness of the fish would mean that it would always change. The Aquarium randomly picks fish at startup.

I have absolutely no qualms, concerns, or guilt about having the Invertebrates on a separate panel from the Fish. The idea of having the Fish and Invertebrates settings on a single Settings panel squashed down to fit on 640x480 repulses me.

By the way, Michael (jav400) hates this. :)

Here is the change I would propose.
 

Feldon, That looks great,!

But I think the initial confusion about how to use the sliders will ultimately turn into support problems for Jim and Prolific.

I am sorry to bastardize your wonderful artwork, but this is a change that I would make:


http://www.rmrcpa.com/lgk/New-9.jpg


The idea is that the intuitive selectors that currently exist remain, and the great list of fish pictures with weight sliders is added (it has to be scrollable to fit probably.

I always have reservations whenever something that works well is going to be altered. It doesn't mean I am not for it, it just means I hold the belief that when something new is implemented it runs the risk of breaking.

I deal with it everyday where I work. Following new implementation to the software there is always a rigorous flurry to regress and see if any old bugs resurfaced. There are ALWAYS new bugs because the new code never fits in like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

So I am for it but am holding my breath for core meltdown.

Socrates,

Your modification of Morgan's control panel idea seems to me to be the best solution so far. It's more or less what I'd imagined from reading the previous discussions on the subject.

What about the situation where a user has left 2 random slots but set 3 or more fish to 'always'?

Socrates has no "Always" setting on the Random panel.

Always is implied by specifying a fish from one of the drop-downs menus on the left.

I guess I imagined that you could set all 7 to random with the "weight" table at the right being used for all the random slots.

I really don't see how dropdown menus are more intuitive. You have to basically pick the fish twice.

And Lightfeather, I agree with not changing for the sake of changing, but changing for a good reason. Bottom line is, for 640x480 users, SOMETHING is going to have to change. Jim wants to bring the # of fish on-screen to 9 or 10, plus he wants to add pictures of the fish. Can't do it on 640x480 without something that scrolls.

I modeled this Settings panel closely after the #1 screen saver series of all time, After Dark by the now defunct Berkeley Systems. (if you're wondering, the less elegant but otherwise free screen savers from Microsoft basically killed them off--which will soon be a common tale now that XP is here).

All of their screen savers had settings like this, with the options of Never, Seldom, Often, Always for various items.

OK, let me say a few things here, and everyone realize that we are just tossing around ideas at this point. Morgan and I had this discussion in the chat room the other day for quite some time, and we resolved some questions and created others. So let me try and go over what we discussed.

To start with, one of the ideas behind these changes are so that people who are unfamiliar with the fish can have a photo on the selection page to help them with their choices. I whole heartedly agree with this point. For people who are not sure which fish is which, I think this would be a great improvement.

Also, being able to set your preferences about which fish you would like to see most often, I also think would be a great improvement. There are always fish that people like better than others and this would help in that respect.

The only question that I had was that when Jim is finished with the Specialty fish, and the specialty invertebrates, people who opt for the complete set of everything will have quite a number of choices to pick from. Obviously, there will be so many that the fish and the invertebrates ( including photos ) will have to be displayed on separate tab sections. One for the fish and one for the invertebrates.

Now the way that this design works is to let you set and choose which fish or inverts you prefer from these tabs, so you can view the photos, but in doing so you have to switch between the two to set what you would prefer to be in the whole tank. As long as there is a global reminder of how many you have chosen so you can keep a running count from one tab to the next, it should work. The only solution I came up with on short notice was to add an additional tab for the actual choices, with the drop down menus like we have now, ( which would be lengthy and contain maybe 30-35 choices total with everything ) and 10-13 boxes to cover the fish and inverts, and let the "fish" and the "Invert" tabs be applied if you choose "random" in one of your choice boxes like we do now. This would leave you with 5 tabs total. About, Settings, Choices, Fish, and Inverts.

The good thing about this, is that you have 1 page where you can make and see your actual choices. The bad thing is that it still leaves us basically where we are now, without photos to aid in the choosing, those would be available, but only on different tab sections.

That was the main basis of the discussion. I was trying to figure out a way to "have my cake and eat it too." Unfortunately, I haven't been able to come up with a way to accomplish this totally and satisify both requirements.

The only other thing that I had a question about, and this would involve the collision detection more than anything else, would be how many total Invert settings will be allowed. Will we have 7-10 fish choices and 3 invertebrates choices total. Or will each setting be a global thing where you can choose more Inverts and be able to display basically an Invert tank, with only 2-4 fish? At this point I know that Jim has planned in the past to have just 3 additional Invert choice boxes. This idea stemmed from the fact that in past discussions the Eels ( which don't particualrly like alot of light ) and probably the Octopus, being 2 of the choices, might be hidden in a cave or under an overhang some of the time, which leaves you with only 1 free roaming Invert. This was just a thought and maybe Jim can give it some consideration. But I would guess that the collision detection would be the biggest hurdle to cross.

In conclusion, I do like the new ideas for the choices, but wanted to find a coherent streamlined way to accomplish all ideas. So far, not the best of luck.

You're going on the basis that Jim has changed his mind about 9-10 fish slots and 3 invert slots. From the chat, I got the impression that you were hoping fish slots could be traded for invertebrates, even so far as to produce an almost entirely invertebrate tank.

At the least, more than 3 inverts will require very good collision detection code.

I think that a keyboard command that would allow the 3D background to be locked would be a good idea. This way the user isnt restricted to locking in in the center. They could simply hit the keyboard button when the screen is in the posistion they like. They prototype setting in the image kinda makes me think it would lock in the center position.

I understand that if the user liked the side view of the tank better then the fish probably wont swin off the side, but Jim said that the 3D background would be just over two screens wide. So I figure that there would be more than just the centered view that a user may like best. :)

Actually in the chat the other day, we were talking to Jim and he mentioned that he'll have to change the keys for the Aquarium lights to accomodate keys to move the background left or right manually, and a key to lock the background at any location the user likes.

Lights
 

Speaking of lights: Nice to see that you put separate checkboxes on foreground and background lights in your mock-up, Morgan. Having a black background and automatic foreground has been a wish of mine from the start

/Tiny

I think Morgan's new idea for the menu was great and hardly missed anything! Socrates's idea for the dropdown menu made it even better the way I see it.
The only thing which bugs me is why did you remove the "don't duplicate random choices" check box from the fish tab? It's a very useful option because I like all my fish different.
Another minor change I would suggest is in the order of the tabs. I don't like the about window, I wouldn't like it to be the default window on the menu. I would change the order to: Settings-->Fish-->Invertebrates-->About.

Good work guys, I hope Jim will apply these changes to the menu. We will have to wait (aww!) and see.

Sorry, I wasn't looking closely enough. And using the drop down menus to select the fish you Always want obviously replaces the need for an always setting.

I don't follow how this means you are picking your fish twice. The drop down menus basically have the same function as they do now (consistancy is always good), while the sliders just allow you to say how much you like each fish.

With just the sliders its not easy to distinguish between the option of having 7 fish but selecting all 7 from your favourite set of 3 and only having 3 fish in the tank. Is this even possible. With the sliders as shown if you want less than 7 fish you have to make a choice about what those fish are going to be (i.e. you can't have a random choice of less than 7 fish). You would need a separate box to say how many fish you wanted to show. Or am I completely missing something here.

And I'd agree with pipeta, that the don't duplicate random checkbox was useful.

Would it be possible to put the graphics of the fish in the drop down menus next to their names? Like favicon type graphics?

^_^

I like drop downs.

I am being consistant with the Macintosh OS X interface and I am being consistant with the After Dark series of screen savers. I think if you ask Jim, he will tell you that the drop-down menus were a kludge and never intended to be the "definitive" or permanent way of selecting fish.

Pick a few fish on the left from the drop-downs, set all the random fish on the right to "NEVER."

I really am not sure why you are being so emphatic about his design when you have twice had questions about how to configure fish a certain way with it. The idea of a good interface is that everything seems obvious. You shouldn't have to ask any questions about how to do things.

I think anyone who stumbles across the Aquarium as a new product (having never seen 99L or 1.0) will go to the Fish selection page and see pictures of the fish they like and drag the slider to the right on each fish he/she likes and drag the slider to the left on fish he/she doesn't like.

No drop-downs, no checkboxes, no nonsense.

Again, these are just my ideas, but I know a thing or two about user interfaces. I really would like to see a design that improves on mine and is thinking outside of the box. The drop-downs seems like a dogmatic attempt to stick with the 99L/1.0 way. I'm sure there's an even better way to do this than my idea.

I'd really assumed that "Don't duplicate random choices" would be the default behavior, but that's a bad idea. There should be a checkbox. Except it might be rephrased "Allow duplicate random fish."

Good idea.

Aquarium screen saver users are used to the aquarium interface. They MIGHT also be familiar with the above but they WILL be familiar with the existing interface (obviously this does not apply to new users )

Sorry, I wasn't being clear. The questions I was asking were inteded to be about your original prototype, without the changes suggested by socrates.

But also not as configurable. See my last question again.

And I'm not trying to knock them. It was a great idea to produce your prototype. At least it's prompted a bit of discussion, things have been quitening down a bit lately while we all await the next aquarium installment. To me the additions socrates made are more intuative as they give a visual representation of the seven slots available.

Possibly some drag and drop method of dropping images of the fish into a set of 7 'holes' would be better. The sliders could even be hidden until a random fish is chosen