Tank preferences don't stick?

[stinkyFish]

hey there, new user to forums and registered GA customer. this year i spoiled myself with a new G5 dual and 23" monitor, and GA looks fabulous on it.

Jim, from a UI standpoint i think your mockup on 9/1 is more intuitive and a cleaner design than the more recent ones. this is from someone who does interfaces as part of his job....

rather than the pop-ups, why not get rid of the drop-down menu entirely and have a little (static) thumbnail that changes when you select a new tank?

[JimO'Connor]

Originally posted by stinkyFish
hey there, new user to forums and registered GA customer. this year i spoiled myself with a new G5 dual and 23" monitor, and GA looks fabulous on it.

Welcome!

Jim, from a UI standpoint i think your mockup on 9/1 is more intuitive and a cleaner design than the more recent ones. this is from someone who does interfaces as part of his job....

Eric put you up to that, didn't he?

I absolutely agree with you. My only reluctance is because with the 9/1 set-up there are two places to turn on/off the auto-lighting, bubbles and sound -- in the tables and in the right pane. That seems wrong as it makes the table controls redundant. However, it may be the best we can do.

On the other hand, the MAIN reason I've heard people want to be able to change settings in the table is to make mass sound adjustments (on or off) without having to select a tank, change the setting, selet a tank change a setting. If the sound setting is global rather than particular to each tank, that need is erased and the table may be too much anyway. We could just go to indicators of the controls condition rather than actual controls.

rather than the pop-ups, why not get rid of the drop-down menu entirely and have a little (static) thumbnail that changes when you select a new tank?

The popup for the tank selection was mostly to make the functionality here parallel to the fish tab. However, I don't think that justifies its existence any longer. In any case, the right pane is about to get smaller and allow room for a static tank image.

Do you have any suggestions for the debris column header? Currently we have these...

[stinkyFish]

Eric put you up to that, didn't he?

who's Eric? forum newbie here.

Do you have any suggestions for the debris column header? Currently we have these...

that's tricky... hard to represent "debris" as an icon. you could just make a bunch of particles—here's an example using Photoshop's "noise" filter:

[JimO'Connor]

Originally posted by stinkyFish
who's Eric? forum newbie here.

Sorry about that.
Eric Daniels is the artist for Goldfish. Google "Eric Daniels deep canvas" to get an idea.

that's tricky... hard to represent "debris" as an icon. you could just make a bunch of particles—here's an example using Photoshop's "noise" filter:

May just have to put the word "Debris" up there and hope it doesn't turn out two pages long in German.

[johnblommers]

Allow tool tips to tell the use what the pretty icons mean. IMHO and I do NOT develop UI for a lliving, icons are not enough, there should always be a text field nearby. Think along the lines of the customizable icon bar that pervades Mac OS X application. You can add text to the icons and you can make them smaller if you want.

As for a junk icon, the Photoshop noise filter creates dust, so make the particles big enough so they look like junk. Just grab a few of those 3D particles and render them to make your icon?

BTW on the PC the junk looks like light colored particles, on the Mac the junk looks like dark colored particles. Is that right?

[stinkyFish]

ah, tool tips... meant to mention this and forgot. i'd agree with johnblommers and use whatever particle representation you want, then add tool tips.

on my 23" cinema display, the "debris" is barely perceptible....you can only see it if you actively look for it against light colored objects....

[Wizwad]

Things seem to have moved on since I suggested the boot, but my thanks to Cliff - that was almost *exactly* what I was thinking of. Maybe with the front of the toe split from the sole as well, but otherwise perfect!

Sounds like so far the PC Debris is better than the Mac Debris. At least it's still ahead in one area then.

[cjmaddy]

[JimO'Connor]

Unless I get a brilliant idea I just can't live without implementing...

[Wizwad]

Well I think that looks great!

When are we gonna get it for the PC?

[ESHIREY]

I agree. I like it and we need it for the PC.

[cjmaddy]

In particular, that rock! ........... Please!

[johnblommers]

Jim,

I'm sensing a claustraphobic preference pane here

Please let me adjust this window's height so I can see all the preferences at once

Don't force me to try to do this by editing the NIB file in Xcode

And I realize this may be out of your hands, as I don't see ANY screen saver that allows this to happen, it's like the System Preference Pane itself is a pain

Otherwise I give the preference GUI a

[JimO'Connor]

The limitation is more one of the smallest monitor we'll run on.

[stinkyFish]

Originally posted by JimO'Connor
The limitation is more one of the smallest monitor we'll run on.

what you've got there could work.... but i was more thinking along the lines of having one place for the thumbnails that changes when you select a different tank. saves a lot of space. here's something i whipped up in Photoshop (i sneaked in a feature request too, hehehe)...

[johnblommers]

(1) I like Jim's white light icon and multi bubble icons better.

(2) There is a basic usability problem with all the GUI suggestions. The following four buttons/sections effect the appearance of the tank

- Settings
- Fish
- Tank
- Advanced

Therefore they should be grouped together.

(3) NONE of these four sections show what the settings actually do, and you have to hit OK to see the living results. Therefore IMHO all four of these should show a common preview in the same position

If I want to see the results of different shimmer settings, I should NOT have to clock OK, I should see it right there. Junk? What's that look like? Click on Junk and see it before your eyes. This is a Mac, I want instant gratification

[stinkyFish]

Originally posted by johnblommers
(1) I like Jim's white light icon and multi bubble icons better.

yeah i grabbed an older screen shot by mistake. my bad.

[JimO'Connor]

First, I appreciate all of the suggestions for the UI. I'll keep all of them in mind for future revisions.

The default tank tab will look like this:

[JimO'Connor]

and don't mind modifying your ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.prolific.LifeGlobe.GoldfishAquarium.*.plist file by hand to look like this:

[JimO'Connor]

this: