Minor Quality of Life Improvements
Minor Quality of Life Improvements
However, there are a few QoL things that I've noticed that frustrate me and take me out of my workflow.
- Proper Touchpad support.
This one frustrates me the most, since I do most of my work on my laptop. Right now, there isn't any proper support of 2 finger gestures. Pinch and zoom works fine as it defaults to zooming in and out, but two-finger scrolling is inconsistent. Using two fingers up/down = zooms in/out... while two fingers left/right = pans left/right. I understand why this happens, since two-finger up/down is equivalent to the scroll-wheel on a mouse, but it still kills my workflow since I have to fight the touchpad every step of the way just to navigate where I want to in the whiteboard. Funnily enough, you already have the proper functionality built into the research area, which makes the fact that it doesn't work like that in the whiteboard all the more mind-boggling. I'm no expert when it comes of UX design but having inconsistencies like this can ruin the experience of an otherwise excellent app.
- Folders in Research area while Night Mode is On
This is a rather minor gripe, but when selecting a folder in the research area, the outline for the selected folder is black. When night mode is enabled, it becomes practically impossible to spot what folder you're in, especially if you have night mode set to really dark.
- Headers don't auto-complete when pressing enter.
This one is frustrating since hitting enter while in the script auto-completes to the first item in the list. Headers should auto-complete in the same way.
yurilapointe
01-26-2024, 09:27 AM #1First, I'd like to say how much I love Causality. It's an amazing piece of technology they you guys have developed. I can tell it's only going to get better.
However, there are a few QoL things that I've noticed that frustrate me and take me out of my workflow.
- Proper Touchpad support.
This one frustrates me the most, since I do most of my work on my laptop. Right now, there isn't any proper support of 2 finger gestures. Pinch and zoom works fine as it defaults to zooming in and out, but two-finger scrolling is inconsistent. Using two fingers up/down = zooms in/out... while two fingers left/right = pans left/right. I understand why this happens, since two-finger up/down is equivalent to the scroll-wheel on a mouse, but it still kills my workflow since I have to fight the touchpad every step of the way just to navigate where I want to in the whiteboard. Funnily enough, you already have the proper functionality built into the research area, which makes the fact that it doesn't work like that in the whiteboard all the more mind-boggling. I'm no expert when it comes of UX design but having inconsistencies like this can ruin the experience of an otherwise excellent app.
- Folders in Research area while Night Mode is On
This is a rather minor gripe, but when selecting a folder in the research area, the outline for the selected folder is black. When night mode is enabled, it becomes practically impossible to spot what folder you're in, especially if you have night mode set to really dark.
- Headers don't auto-complete when pressing enter.
This one is frustrating since hitting enter while in the script auto-completes to the first item in the list. Headers should auto-complete in the same way.
Thanks for posting!
The touch pad support will happen, as part of the mobile apps. Basically, someone earlier on the project put in a lot of MouseAreas, not realizing that this whole thing will have to run on mobile, and a MultiPointTouchArea should have been used for everything. It's quite pervasive, and a lot of the interaction in the app is built on top of the assumption that it's a mouse doing the pressing. All of this has a target on its back, but it's an app-wide refactor that will break a lot of things. And it's silly, because the effort would have been the same to do it right from the beginning. Likely, we'll move the whiteboard to the front of the line, because this is where it's most needed.
The research area in general is in line for a major overhaul. The folder tree on the left will remain, but each folder will represent a full canvas instead of just a list of beats. Then you can organize beats in a more free-form way, as well as draw dependencies between them to articulate story logic before you've put anything into the whiteboard. All of this will of be checked against night mode, so this issue will be discovered even without writing it down.
About headers auto-completing, I'm not 100% sure what this means. Is it about beat titles? Or is it about scene heading auto-complete being different than character auto-complete?
Hi,
Thanks for posting!
The touch pad support will happen, as part of the mobile apps. Basically, someone earlier on the project put in a lot of MouseAreas, not realizing that this whole thing will have to run on mobile, and a MultiPointTouchArea should have been used for everything. It's quite pervasive, and a lot of the interaction in the app is built on top of the assumption that it's a mouse doing the pressing. All of this has a target on its back, but it's an app-wide refactor that will break a lot of things. And it's silly, because the effort would have been the same to do it right from the beginning. Likely, we'll move the whiteboard to the front of the line, because this is where it's most needed.
The research area in general is in line for a major overhaul. The folder tree on the left will remain, but each folder will represent a full canvas instead of just a list of beats. Then you can organize beats in a more free-form way, as well as draw dependencies between them to articulate story logic before you've put anything into the whiteboard. All of this will of be checked against night mode, so this issue will be discovered even without writing it down.
About headers auto-completing, I'm not 100% sure what this means. Is it about beat titles? Or is it about scene heading auto-complete being different than character auto-complete?
yurilapointe
01-28-2024, 04:49 AM #3yes sorry the scene heading is what I meant. It doesn't auto-complete with the first item in the list... You have to press down arrow then enter to complete it...
alan.knittel1@gmail.com
02-09-2024, 01:22 AM #5Drag and drop text within dialog boxes both within and between fields.
I understand that changing a core function of the program like that can cause issues for people who are used to the old way, so I suggest adding it as toggle in the options and let people choose.
On a side note: allowing the ability to move the beats up and down while sliding the beat would be great. Right now, it only slides along the x-axis and only jumps up or down when meeting another beat. It would be nice to allow it to slide along the y-axis as well. This particular suggestion might take more work than it may be worth, so I understand that it might probably be at the bottom of the priority list, but sometimes it's the minor things that make all the difference in UX design...
yurilapointe
02-21-2024, 07:02 AM #6Additionally, I would love to see a toggle in the options to adjust what holding CTRL does when dragging beats/groups/blocks. Right now, dragging (without holding CTRL) moves beats around the whiteboard. While CTRL+drag slides cascading beats so you can add room for new beats. However, I argue that it should be the other way around (normal dragging should slide beats, CTRL+dragging should move beats.). Since most of the time is spent adding/inserting beats rather than reorganizing what order they are in. this can speed up the workflow while working on the whiteboard... (Especially on laptops since some laptops prevent touchpad functionality while using the keyboard (to avoid accidental taps)).
I understand that changing a core function of the program like that can cause issues for people who are used to the old way, so I suggest adding it as toggle in the options and let people choose.
On a side note: allowing the ability to move the beats up and down while sliding the beat would be great. Right now, it only slides along the x-axis and only jumps up or down when meeting another beat. It would be nice to allow it to slide along the y-axis as well. This particular suggestion might take more work than it may be worth, so I understand that it might probably be at the bottom of the priority list, but sometimes it's the minor things that make all the difference in UX design...
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