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UI Improvements

Derek Fosberry

December 21, 2012 12:32

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I'd like to suggest a few changes to the user interface of BrightAuthor. They vary in priority from "nearly everyone else has this" to "nice to have".

Edit Selected Transition
You can currently edit a state in three different ways; double-click it, left-click and Edit > Selected Items in the menu, or right-click and choose Edit. A transition can only (AFAIK) be edited by double-clicking it. At least you should be able to edit in the three ways mentioned.

Edit Transition/Source/Target
On the BrightAuthor Playlist screen it can be hard to access some states (offscreen) or transitions (buried under other items). Thus it would be nice is to select a state and edit its transitions (eg Edit First Transition) and to select a transition and either Edit Source or Edit Target in the Edit menu or the right-click menu.

Default to Advanced View
Especially when fine-tuning a presentation, I find I very frequently need to go to the Advanced view of a state or transition. Could you add a setting in Preferences > UI to open in Advanced (or Basic) as default? This would be even more useful if the Main and Advanced tabs of (for instance) a Touch event were combined into one dialog window. Admittedly it would then be a big window but I think that most of us have big screens by now. And those with small screens would set the default to Basic. Alternatively you might have menu items Edit Basic and Edit Advanced.

Configurable Highlight Colors
The selected state or transition is highlighted in blue; in particular it can be hard to see which transition is selected, especially when zoomed small. Can you make the highlight colors (and/or line thickness) configurable?

Default Zoom
It would be handy to have a button to return the zoom level to default (100%)

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6 comments

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  Alex December 23, 2012 23:28

  Edit Selected Transition 
  

  You should be able to edit events in interactive playlist by double-clicking on the event or by left-clicking, then right-clicking and selecting Edit.

  Edit Transition/Source/Target

  There's a Zoom panel at the top right corner you can use to scale your playlist, thus you can see all events and media files. Then you can double click on interactive events and apply transitions to any media file in playlist. And you can double click on event, go to Advanced, here you can set how you view the interactive events between states in the playlist area. Show line draws a line between the media files. Show label creates a label either to the Right or Bottom of the media file, indicating transitions from states.

  Default to Advanced View

  I will forward this request to BrightAuthor developers

  Configurable Highlight Colors

  I will forward this request to BrightAuthor developers

  Default Zoom

  You can easily use mouse to switch Zoom slider to 100. It shouldn't be a problem.

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  Derek Fosberry December 24, 2012 11:08

  Edit Selected Transition

  If I select a transition the menu item Edit > Selected Item does nothing; similarly right-click shows the option Edit but it does nothing. Possibly a bug?

  I have BrightAuthor 3.2.0.12 running under Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

   

  Edit Transition/Source/Target

  Certainly I can zoom and scroll; but it struck me that the Source/Target idea would save time.

   

  Default Zoom

  On my BrightAuthor there is no indication of where the "Default" setting is. However I agree this is a minor point.

   

  Thanks anyway for the response.

  --- Derek

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  Derek Fosberry December 24, 2012 15:05

  I tested on my goback project which I uploaded in another posting (Return to Prior State). Indeed a Timeout event works as intended, but a Rectangular touch event doesn't. Can you verify that?

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  Alex December 24, 2012 15:12

  Yes, I can confirm that. Touch events can only be opened by double clicking on the event.

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  Derek Fosberry December 24, 2012 16:08

  So will you submit it as a bug?

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  Alex December 25, 2012 14:28

  Yes, I have logged a bug.