Overall it's very nice to see the tools getting updates. Palette is great, zoom is helpful, objects borders are useful. Thanks.
However, some core issues persist like eye-burning white backgrounds and the mouse-centric interface that is not designed for a quick and easy work.
If required I may split my feedback into separate posts, but so far I'll compile it into this one.
INCONVENIENT CHANGES:
Toolbar: Toolbar eats some of the upper space of the map and is now a sore to the eye. An option to completely hide it would be nice for people who use hotkeys.
Controls: CTRL+Mousewheel used to be the way to scroll map horizontally. Now it's used for zooming. Makes no sense, since navigating is used much more often and it's ingrained into years of muscle memory. And that's while ALT+Mousewheel is free to use, as its scrolls the map vertically just like Mousewheel without ALT.
Controls #2: CTRL+SHIFT+Click was used to quickly select an object. Now it's CTRL+ALT+Click. Please revert this and abstain from changing controls unless it's absolutely needed.
Controls #3: Same madness. SHIFT+Click (+Drag) used to delete objects of the current layer. I haven't found how to do it now. Revert this. Dragging objects around would be fine with ALT+Drag or any other unused combination.
Tile boundary preview on mouse over: sometimes it made life easier, sometimes not. Is there a possibility to make it toggleable?
NECESSARY FEATURES:
* Hotkeys to effortlessly change Z-levels. Maybe SHIFT+A and SHIFT+Z to go up and down.
* Dark Theme would be nice if it's possible to implement on the prehistoric framework. But a dark background for palette is just essential for working with darker tiles.
* Fill Option for tiles to quickly paint large areas (draw a silhouette of a mountain, then just fill it with mountain tiles).
* Quick Navigation - Coordinates should be an input field instead of a label to allow quick jumps.
* Custom Layers - all atoms should have a "map_layer" variable. When it's set to anything but 0, they will be added to a Custom Layer of that number to hide or ignore decals, pipes etc.
* Quick Select of an Active Object in draw mode. Currently CTRL+ALT+Click allows to quickly select an object for painting, but its variables are not displayed in the properties panel.
LESS IMPORTANT FEATURES:
* Hotkey to quickly rotate an object. Middle mouse click to change DIR clockwise?
* Zoom for Variants. Spotting small differences between variants of a 32x32 icon is very inconvenient without it.
* Sort for Variants (by direction, by icon name, by instances, by order in the dmi) for working with large DMIs.
* Fast Access to DMI - for example, by shift-doubleclicking a Variant.
* MultiZ preview option - turfs with transparent backgrounds should show what's on the next z-level.
ID:2875556
 Jun 20 2023, 7:50 pm (Edited on Jun 20 2023, 8:35 pm)
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- UPDATE -
INCONVENIENT CHANGES: * Copying a chunk of a map with objects on it replaces objects in the target chunk... but only if a copied tile had objects on it. If it's not a bug: 1) It should be a togglable behavior, otherwise it's yet another change that makes the map editor unusable. 2) It should be a choice between add and replace, not a crazy combination of it. | |
The click behavior and the modifier keys really are way too far along to change back now. Plus, the old behavior really had too many drawbacks. I'd prefer to explore other options for the quick select behavior.
For horizontal scrolling, Shift+wheel works. | |
I do understand and appreciate your effort to experiment and improve, but something went really wrong with this update.
Plus, the old behavior really had too many drawbacksIt did not. All the shortcuts were very convenient and allowed for rapid map editing. You added some new functionality without making an effort to preserve the existing layout, though it was possible. But while experiments like swapping SHIFT and ALT are tolerable, albeit frustrating, some basic actions like selecting, replacing and quick deleting are now broken. Another user addressed it much better than me: https://www.byond.com/forum/post/2877199. I'd prefer to explore other options for the quick select behavior.The approach itself is flawed. You attempt to design a tool that you don't use for hours daily, without publicly consulting with those who do, without applying common sense ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it") and basic principles of usability. User feedback ( https://www.byond.com/forum/post/2863351 ) is waved off because reverting doesn't feel nice. This approach predictably results in a terrible UX and will continue to do so in the future. | |
I did consult people who use the map editor. There was extensive discussion of this stuff, at length.
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If some important discussions are scattered between several platforms (Discord? Patreon? Reddit? DMs?), then it's another problem. Otherwise, it would at least be possible to see the secret reasoning behind questionable decisions.
As for user experience that was publicized, issues with tile sorting, lack of brush types and flood fill, inconvenient navigation with arrow keys ( https://www.byond.com/forum/post/2241374 ) and neglect of shortcuts ( https://www.byond.com/forum/post/2382004 ) were reported years ago. I hope you'll evaluate the feedback that was presented and won't disregard all of it as a simple resistance to change. There were numerous changes in the last ten years, and this is only the second time I've delved into criticism. The first time was the Icon Editor rework, but thankfully most of the propositions from the similar thread (if you remember it) were heard, and now we have a mostly usable tool that only sometimes corrupts icons. The optimal solution is obvious. A customizable layout where all actions have corresponding hotkeys, and all these shortcuts could be changed. Every time there is a choice between two alternative behaviors (add vs replace, for example), the choice should be made by the user, since there is no "one size fits all situations" when it comes to complex tasks. | |
The discussions about the Ui were all not only well above board but also I was talking about this at length in my weekly updates when the question of what to do with the UI was under review. We're long past that point now, at least where it comes to click behavior. You're way too late to the party.
You keep talking about reverting the click behavior, and that isn't happening. What I am interested in is finding compromise solutions for people used to older behavior. For instance, Ter suggested the old method of instance editing should be an option, and I agreed and made that change. There are other suggestions on your list that are definitely worth considering, although I find in omnibus posts like this they tend to get buried and forgotten. It would be better to break out any requests into multiple posts on the feature requests forum. There's also a map editor design discussion thread in BYONDiscord, although that's a smidge less organized than FR posts. It is however a good place to hash out discussion. | |
Again I want to remind you that if you'd like to see movement on any of your suggestions, please break them out into individual feature request posts. We can hash them out one by one that way.
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it's currently possible to force Dream maker to use a "dark" theme. The caveat is that it requires registry editing and affects windows outside of BYOND.
An example of how it looks: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/860222774877618229/ 1123177947122106439/image.png
If you're interested, there's two ways of doing it:
1. open regedit and edit the colors by hand in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\Colors" & "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors"
2. Use https://www.wintools.info/index.php/ classic-color-panel-window which allows you to edit the colors via an interface.
Sadly, these changes won't affect everything, things like Variants and the var editor when map editing are still eye searing white.