Tank preferences don't stick?
 

I have had a question about how the preferences work.

Each tank has its own preferences. Each tank has its own list of fish to go in it. Each tank has its own bubbles, sound and lighting settings.

Fish favorites are global.

To set the preferences for the Large Clear Tank, for instance, you need to select "Large Clear Tank" in the pop up menu above the settings on both the tank and the fish panels.

In version 0.9.4 and beyond, selecting a tank in the tank list box will ALSO select it in the pop up menus on the tank and fish preference panels. You can still select a different tank in the pop up menu, but selecting a tank in the tank list will assume you also want to adjust its settings.

Re: Tank preferences don't stick?
 

I think this is a Good Thing™. It should make it a bit easier to understand.

Thanks AKcrab. I think so too. I am also considering adding an "Apply to all" button.

How is this solution?
 

The new check boxes are for "Auto Lighting", "Sound" and "Bubbles". Changing the checkbox changes the value which shows up on the right when that tank is selected. This allows you to quickly and easily turn the sound off for ALL tanks.

What do you think?

I need picture suggestions for "Debris". I'm thinking a crumpled pop can or maybe an old tire?

I LOVE the mockup.

I like the crumpled can idea.

It isn't a mock-up. It works. I did it right after I built 0.9.6.

Even better! :cheers:

Re: How is this solution?
 

That looks great! Will it make it into the PC version?

That's a beautiful Settings Panel Jim!

With regard to Debris - how about an old boot with a hole in it? :)

You can be a UI designer...

Several people have commented privately about the column heading artwork not being very [ahem] great. I admit I threw those together in PhotoShop just to get this up and running. Eric is going to make a better bubble and light bulb for me. No idea what he has in mind for debris though.

With this UI there are two places to turn off Bubbles for the selected tank, and that is a bit confusing. You can turn off bubbles in the right panel or in the table with the check box. I'm not thrilled with this. Multiple paths to the same setting should make sense and I'm not sure this does. However, we really need the enable/disable check box next to the bubble slider to indicate how to enable the slider...

Thoughts?

Germ of an idea?
 

Here is my idea (rough though it is). Basically, get rid of the entire right side of the panel. Do everything in the table. This mock up shows the light adjustment popup control (like a QuickTime volume slider) and the bubble popup control on screen at the same time, though they would only appear when someone clicks on the bubble or the lighting mock-up drawing.

Note that I have drawn a crude boot to represent debris.

Also note that the whole concept of sound on when application is frontmost has gone away. I don't think anybody uses this and it complicates the UI with something I don't think many people understand.

Thoughts?

Is this thing on?
 

Okay, so that went over like a lead balloon. I'd been up all night and it seemed like a good idea to my adled brain. :)

Does anyone actually use tank specific sound settings? The general opinion here is that sound settings should be global and I'm leaning towards making it so.

Hey, sorry Jim. I've been busy. :)

The new mockup is excellent!

I think the whole sound/frontmost thing is moot.

Everything in one place makes perfect sense.

(The graphics need a little help.) :D

You mean you do something besides post here? What for?

Eric thought that the all in the table design is too busy, so I'm looking for ways to make it work without being so cluttered.

It is cluttered, but look at all the settings you're trying to put in one space. There's just too many things you can set for each tank. (Too many == GoodThing™)

I'm going to wrack my brain and see what I can come up with.

Don't lose sight of the realism
 

It's good to grapple with ease-of-use. We're talking about a Mac product here, and mac users won't up up with crappy interfaces.

But let's not lose track of the realism which is the selling point of GA. So that realism will be enhanced by:
- allowing more fish in the tank
- allowing fish to cast blobby shadows on the gravel
- adding bump maps so we can see the scales on these fish

I know, I know, this has been addressed before :silent:

And now for something a little better thought out...
 

This is a bit better than the previous attempt, but I'm still stuck with the boot for the moment.

The lighting palette shows up when you click on the cycle or the manual lighting representation in the lighting column of the table. The idea is that the manual lighting icon will show the foreground and background lighting by the shades in the box.

It may still be too busy, but it is a HUGE improvement from the previous version.

Clicking on the varying number of bubbles would bring up a slider for adjusting the bubbles.

The sound is now a single slider for the entire product, and it would live on this screen somewhere, which doesn't really affect the use of the table so I left it off.

?

I love it!

I don’t have a Mac, but I do love some of the ideas you are coming up with. Nice thought about an old boot or shoe is have a big see through hole that the fish swim into and through. Another ‘debris’ you often see in a real pond is old drink bottles or a wide mouth jar that is clear and when the fish swim into it you can see them inside. I have in my real goldfish tank a pair of broken clay pots and it is one neat looking setup to me. You can decrease the height of the plants to allow for a floating variety or even some lily pads.

How about a skull? A large human or an animal like a bull.

Here is a picture of mine.

new UI
 

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?

Re: new UI
 

Welcome!

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.

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...

Re: new UI
 

who's Eric? forum newbie here.

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:

Re: Re: new UI
 

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

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

Tooltips to the rescue
 

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?

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. :cheers:

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....

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. ;):)

;)

Last stab at the tank tab for version 1.0
 

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

Well I think that looks great! :TU:

When are we gonna get it for the PC? ;):D

I agree. I like it and we need it for the PC. :compute: :TU:

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

No resizing handle
 

Jim,

I'm sensing a claustraphobic preference pane here :rolleyes:

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

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

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 :silent:

Otherwise I give the preference GUI a :TU:

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

'nother suggestion
 

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)...

My ten cents
 

(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 :contract:

- 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:TU:

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:cool:

Re: My ten cents
 

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

Really the last UI changes... REALLY.
 

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:

If you are brave...
 

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

Edit the TankThumbSize pref to have a number value of 0 and get...
 

this: