Feature preview for future versions of Marine Aquarium for Mac OS X

[AKcrab]

Originally posted by BigScreen
Another suggestion:

The slider control can also be just for the variable light, with a checkbox for "Auto"

When "Auto" is checked, the slider is disabled and greyed out.

This is a good idea.

[Robarmo]

The low to high slider with a separate Auto checkbox for both foreground and background is a good solution.

As for the time of the day problem, I was thinking about this a while ago, and came up with this:

During "daytime" all lights are on full.
At "dusk" the front lights fade to black (fish in silhouette). Then, as the background lights begin to fade, the front lights fade back on until we have a dark background and fully lit foreground (night)

At "Dawn" the process reverses.

Basically the background lights cycle once everyday, and the foreground lights cycle twice a day (like the tides!).

But then I thought about how, despite the computer knowing what time it is, it doesn't know when the sunrise and sunsets are for its current location. And I doubt people could be bothered adjusting them manually say, each week or month.

Thats why I didn't give it any more thought at the time.

P.S. I think the fish on a totally black background could look good, especially if the fish were larger, or "closer" to the screen.

Anyone ever seen that scene in the film Mars Attacks!, where the walls are painted black and there is a massive spot lit tank in the middle of the room full of colourful fish?
It looks fantastic!

Rob.

[JimO'Connor]

Originally posted by Tiny Turtle
How about a frame around the box of the selected fish instead of making the box (and fish) dark?

Hi Tiny,

Paul worked on this a little over the weekend. The fish info fish now shows his stars in gold, and you get live feedback as the favorites slider is operated on the affected fish. Hopefully this will reinforce the visual indication of which fish has its info shown. Will this be pleasing?

I don't have a screen shot of MA with the same functionality, but it is in there too.

[patscarr]

Now that is kind of cool.

[BigScreen]

Just my opinion, but the currently selected fish is not very obvious in the right-hand matrix of fish.

The yellow stars help a little, but it's very subtle.

If you're trying to keep it subtle, may I suggest a subtle change in the background color of that square? Or perhaps a border around that square?

[Tiny Turtle]

Jim O'C,
That definately makes the selected fish viewable while highlighted. I think it could work like that. (Scott, previously the selected fish was dark wchich made it easy to spot which fish was selected in the matirx, but you couldn't see what it looked like.)

The Fish Info window is still weakly connected to the highlighted fish. Would it be better if the name (i.e. "Monstro") was put in bold (& larger?) letters in a different color in the Fish Info window?

Thanks for fiddling with this with us.

/Tiny Interface

[JimO'Connor]

Originally posted by BigScreen
Just my opinion, but the currently selected fish is not very obvious in the right-hand matrix of fish.

The yellow stars help a little, but it's very subtle.

If you're trying to keep it subtle, may I suggest a subtle change in the background color of that square? Or perhaps a border around that square?

There isn't a selected fish in the picture above in the right hand matrix. The 'X' is selected. A selected fish has a cell which is similarly darkened.

My wife says that the yellow stars are too subtle a connection between the matrix and the fish info. I want the connection to be subtle, but it has to be noticeable to be useful. A different color bounding box would be too strong, in my opinion, and would confuse the concept of selection (but then that is what the problem with this whole UI is, in my opinion -- but I don't really have a better suggestion so I'm not casting aspersions on those who came up with it).

[JimO'Connor]

Originally posted by Tiny Turtle
The Fish Info window is still weakly connected to the highlighted fish. Would it be better if the name (i.e. "Monstro") was put in bold (& larger?) letters in a different color in the Fish Info window?

Thanks for fiddling with this with us.
/Tiny Interface

I don't understand the point of changing the representation of the fish in the Fish Info panel. Do you mean that if the fish info is being determined by the "tank" rather than the matrix that the name in the tank would be represented differently?

The selection concept in this pane is well defined programmatically, but not from a UI perspective. Fortunately, any ambiguity is easily solved by simply clicking on something...

As to fiddling -- we want these to be the best products in every aspect that are available anywhere. Thanks for the feedback. You are a Windows user, right Tiny? Get a Mac and join in the fun directly!

[JimO'Connor]

Notice that Paul put in the beveled button behind the goldfish so that selection is more than simply darkening the fish, which was WAY to subtle for a primary selection indicator. The darkening of the entire cell is much more obvious and I think that this was a MUST HAVE change.

Any change to indicate the relationship of the matrix cell to the fish info pane has to be subtle enough to not confuse the primary selection.

If it didn't mean that the fish images could potentially be in three different places at once I'd put the fish image translucent and behind the fish info text -- but I think that would be REALLY busy, but it would have the advantage of clarity.

[Tiny Turtle]

Jim,
Instead of trying to get lost in explanations what I'm trying to convey, I'm gonna have a go at describing what I mean properly.

1. Fish Info window (FIw). This one should display info about the currently highlighted fish. As it is right now there is very little indication of that the FIw displays info of a certain fish. It looks more like general Goldfish info. So how do we tell the user that the orange little guy with the long fins is the one referred to as "Monstro"? Well, I think that either the fish's name shoud show (possibly only when highlighted) or else some sort of visual representation of Monstro should be available in the FIw. Both a small icon like the ones in the upper left window or a larger (larger than the matrix icons) "Preview" would work. I agree a translucent version would make it overly busy. Perhaps a small icon then. (Bigger Preview window popup when hovering on the small icon in the FIw?) The same fish in the FIw wouldn't "confuse the primary selection" IMHO.

2. Dark for selection. Already stated that I don't fancy this one. I did the same mistake BigS did and thought the aurumification of the stars was the new indication of a selected fish. If the X is selected then there should be no info about Monstro or any other fish in the FIw.

Perhaps only the background could change (and not the actual fish). Also, if the dark color was replaced with a itty-bitty piece of the tank (or just water) it would be aestetically more pleasing, make a (minor) hint about how it would look and indicate selection just as good as the dark box does. Fair?

3. Yup, I'm on Windows. I'd really like to get myself over on OSX, but it's something of a money issue. Hopefully I'm getting a new job shortly which would mean a switch to Mac, at least at work. When this thing is done, I'm hoping you'll show it to the Windows people at Prolific and say: "Look at this, put this in your version as well!"

/Tiny Input

[JimO'Connor]

Originally posted by Tiny Turtle
1. Fish Info window (FIw). This one should display info about the currently highlighted fish. As it is right now there is very little indication of that the FIw displays info of a certain fish. It looks more like general Goldfish info. So how do we tell the user that the orange little guy with the long fins is the one referred to as "Monstro"? Well, I think that either the fish's name shoud show (possibly only when highlighted) or else some sort of visual representation of Monstro should be available in the FIw. Both a small icon like the ones in the upper left window or a larger (larger than the matrix icons) "Preview" would work. I agree a translucent version would make it overly busy. Perhaps a small icon then. (Bigger Preview window popup when hovering on the small icon in the FIw?) The same fish in the FIw wouldn't "confuse the primary selection" IMHO.

I understand now what you mean.

2. Dark for selection. Already stated that I don't fancy this one. I did the same mistake BigS did and thought the aurumification of the stars was the new indication of a selected fish. If the X is selected then there should be no info about Monstro or any other fish in the FIw.

I think I would agree with you on that, however the Windows version provides fish info about the last fish touched, whether in the tank or in the matrix. In the picture the last fish touched was the Monstro in the tank, so Monstro's fish info is shown. PERSONALLY I would prefer the fish info to track ONLY the matrix selection, HOWEVER, in the very tiny images in the tank some of the goldfish are hard to tell apart so being able to get more info on them by clicking there is helpful and makes sense.

Perhaps only the background could change (and not the actual fish). Also, if the dark color was replaced with a itty-bitty piece of the tank (or just water) it would be aestetically more pleasing, make a (minor) hint about how it would look and indicate selection just as good as the dark box does. Fair?

Your idea would probably look pretty cool, but I think it would probably be a low priority change.

3. I'm hoping you'll show it to the Windows people at Prolific and say: "Look at this, put this in your version as well!"

Some of them see what we do. Not many are very familiar with it. You have to have a Mac to run it...