Re-thinking the interface design for a third time.

[Ryex]

I think there is a flaw in the current design concept.

Right now each part of the editor (map editor, tilemap tile selection panel, map tree panel, all the tabs in the database) create their own panel when that are created that can literally be put anywhere in the screen. you can get them all out, open 10 map and arrange all the panels in what ever arrangement you desire.

The flaw is that 99.9% of the ways you COULD arrange them would be destructive to your work flow, and there is no way to quickly switch between two different task that require two different sets of panels. if you did want to switch tasks, say from mapping to database stuff, you would have to close each and every one of you map panels as well as all the tool panels and then open all the database panels you wanted.

Here is what I propose, it's additional layer of management but it should enable quicker, faster, smoother, easier to use workflow.

separating panels into perspectives.

each perspective would be dedicated to a specific task, mapping, database management, scripting, image and audio management ect.. the panels would only be able to dock in the panel they were dispatched to as their perspective. IE you would not be able to dock the script editor in between a bunch of maps, this would offer a clean way to switch between tasks, close one perspective open another. it also has the added benefit of making it easy to save perspectives and what you were doing in them as we can always know what windows were there and what data they held. where as before we had to assume that any panel could be anywhere.

this also makes plugins ect. easier to manage as they can have their own perspective.


thoughts? questions?

[ForeverZer0]

Why not do both?
Have specific panels open by default into a defined "perspective", but still allow them to be docked however the user chooses. This would allow a the flow to be automatic in achieving your desired effect, but still allow total control to the user if they want to change it.

[Blizzard]

I agree with F0. If we can do both, we should.

Originally I thought we would be having tabbed panels where you can put anything inside. e.g. I could put a script editor and a tileset together and in another tabbed panel I' have a map. So I could work on the map, but when necessary I could quickly switch to the script and change something while I still have the map open (e.g. let's say I have to move stuff around and have to count tiles for that).

[Ryex]

well I fI do this I'll be useing a AUI manager to manage the perspective panels and an additional manager for each of the sub panels I'm not sure using this method that moving a panel form one manager to another would even be possible. I would have to somehow switch the manager the panel was using in the drag operation. from what I've seen of the internal there when fixing that shadow problem that's not feasible.

so Panels would be locked to their perspective panels unless you made a duplicate panel and dispatched it to the new perspective.