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-   -   Overall view, suggestions (http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=53042)

Fenloh May 30th, 2015 01:27 AM

Overall view, suggestions
 
Hello all,
I am Fenloh and I am from Germany. I hope that you understand what I write and I appologize for my bad english already.

I like the thought behind Realmworks very much, though I think, that many features are missplaced and that there could have been more thought about workfolws and Display optimization. The Look and Feel and the usability are not so good.

First issue for me is, that I like to have larger letters. I havent found out, how to change that. I have a a large monitor setup, and the letters are now very small. It seems, that I am not the only one requesting this. One way to do it would be a standard windows issue the control+scrollwheel, depending on what you used to program your frontend.

Second issue is, that all sidepanels are not so good to handle and are not really practical. Maybe there are other solutions for this. I think it would be much more practical if you used the sidepanel like you have done for the Realm Aspects. Select and then display the content in the center of the screen, maybe even with a preview of the selection.

Third issue is, that the display of the content itself is ok, but I like to move it around, because I have a different order and some things are more interessting to me than others. Also I would like them to see it possible to move them to index Tabs, instead of having them on one page. I have seen the setupposibillity on the Categories. It is really great, just the Tabs may be very useful.Also, as I am sure many have a multiscreen setup, it would be great to drag some tabs form the program and place them somewhere else on the screen.

Fourth issue is, that I have one world, but more than one Story, because I manage more than one group and one set of adventures. So I would rather suggest to have one world almanach, where everything will be stored and different Story almanachs. One Source (Group, People etc) should then be addable to more than one Story almanach. Same would go to the Story board.

Fith Issue, the Story Board. It is great to have that, but it is not really usable. In a storyboard you may have the Storyline, which has already happend (and therfore is a line) and you have your future possible happenings. Many of those can be Ideas and may not have a "line" yet. For me a Storyboard would be 2 things. The first to review what has happend with the Header, the Idea and a possiblilty to write what has really happend, also with a date (Ingame and outgame) To follow the Story as it has happend. The second thing would be my Ideas that can be short story lines, but also single happenings, that I can then drag and drop to the Storyline itself and add the information I need. So you see, that the Storyboard can actually be both, Past and future Story. Also there may be more than one story and each may be connected to a specific Story Almanach. Stories may also be connected to each other through spin offs or Followup, but that is acutally already kind of in the program.

sixth Issue, the Timeline. It is great to have a timeline in the World Almanach, but maybe there can be more ways to select what shall be displayed, not only the by the time. e.g. in many views you would not need Birthdates of Characters or Quest starts, in some views you only want to share Bigger events in the past with players. Also it should then be managable to display "global" happenings and/or happenings from a specific Story almanach. It is hard enough to keep track of the timeline, so I would like to see what I have shared with the players. Btw, do the players see new entries I have shared, can they ID them?

Seventh issue is that in some cases it is not natural on how to use the program. For example to add new Items. There should always be a content pop up Menue (left mousbutton). It is annoying that there is no workflow to it, but I have already mentioned that. A program nowadays should be mostly self explaining and guide the User. Best practice nowadays is to make it usable like a Standard Windows program, because most people know how to use them, and it is really good practice to do so, because they know how to do it.


So, all in all. You have a great product there, but it is at the moment only limited usable for me. Most things are about the Front end only. I know it is one thing to critizise and another way to make it better. I am willing to share my knowledge, as I have designed a lot of workflows in my past, due to my job, but to put that in a text would be hours and hours of work. Maybe you think about those issues. If you like to discuss them and Ideas on how to handle some things, then please contact me.

Thanks for the great job you have done, I know my post may not sound like it, but this is the best product for keeping changes in the Worlds I am GM of. But alas it is a lot of work to keep it updated :).

Fenloh

MNBlockHead May 30th, 2015 09:28 PM

Hi Fenloh, welcome to the forums. There have been other threads about usability, especially for new users and people tend to have strong opinions regarding how to simplify/improve/add-to/remove-from the interface (e.g, see: here)

I think that you will find much of what you request is on the developer's to-do list. See Liz's forum post: RealmWorks Feature Survey—Charting the Future.

Regarding Font settings. This seems to be a fairly common request and is on the developer's to-do list. See: here.

Regarding side panels, I'm not sure I understand what your issue with them is. Personally I find them very helpful. You mention that you use a large (and perhaps multiple) screens, so I don't think that screen space is an issue for you. But if needed, the right-column panel can be easily collapsed. The left column can be resized a bit but not collapsed. It would be nice is you could drag to undock and redock them in other parts of the interface or keep them free floating and move to another screen. I use software for work that has a very panel-heavy interface and I can drag any panel and then light blue arrows appear and if I drag the panel to an arrow, it will dock the panel in that part of the screen. If I drag it on top of another panel, it will make that panel in to a tabbed interface that I can use to toggle among the panels placed in the same spot. It also has a reset button to put every back to default settings and the ability to save multiple layouts. While having similar functionality in RealmWorks would be nice, I don't think that the panels are that many or that complicated that it is needed. The ability to collapse them out of the way and to undock them to put onto another window would, however, be welcome.

Regarding the almanacs, you can create multiple story almanacs. I would like to be able to create MANY more than currently allowed, but you can certainly create a small number now, which is VERY helpful for game prep. But for your use case, once the Content Market goes live, you'll be able to make copies of your world so that you can use in multiple campaigns. I believe that you will also be able to create a master world, and any edits to can be updated in the realms that use its content. But we are waiting for it to be released to see how well that works. To better understand how the CM content will interact with realms that use it see Rob's detailed post on Answers to Assorted Cloud Service and Sync Questions.

Regarding the Story Board, I personally have no issues with it, but there are other that would like it to do much more than it currently does. See, e.g., this thread.

I don't use the timeline. Without custom calendars, I'm not finding it very useful. Now that my campaign is several session in and I'm entering dates in (since I can easily enter a gregorian date and convert to other calendars on a going forward basis), it may start to have some use. But since I can't easily enter in past dates (I'm do lazy to do the calendrical calculations), I really haven't bothered with the Time Line. As I wrote this, I checked out the Time Line and was surprised to learn that the filtering functionality of the navigation panel does not work with the Time Line view. I can see how this would became a problem as the volume of events grows. Filtering would make the Time Line much more useful, but only after custom calendars are supported. :D

Again, welcome to the forum. As you use RealmWorks, post your questions here. The user community is great and I've found it to be very helpful. Also, while it can be frustrating at times, I've found it to be a great aid to my world building and game mastering. There simply is nothing else I've seen the compares to Realm Works for campaign management. Also, the program is actively developed and the development team is very communicative.

Vargr May 31st, 2015 02:46 AM

@MNBlockHead:

Nice reply - lots of good points.

@Fenloh:

Welcome.

I don't know for how long you have used RW, but my experience is, that it takes some time to learn all the possibilities and to fully understand (and appreciate) the design decisions.

Also, RW is not fully finished (will it ever be? - meaning, all good software for complicated tasks continually improves and keeps adding features). Some parts of the program and the interface is not fully in place, neither in function or interface - but it will get there.

That being said, we all use RW differently and all have different needs as to the interface. However, give it a chance and I think it will grow on you.

A couple of comments in addition to MNBlockHead's:

Side panels
I, too, am unsure exactly what you are saying about the side panels.

The left-most panel can be shown in three different "complexity modes" - at least as far as almanacs are concerned.
Go to Manage / Preferences / Navigation View
Here you can adjust the complexity and maybe find a level, that suits you. I prefer "By Simple Grouping".
I don't know if that will help you, just thought I would mention it.

Story board
I use the story board to outline my story - showing the main elements and their connections. I then insert associated content so I with a click can go to that piece of information. Sometimes a connection might go to another story board detailing that part of the plot in more detail. I have found that the story board works best (for me) if I do not make it too detailed.

Whenever the party has been through one of the plot points I simply turn the reveal orb green. That way I can see the progress at a glance - and often I end up with roads that the party never took (but which they might have taken); sometimes these roads can be used to make a follow-up scenario later.

For me, it is important that the story board is relatively clean and uncluttered.

A neat feature with the story board is that you can place it in the left-most panel and when you press a link in the story board it will present the link in the middle (main) panel.
Show your story board as you normally would (in the middle (main) panel), then go to the spanner'n'wrench in the upper right corner of the panel (or press F7), then choose Use for navigation (or CTRL + U).
You will now have the story board in both the left-most and the middle panel. This might look silly (it is), but as soon as you click a link in the left-most story board contents of that link is shown in the middle panel.

Very useful, if you ask me. And this might be a way to get a layout, that works better for you - I really like this way of presenting my plot during play.

Timeline
I don't think this feature is quite where it shoudl be nor where LW wants it to be.

Intuitiveness of the GUI
This is an occasionally hotly debated topic.
For my part I find the freedom and the lack of someone holding my hand to be very helpful to my creative streak.

I will just say, that I think most people might feel daunted the first couple of times they open the program and gaze upon the myriads of possibilities (much like I do the few times I accidentally sit down in front of PhotoShop), but after a while I believe you will cherish the lack of firm guidance in your creations and will love the many possibilities right at your fingertips.



Well, just a few inputs that you might find useful :cool:

Fenloh May 31st, 2015 11:24 PM

Thank you for the warm welcome and the lenghty answers to my post. I will read through the links today, and maybe I was just not using things correctly in some cases.

The Problem with the left Sidebar is, that I have to scroll up and down the whole time. If all are collapsed, then its perfect. If I click on a sidepanel Tab I would like to have the things displayed in the center instead of below the sidepanel Tab.

Well, going to read the links now :).

Thanks a lot for the replies, the help and the links.

Fenloh

MNBlockHead June 1st, 2015 01:56 PM

Regarding the fully expanded sidebar:

If you click on the tools icon next to the search bar at the top of the panel (or hit the F6 key), you will get an option menu that includes "Collapse Entire Hierarchy"

Clicking on the tools icon on any group header will bring up the Group Tools options, including "collapse all groups"

The current expansion state of the active tab will apply to any new tab you create.

Unfortunately, you cannot save a default everything-collapsed state, though that is on the developer's radar.

Regarding clicking on side panel tabs and having them display in the middle pane, that is the behavior I'm seeing. Could you take a screen shot so we can see what is going on and perhaps explain why it behaves that way or provide a solution?

Vargr June 1st, 2015 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fenloh (Post 209992)
If I click on a sidepanel Tab I would like to have the things displayed in the center instead of below the sidepanel Tab.

I am not sure either how to understand this.

If I click a topic in the left-most panel, the contents of that topic is displayed in the middle panel.

Do you want/expect RW to show the underlying topics in the middle panel when you click on a "parent topic" in the leftmost panel? Akin to how the file explorer in Windows works?

monsterfurby June 2nd, 2015 05:55 AM

Hey there Fenloh, good to see another fellow German around :)

I pretty much agree on all counts, these are some good points. Actually, I'm not fully positive on the sidebar thing either - are you maybe suggesting a sort of Scrivener-like way of handling these, i.e. with categories opening into a "folder view" in the main panel?

On a completely unrelated note, I'm kind of casually trying to kick of a German localization project for the basic data files (either for official implementation or distribution once the content market is released). Any chance I could recruit you into that endeavor? :D

AEIOU June 2nd, 2015 11:41 AM

Localization via content market would be fabulous if that is doable. It would be great to use the market to leverage the community.

Vargr June 2nd, 2015 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by monsterfurby (Post 210071)
I pretty much agree on all counts, these are some good points. Actually, I'm not fully positive on the sidebar thing either - are you maybe suggesting a sort of Scrivener-like way of handling these, i.e. with categories opening into a "folder view" in the main panel?

I am just wondering where you want to show the contents of the topic in that case.


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