Better Resource Management, Alphabetical Order, and interface standards
August 19, 2020 12:00 AM
So, working on a new project, and I noticed some things that should be easy to implement and make developers' work easier.
One thing is: there is no obvious way to manage resources. By "resources" I mean the stuff Lectora called by that name--images, video clips, etc. I duplicated my old project to start the new one, because there's a bit of overlap. However, even after I delete the scenes that aren't part of this one, all the associated images and video and hotspots and everything are still part of it, making it "heavy" and cluttering lists with lots of items that aren't even part of this project. (See image.) In Lectora I could open the Resource Manager and delete the unused items.
Speaking of that dropdown ... why does it include the same item multiple times? Notice that repeated skinny rectangle? It appears another 5 times if you scroll the list. Clutter, again.
And speaking of finding things in that list: why is it in no particular order? If it were alphabetical I could find the item I want (place.svg) instantly, instead of having to scroll around through that list until I happen to spot it. If it had normal interface conventions, I could just press "p" to jump to it, in fact.
Speaking of normal interface conventions, something I mentioned in the past: Esc should be the same as Cancel in all dialogs. That convention was old enough to vote for Obama! It should also cancel all option menus. The funny thing is, your scripts are catching the Esc keystroke, because dialogs "bounce" (change size momentarily) when you press Esc. They just don't do the expected thing. What's the benefit of the tiny visual change, but with no action taken? Adding that JavaScript to the codebase should be what, less than 10 lines of code for dialogs and another less than 10 for menus?
Thanks.
Discussion (2)
Hi, Christie,
Can you perhaps post the info on that webinar or mail to me? I didn't know about it. Thanks!
Hi Carl,
Great feedback! It goes straight to the Dev team. Hope you are doing well! If you are free next Thursday, you should come to the VR webinar. Our speaker is fantastic!
Cheers,
Christie
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