LC8. Ugh, on the surface

[dunbarx]

So I made the switch, carefully keeping my 6.9 work separate, and developing in both. A direct port of a project I am working on in 6.9 looks wrong in many ways in v.8. I had to adjust Text sizes, object rects, object locs, etc. I do not mind that the v8 instance froze for about a minute, then cleared itself. Hmmm. Fine, at least it did not crash. Growing pains. OK with that. I know v8 is a big deal. And I know this is the future, necessary if LC is going to take over the world; I will support this effort til the sun burns out.

So.

Why is the look and feel so clunky? Even Windows looks better. I despise Windows.

The tool palette, the dictionary, even the default background color of newly created stacks. It must have taken an effort to actually step backwards. Everywhere I look, functionality notwithstanding, I feel like the simple elegance of earlier versions is lost; v8 is, um, awful.

I had mentioned this before. Does anyone else care?

Craig Newman

[[-hh]]

Hi Craig.

LiveCode 8.0.0 on Mac: The good, the bad and the ugly.

Hermann

[FourthWorld]

Personally, I like the new look. And I don't spend enough time on my Mac to have much of a subjective feel for it there, but on Ubuntu the IDE feels much snappier than earlier versions.

[paul_gr]

Personally, I like the new look

Makes me wonder why the human race bothered to evolve with color vision, looking at the bland, lifeless interfaces being developed.
I blame the design guru who thought that skeuomorphic elements were bad.

Paul

[FourthWorld]

One reason why monochrome UIs have taken over is that color is indeed very important - when it's in the user's content. So tools visually recede into a workspace that is intentionally less interesting, to give focus to the user's work with minimal distractions.

[dunbarx]

It isn't so much the monochrome icons, as the charcoal sketch aspect of them. But that is minor, really.

Some things are not minor. Just as an example, I hate the new dictionary format, and I repeat again that a new user would not be able to find "date" in it. It is lost in two kinds of clutter. One is other native words that contain "date", and the other is that "date" is not present as a prominent key word (not keyword) so that it stands out, easy to spot. Go on, type in "date". And what is with those unfocused disordered filters? They would drive a newbie right out of xTalks and back to machine language programming.

Eight lights and eight switches.

This is a sore subject among some of us, who are concerned about the accessibility of learning resources in LC. So now the (eyes rolling) semi-snide, inside-joke, RTFM admonitions to, er, RTFM, are no longer defensible. I could not find it at first, just perusing the standard principal resources, tools and other gadgetry in v.8, to see what the hoopla was all about.

Again.the new widgets/library/extensions capabilities will likely turn the corner for LC, and garner an entire new user base. Thank heavens for that. But after 30-odd years of boasting that windows 7 is just like Mac 4, I all of a sudden wonder where the team got off track.

These are my opinions. If you don't like them, I have others.

Craig

[[-hh]]

Hi all.

The main (hidden) reason that a lot of people create one-colour-icons may be the use of SVG for that.

Try to make a simple multicoloured polygon in LC. Then you know what I mean. The 'difficulties' are exactly the same with SVG.

Hermann

[FourthWorld]

@Craig: good outline of Dict issues. I agree with what you've written there. I hadn't had a chance to review the Dict until DP16 because it wasn't working on Ubuntu in earlier versions. But now that I do I'm inclined to submit an enhancement request - may I use your list for that?

[dunbarx]

may I use your list for that?

May you? Hah.

Richard, I will fly to Scotland with you and lock the team in their offices until they relent, rework, and republish.

And then feed them, let use the restroom, and lock them up again until they redo the property inspector.

Craig

EDIT:

When I say "redo". I mean enhance and enlarge the v.7 format, look and feel. You cannot improve perfection, you can only make it larger. Or ruin it..

Craig

[Kangaroo SW]

I would also fly with you

I do also hate the new dictionary format, specially the dull appearance and those funny lists on the left !
They distract me more then they help to find anything !

Pleas can we have our old Dictionary back ?

@Richard PLEASE file an enhancement request !

Regards
Rolf

[sphere]

I second that.
The dictionary is a pain in the *ss.
Can't find anything with any explanation.
The old dictionary wasn't that quick but at least you can find the info there.

[jacque]

The tags at the left should be alphabetized so we can find them quickly, and arranged in a list for easy scanning. The number of entries in each category should be removed entirely, it's unimportant information and the colors are distracting.

My main complaint about the new dictionary is that the keyword you're looking up is not always prominent in the found list, sometimes it is buried within an example statement. This requires the user to read the entire statement rather than scanning down the left side of the entries to find what they're looking for. The old dictionary had columns that contained the term followed by an example statement which was much easier to read.

The body of the dictionary entries took a little getting used to but now that I understand it, it doesn't bother me. The info is all there, though some of it needs formatting corrections.

[dunbarx]

Jacque.

the keyword you're looking up is not always prominent in the found list, sometimes it is buried within an example statement. This requires the user to read the entire statement rather than scanning down the left side of the entries to find what they're looking for.

It is what I meant earlier by:

a new user would not be able to find "date" in it. It is lost in two kinds of clutter. One is other native words that contain "date", and the other is that "date" is not present as a prominent key word (not keyword) so that it stands out, easy to spot. Go on, type in "date".

Unacceptable. You and I can do this; how would a newbie ever? Ever.

So I said:

This is a sore subject among some of us, who are concerned about the accessibility of learning resources in LC. So now the (eyes rolling) semi-snide, inside-joke, RTFM admonitions to, er, RTFM, are no longer defensible.

Is Scotland concerned? I am. Chagrined, even? Defiant?

Craig

[jacque]

@Craig, I haven't been following the whole thread so I missed what you said, but you said it well. We're in agreement.

The team does care, and I've talked with Ali about some of these things. The push to finish the LC 8 engine delayed work on the IDE, but I'm hoping now that 8 is final we can see some adjustments to the GUI.

[dunbarx]

Jacque.

I certainly understand getting the release, er, released.

These were (sort of) promised a while ago. I guess I just want to know that the team is on the side of reason and beauty.

Craig