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Editor, Giga's rant

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GigaLem:
And finally I have made the first Review, split off from my Blog thread.

Why the Lix Editor is not so good

I hope I explained everything. Had to use Google doc since Microsoft word was a no go.
If there's anything I missed I'll see If i can explain it. so without further ado, give it a read

Simon:
Congrats on finishing this, thanks for the excellent read. It's hard to gain insight into people's workflows otherwise without watching them live.

The biggest issue of the Lix editor is that I re-use a graphical user interface designed for a game -- with large, oversized buttons and mostly icons instead of text -- instead of a GUI toolkit that produces a look and feel appropriate to the operating system. My high-level answer is that I should consider a standalone editor application. But that would be a massive project for the long term.

The finer points, I should reply to them them separately over time. Behind the map-size menu alone, there are enough stories to fill an entire post.

Some points aren't editor-specific; e.g., lack of custom background is a design choice of the entire game, even the background color is already a stretch because the tilesets don't need it. Or the clunky overall feel; I accept this feedback but can't act on it because it's so general.

-- Simon

GigaLem:
Thanks for giving it read. I Do have habits with going off topic but when my mind springs an Idea. I don't want to forget an idea.
If you wish we can probably talk about a improved lix editor in another topic.

namida:
It is worth keeping in mind that a very significant difference between Lix's philosophy and NeoLemmix's is that Lix focuses on functionality, with aesthetics as a much less significant concern; whereas NeoLemmix tries to accomodate for both. This explains the lack of eg. background image options. There are also very significant differences in the behind-the-scenes handling of physics (even if the physics themself may ultimately be similar) that may also make it trickier to add backgrounds and whatnot, although this is just a possibility (I don't know in full detail how Lix's rendering and physics work).

Dullstar:

--- Quote from: Simon on April 08, 2018, 08:39:28 PM ---Congrats on finishing this, thanks for the excellent read. It's hard to gain insight into people's workflows otherwise without watching them live.

The biggest issue of the Lix editor is that I re-use a graphical user interface designed for a game -- with large, oversized buttons and mostly icons instead of text -- instead of a GUI toolkit that produces a look and feel appropriate to the operating system. My high-level answer is that I should consider a standalone editor application. But that would be a massive project for the long term.

The finer points, I should reply to them them separately over time. Behind the map-size menu alone, there are enough stories to fill an entire post.

Some points aren't editor-specific; e.g., lack of custom background is a design choice of the entire game, even the background color is already a stretch because the tilesets don't need it. Or the clunky overall feel; I accept this feedback but can't act on it because it's so general.

-- Simon

--- End quote ---

When I tried Lix compared to NeoLemmix, the clunky feel of the entire program was immediately obvious. Some of that comes from having become familiar with NeoLemmix first, but awareness that there is a large amount of overlap in the potential audience of the two programs can be something you could use to make transitioning between the two less jarring. Probably the simplest place to start would be a preset for NeoLemmix-like hotkeys.

The problems are a lot deeper than just negative transfer, however, but for that I'll need to find time to write up a rant on clunky UIs in general. There are a lot of them, and I think Lix's editor can benefit from a discussion of the large variety of editors of various types with bad interfaces.

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