Online/Mobile Planner

[Progor]

Quick update: power selection is started.  I still need to filter out powers you've already selected from the dropdown list so you can't duplicate, and add the pool powers, but it's coming along.  It follows the same basic design for the Heroes screen: click the pencil to modify the power, select from a dropdown, click the info button if you want details.  I'm even retaining a per-power notes box if people want to use it.  Let me know if anyone wants to see a Tag Line on the powers as well.

 

Another note: a generous forum-goer who happens to be a UX designer by day (I'll let them pipe in and identify themselves if they wish) has offered to help with the look and feel, so once he gets a chance to send me some sketches and I get them integrated, it should start looking nicer.

 

The empty space below the power name will be filled with the slotted enhancements, and perhaps some basic effect details.

[Redlynne]

6 hours ago, Progor said:

Another note: a generous forum-goer who happens to be a UX designer by day (I'll let them pipe in and identify themselves if they wish) has offered to help with the look and feel, so once he gets a chance to send me some sketches and I get them integrated, it should start looking nicer.

Eye candy gets you noticed.

Solid functionality is what will keep people coming back to reuse your toolset.

 

Having the UI look like a respec screen is merely a "nice to have" feature, rather than a requirement for the tools to be usable/functional.  So long as the backend is solid you can make the frontend look like whatever you want, so long as it's intuitive and easy to use.

[Progor]

Yeah, that's why they stopped calling themselves UI (user interface) designers and started calling themselves UX (user experience) designers.  It's as much about having a streamlined flow through the application as it is about looking pretty.  We talked this afternoon and the first thing we worked out was user flow diagrams, not artistic concepts, so he's on the same page.

 

"intuitive and easy to use" is often harder than people realize to get right.  I can handle making the application do what it needs to do correctly and consistently, but having a UX expert will help achieve that zen-like flow where every button you want to tap just happens to be right under your thumb when you need to tap it.

[Redlynne]

1 minute ago, Progor said:

We talked this afternoon and the first thing we worked out was user flow diagrams, not artistic concepts, so he's on the same page.

 

"intuitive and easy to use" is often harder than people realize to get right.  I can handle making the application do what it needs to do correctly and consistently, but having a UX expert will help achieve that zen-like flow where every button you want to tap just happens to be right under your thumb when you need to tap it.

+2

[CrimsonOne]

 

It's your friendly neighborhood UX-Man here! 😁

 

I'm glad to be part of this project and can't wait to see how things turn out.

[Redlynne]

1 hour ago, CrimsonOne said:

 

It's your friendly neighborhood UX-Man here! 😁

 

I'm glad to be part of this project and can't wait to see how things turn out.

[ychatila]

I will gladly contribute to the cause thank you thank you and thank you again for doing this for the community!

[ychatila]

I would love to see the option to select and drop multiple enhancements into slots vs how we currently do them one by one. I feel like that is the 2nd longest task to complete a build right after picking your powers. 
 

thanks again!

[Redlynne]

3 hours ago, ychatila said:

I would love to see the option to select and drop multiple enhancements into slots vs how we currently do them one by one. I feel like that is the 2nd longest task to complete a build right after picking your powers.

I'm thinking that one way to program this would be that when you open up a menu for sets, you'd basically just check checkboxes for each IO, so as to be able to pick and choose which IOs from the set you want to put in the power, and then have another element that allows you to choose the Level for each IO (in case you want to use different Levels for different IOs, like I tend to do) and then put in a button to allow all of the Levels to be linked to the same Level for all of them.  When you click the OK button, it will basically "fill" the available slots with the choices from the "menu" window for picking IOs from the set.

 

Does that make sense?

The idea being that you can pick a set as a SET of IOs instead of having to pick them one by one.

[ychatila]

BINGO!!!

[WanderingAries]

On ‎10‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 4:27 PM, Progor said:

Yeah, that's why they stopped calling themselves UI (user interface) designers and started calling themselves UX (user experience) designers.

Oh so That's what UX is...never really looked it up, but it felt like it meant something like this.

[StoneColdJoker]

Awesome guys! Thank y’all so much for taking this on!

[Garble]

As a Mac user that can barely get the game to work, I watch this thread with great interest.

[missawesome]

So did this die or???

[Clave Dark 5]

"2 years later"

 

I kinda think so... 

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, missawesome said:

So did this die or???

 

38 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

"2 years later"

 

I kinda think so... 

 

 

Especially seeing as the original poster hasn't been on the forums at all in the past two years.  If you want a builder, it's Mids' Reborn or bust ATM.

[Without_Pause]

That wasn't the only attempt, but to my knowledge all of them have failed or been put on hold.

[BalrogLord]

Not all of them have failed, there's been a successful iOS mobile planner for years (City Char Tracker).

It is not designed to be a clone of Mids at all, it's currently more of a char tracker / database with many

of its own unique features (pics of chars, sorting/searching, emailing builds), but also is a basic build planner.

The OP I could tell in < 5 min had no idea of the scope of work he was talking about, what he was saying

would take years of hard work and testing. I remember seeing the post a while back, and some really poor

UI shots, and time estimate of few months, and knew where that was going. There are many thousands

of unique powers in the game, and with HC that database is still changing. You have to start with some

core features first, and do that well, then add to it later.

[BlackSpectre]

This is a lot of work,  @Progor, and a lot of man hours every time there is an update of the game or browser.  If you actually are able to complete this project, and later decide it’s you can no longer maintain it, please consider making the code open source and post it on GitHub so that anyone who is interested can pick it up easier than starting from scratch.  Good luck!

[Lunar Ronin]

5 hours ago, BlackSpectre said:

This is a lot of work,  @Progor, and a lot of man hours every time there is an update of the game or browser.  If you actually are able to complete this project, and later decide it’s you can no longer maintain it, please consider making the code open source and post it on GitHub so that anyone who is interested can pick it up easier than starting from scratch.  Good luck!

 

This thread was necroed a couple of times, and Progor disappeared four years ago.  I very much doubt that this project will be completed.