• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Suggestions for Improvements to User Experience

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112
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unitedkingdom
Hi Jon. A couple of thoughts:
1) The menus could do with a little tidying. My personal preference would be for an "Insert" menu with all the items currently found under the "Add" context menu
2) I don't really follow the logic behind "Lock" and "Unlock" as separate menu items. Feels as though these items should be check boxes in a "Locks" modal dialog box (or maybe even a dockable panel?)
3) (Sorry I said a couple but then thought of another one) Having "Clear recent" under "Recent" seems risky. I use recent a lot and would prefer it if I could select items by number.

Cheers,

Z
 
Messages
393
Country
newzealand
Not exactly. The updater will close ADE and then run the updates. When it finishes you get a message to say the update is done. Clicking OK on that dialog restarts ADE. If it is doing something different for you then there is something wrong. Next time you get an update could you try to remember to take a screenshot of the ADE has stopped Responding message?
Here is the message. It happens everytime I update ADE. I'm now on version 1.65.5404.2246
Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit. I'm not sure what else you be useful just ask and I'll let you know. Don't know if it's a problem cuased by ADE or AppLife, do any programs need something that I can check my end for? .NET etc

vJaWT7P.jpg



Also one UX thing I could suggest (sorry if this already exists or is in ProKey) is the ability to delete a vertex and not delete the path (similar to deleting verts in a polygon)
v1, e1, v2, e2, v3 .Vertex v2 is removed and the edge e1 and e2 are joined so now is looks like v1, e3, v3. Actually, here's a gif

MXXCvTL.gif
 
Messages
783
Country
norway
Finally something came to my mind:

An option to stop ADE asking for which FS version at startup. I use only P3D2, and it would be nice with a checkbox telling ADE to startup in P3D2 mode without asking. The less mouse clicks in small spots, the better.
 

scruffyduck

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unitedkingdom
Well you must still have other versions of FS installed ;)
 
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70
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unitedstates
Finally something came to my mind:

An option to stop ADE asking for which FS version at startup. I use only P3D2, and it would be nice with a checkbox telling ADE to startup in P3D2 mode without asking. The less mouse clicks in small spots, the better.
Maybe a command line switch to determine FS to work with, allowing different desktop links like "c:\MSFS\FS Design Tools\ADE\ADE.exe -FSX" or -FS9 -P3D -P32 as well.
 

scruffyduck

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To be fair if there is only one version of FS on the user computer ADE does not ask which version. If there are multiple versions then it will display the last version loaded so it is just one click. So going back to Andrews point - if he has only one version installed then he should not see the version selector and ADE should just start. If he does have more than one then the selector will appear but will be set to the last opened version. The only other way to get the version selector to open if there are one (or no) versions in the registry is to use the global.ini fudge.
 
Messages
783
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norway
I should probably remove a fake FSX registry entry I made in order to make SBuilder 314 start without a hassle. Didn't work anyway.
 
Messages
608
Country
germany
Jon, a suggestion for the future import function for settings etc. Right now you are hitting a key and you can see almost nothing - until it's ready. I would prefer seeing a visual sign that the proggy is busy.:stirthepo It could be the rotating sandglass icon or whatever. Even the usual fake :p Windows progress bar would be better than nothing.
 

scruffyduck

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unitedkingdom
Point taken Axel - in my defence the import on my machine is usually instantaneous :oops:
 

Pyscen

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2,993
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us-texas
Jon, this is happening with me too, on Windows 8.1. It is the stupid OS saying it is something wrong when it isn't. Nothing wrong with ADE. But I wish I knew a way to stop windows doing this blunder again and again.

Hello,... Jon & Everyone,...

I would like to Explain a little more what's happening when an update to ADE 1.65 (the most recent of updates),... After ADE completes the download of the update (bearing in mind, this is right after loading ADE), what happens is a notification is given in the notification bar that an update is ready and to click on it to update. In doing so, ADE closes (normal), but Windows is searching for a reason why ADE was closed in such a fashion (maybe how its being closed). If you don't "cancel" Windows in searching for a reason, it will continue. While this is happening ADE is being updated,.. until a "pop up" showing its "completed", which the user acknowledges (clicking on). After the user acknowledges, ADE reloads.

It appears that how ADE is being stopped and closed to be updated, is causing issues with the OS (Windows 8.1). Not really sure if any harm is occurring though... but I think its something that needs to be looked at....
 

scruffyduck

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I am not sure there is anything I can do. The updater code is third party and yes it does close ADE before it updates it. So the sequence is that ADE runs the updater code and if there is a new update the file is downloaded. The updater is now running as a separate 'program'. Since it is not possible to update files when a program is running the updater closes ADE and then copies the changed files. Once that is done it opens the small window to say the update is applied, Clicking that window causes the updater to run ADE again and close itself. The only people who could help would be the writers of the updater code. Even if they have fixed this behavior for Windows 8 I am not likely to get the update - truth is that the updater is very expensive to buy and I could not afford to upgrade it now.
 
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1,043
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us-northcarolina
Hey...here is another one. do we really have to have edge selection lines so thick? Same for the corners and guidelines.

Temp.jpg
 

scruffyduck

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You can certainly select the width of a guideline and the size of a marker.
 
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1,043
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us-northcarolina
Haha, yeah I know about the link of a guideline. I'm talking about the thickness of it.
You can change the size of a marker, how?
Well, thinner line are on my Xmas list ;)
 

GHD

Messages
12,243
Country
england
Select the guideline, press enter and edit the thickness:





Press 'Z' to reduce the sizes of markers and vertices.
 
Messages
1,043
Country
us-northcarolina
Thanks Patrick. That makes sense to me.

I don't know if this helps but you can select a specific group of objects via the List function so you could select and edit all parking links from there.

I have been thinking about this remember last link properties but it give me a problem in so far as when do I assume that a user has defined a new set of properties? I need to articulate this better but essentially I need to know when to update those properties. Do I do it each time the user edits link properties at any time or do I do it when a user edits the properties of an existing link? or when they edit the properties of a newly added link, or when the user links up to an existing link with different settings to the last drawn link, and how do we handle multi edit?

I'll be quicker with Shift-Click than figuring out what link is what in the list but that was a great idea. You should have been a lawyer, you have answer to everything. You remind me of that French comedian 'Coluche' that used to say about the government..."We are here to help you, tell us what you need and we'll tell you how to do without it" :rotfl:

To link or not to link, that is the question!
My personal guess:
No when user edits links at any time.
Yes when user edits a newly created link.
Inherit properties when linking to existing link, as it is now.
No when user multi-edits.

Just my thoughts based on when I would change the default in the toolbar.
 
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1,043
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us-northcarolina
Thanks George, I can't believe I lived all those years in ignorance. I love the Z key now. How do I make them back a little bigger?
I tried to change the thickness of guideline with no success. .01, .10, .50, 5 m = all the same size on screen.
 

scruffyduck

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You assume that I am not a lawyer Patrick? :)

Try Shift + Z to make them bigger and Alt + Z to reset the size to default.

Also try looking through the Command Help in the Help Menu
 
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