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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Beta Testing
Forum: Beta Test Support Forum
Thread: How about some feedback? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 22
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
A little critical analysis...
I'm going to be hyper-critical, and I don't expect that everyone will agree with all my points, or that they will be fixed/improved before release. First up, the font looks rather ugly. It looks like a substitute font. It certainly doesn't do the rest of the design justice. The member stats circle, in particular, looks - well, dull. Closer examination reveals it to be the 8x8 raster font that is used for the command prompt - with the kerning mysteriously reduced. I'm not sure about the language used in the line at the bottom: "Thank you for donating". The first impression this gives me is WCG are looking for financial handouts, and trying to give me a guilt trip. It actually took a bit of thought before I realised it was meant as a pat on the back for volunteering computer time. However, even knowing that, it still reminds me of a begging letter every time I see it. The row of dots looks almost like another progress bar. Is it a placeholder for more useful information? Right now it doesn't help the design at all. The graphics window has no icon, but I suspect this is a BOINC problem rather than anything to do with WCG. It's a pity the circular design hasn't left room for scales on the graphs. Are you sacrificing too much just to follow the background design? On a more technical note, the refresh is sluggish. Would using a framebuffer be too much? Windows should repaint immediately when they are asked to, and shouldn't wait for the next "frame" from BOINC. It's fixed size, of course. Probably nothing can be done about that. But when maximised, or viewed as the screensaver, it sits mutely in the bottom left corner. Shouldn't a screensaver move? Hope that is of some use to you all. Comments are welcome. |
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uplinger
Former World Community Grid Tech Joined: May 23, 2005 Post Count: 3952 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hey Did,
Thanks for the imput. Some of these points are going to be fixed before the next version. The fonts in the little circles are going to be changed to look better. Not much more to say on that  "Thank you for donating" is going to be changed to "Thank you for participating". The dots are going to be changed to an informational line on where members can get help and info from. The icon is not going to be on the next release... The graphics will bounce around the screen when the window is larger than the minimal size. It selects a random spot every 300 refreshes at the moment, this may be decreased to make it move quicker. Whenever the screen is resized it moves to the bottom left for simplicity reasons. Hope that answers some of your questions and thanks for the imput! -Uplinger |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thanks, that's great! I guess the 300 refreshes demonstrates how little patience I have :-) Speeding it up may be a good idea.
The only further suggestion I have is to center the graphics on init/resize. It's one line of code, and will improve the first impression a lot. I'm glad you've finally cracked the BOINC 3D graphics problem. It's looking good. Does this mean you now have some reusable code that will make adding graphics to the other projects that much easier? |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Feedback???
Why does a big project with major backing use fisher price forum software???......it stinks. Horrible forum to navigate. |
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uplinger
Former World Community Grid Tech Joined: May 23, 2005 Post Count: 3952 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Vaio,
----------------------------------------This forum is needed to discuss what problems or suggestions members have with the Beta software that they are helping us with. If you would like to suggest a change in forum software, please go to this link and post it there. http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/listthreads?forum=6 Did, I could do something along those lines but it requires more than one line and there are larger issues for me to tackle first. I did put it on the list of suggestions for the graphics. About the reusable code...The frame work for most of it is already in place and can be reused. I had started working on getting the HDC graphics ready when a few gotchas have pulled my attention back to FAAH specific graphics. What is learned from the FAAH gotchas will speed up HDC graphics in the end. Hope this helps and thanks again for participating, -Uplinger [Edit 1 times, last edit by uplinger at Sep 8, 2006 8:56:00 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I would like to see a second progress bar. It probably needs to be no longer than the existing progress bar but it would show finer grained progress and probably reach the end and start back at 0 numerous times. I think the need for something like this was demonstrated with HPF2 units where crunchers were never certain whether the science app had stalled or whether it was running.
----------------------------------------I suppose the graphic is a progress indicator or sorts too but from the WUs I've seen so far, you can watch for a long time and see nothing move. Other times the movement is so slight and so fast I wonder if my eyes are not playing tricks. Something that moves a little faster would be nice, I don't think people want to sit for hours waiting for something to twitch 2 pixels. OK, you can note the position of the graphics and take another look 2 hours later but without a snapshot of what it looked like before, it's really hard to tell if there has been any movement. Let's try for something that gives a reasonably quick and certain indication and leaves little doubt one way or the other. "I saw 2 balls an hour ago but now I see 3" leaves no doubt at all. That's what people want and if they don't get it then they abort and move on, perhaps to a project they find less troublesome. Remember, it's advertised as requiring very little extra time, just install it and let it run. OK, we all know that's too good to be true but it really can be annoying for some people. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Sep 8, 2006 9:54:24 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I suppose, for those projects that update progress properly, displaying 3 decimal places in the % complete marker would achieve that goal.
Not scintillating, but informative. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Three decimal places and proper updating is a good idea. But you know as well as I do it's not going to prevent a million and 1 posts asking why the progress bar isn't moving. People will tend to look at the graphic window and hide the numeric window because the former is more compact and looks nicer. Instead of providing the minimum and wondering why people are not pleased with it, why not give them a little extra so it pleases a broader range of tastes. Not everybody subscribes to the no frills, no waste minimalist philosophy. Sure it takes a few more ticks but if it keeps people happy and informed then it's worth it. They blew off 40% of UD power for much the same reasons... err on the side of prudence and keep members happy.
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I was talking about the % marker at the end of the progress bar. I'm fairly confident that everyone can deal with the concept of a progress bar that moves very slowly - and with discrete chunks in the progress bar, they're not going to be sitting watching and waiting for the next blob to appear (unless they happen to be named Sekerob ;-) ).
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
This is what I see and I don't see anything resembling a percent marker at the end of the progress bar. I see no blobs, no bobs, no knobs, not even a sekerob a'watchin for bob's blobs. Ye daft old bogtrotter, what are ye blatherin on aboot? Nippin' the Johnnny Walker's this evening, laddy?
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