2.3.0 usability

[rocketman768]

Below is an email I received. Putting it here for visibility.

I thought i'd send you some feedback and bugs etc…

Clicking OK or CANCEL from a HOP EDITOR window causes the HOP DATABASE window to move behind the main GUI window (very annoying). Seems to happen with the FERMENTABLE DATABASE too.

Entering weight amounts into the HOPS section now defaults to kg instead of g. I can't figure out a way of changing that. In v2.1 i could click on the AMOUNT collumn of the hop i wanted to change and just type "25" for example, and hit enter, it would register 25 grams. Now i need to enter "25g", which is not a huge thing, but a tad annoying as a home brewer… 25kg of Horizon is probably hard to come by also :P

Also entering times in the hops tab is now a pain in the ass… if i enter 1.5 hr on my first wort hops (with my boil time set for 90 mins), then hit enter, the value jumps to 2 hr. And selecting SCALE > minutes is no good, as then my dry hop additions are 5,760 min instead of 4 days for example.

The former "2.8 L" reading of my Joe White Ale Malt for example, in the COLOUR column of the FERMENTABLES tab is now "3 srm"… everything is rounded up to the next whole number, is there a way to see the more precise readout in Lovibond instead of the srm?

Is there a way to save/add a setup in the EQUIPMENT EDITOR instead of having to type it all out each time? I mean boil/batch sizes, water usage, mash tun size etc… name the profile "Paintbucket" for example, then save?

i feel the SUBSTITUTES box in the HOP EDITOR needs to be smaller and the NOTES box needs to be bigger. Most of my hops have one or two substitutions, but a fair bit of information in the notes selection.

Thanks again for your time, awesome stuff!!

[theophae]

Regarding the problem of the default unit (like the kg for hops), it could be a good idea to add a page in the options for the user to choose these favourites units. About the problem of time units, I had the same feeling about the default time display. To me it is highly unusable to deal with decimals of hours, and the time for dry hop shows another problem with this system. To solve this, we could add to the future unit tab in the options different choices like "time unit for hop boil addition", "time unit for hop aroma addition", "time unit for dry hop", "time unit for mash steps", and so on. This tab for unit config would make every one happy

[mikfire]

"[D]o not forget that you SHOULD enter the unit suffix (lb, kg, L, mL, etc.) for the amount boxes in brewtarget. If you do not, brewtarget will try to guess what you mean based on your defaults and what field you are editting. The guessing is pretty good, but you should not rely on it."

Or at least, so the manual used to read. This is working exactly as designed and as previously documented. If we decide to "fix" this, can we please not add a whole new layer of defaults? We already have pretty much everything in place to already do this that won't require as much effort.

It should be relatively easy to modify the code that guesses what you meant when you don't include the unit (which is discouraged ANYWAY) to check to see if the attribute has a set scale and use that instead of using the system default scale. Then, if you want to set it to something different, just right click and set the scale as well as the unit. And, because that change would happen in BtLineEdit, the whole thing should be able to be coded once and then all fields are fixed.

Sorry about the time thing, but my answer is pretty much the same.

In all fairness, I have not had an enjoyable week and it may be coloring my attitude.

By the way. What happened to the manual? The new format is ... umm ... you know. I'm not in a good mood. I think I won't.

Mik

On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 5:01 AM, theophae notifications@github.com wrote:

Regarding the problem of the default unit (like the kg for hops), it could be a good idea to add a page in the options for the user to choose these favourites units. About the problem of time units, I had the same feeling about the default time display. To me it is highly unusable to deal with decimals of hours, and the time for dry hop shows another problem with this system. To solve this, we could add to the future unit tab in the options different choices like "time unit for hop boil addition", "time unit for hop aroma addition", "time unit for dry hop", "time unit for mash steps", and so on. This tab for unit config would make every on happy

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Brewtarget/brewtarget/issues/179#issuecomment-182286406 .

In a world of ninja v. pirate, I pilot a Gundam

[mikfire]

And to prove how easy it would be, it's done. I won't make a pull request, since I am still based on master instead of the development branch, but see if you like my feature/scaleinput branch.

The mechanism basically extends the units&scales to cover input as well. If you set a preferred scale on a field and then don't include any unit on the input, we assume that scale. It works pretty well, it extends a mechanism we have used for a few years and required really minimal code changes.

[theophae]

Thank you mikefire for all the great work you did on Brewtarget, I personally think that this smart unit feature make Brewtarget better than a lot of brew software. I don't want to change it all, but I think it is always good to point out how it could be improved. Of course, everyone could suggest improvment on this. You don't have to do this job if you don't want to. But as you said, if some of these changes can be made easily, it would too bad not to do them.

About the time unit, one very simple workaround could be to skip the hour unit. Where in the brewing process the hour scale is relevant ? (This is a real question). By doing this, the default time display would be great to use.

[ghost]

Nice job. Working fine for me.

[ghost]

I think my pull request (#185) may slightly impact on this branch.

[rocketman768]

I won't make a pull request, since I am still based on master instead of the development branch

Go for it. Until 2.4.0, I am keeping develop and master in lockstep to ease the transition.

[mikfire]

Ok. Done. :)

[mikfire]

Oh. And about the hours. I've some friends that boil for hours to either get very big beers or to add interesting flavors. I frequently put my starters on the stir plate for 18 - 24 hours. I dry hop for about 24 - 48 hours and I usually like to think of them as hours.

I would love to change the display to be 1hr30min instead of 1.5hr. But that is really low on my priority list right now.

[theophae]

I would love to change the display to be 1hr30min instead of 1.5hr

Ok, that would be even better. I'll try to do it if I find some time.

[onesnzerosimon]

The value in the "Final Top-Up Water" field keeps disappearing from the Equipment Profile each time I load a recipe. This version is VERY buggy and frustrating, is there any chance i can roll back a version or two without losing my database?? cheers Simon

[onesnzerosimon]

I sent the original email in the OP by the way… I run OSX 10.8.5 and Brewtarget 2.3.0 Great piece of software awesome peoples… Thank you so much!

I live and brew in Southern Thailand and DID manage to source a kilo of Horizon!! but 25kg might be a bit hard to stuff into my fridge :P

If you need me to do any specific testing etc, just give me a nudge, I also have a Windows 7 machine that i run Brewtarget on when this machine is busy.

Thanks again!

Simon

P.S. I have some ideas to perhaps make the most of the GUI also... Tabs are ok, and the recipe visualisation is very cool… but it would be good to be able to see a whole load of info at the one time without the pop up windows if possible? Say, upon clicking on the hops tab in the side browser, if half the sidebrowser window was the scrollable list, and the other half featured the hop information…? I just feel there is a HUGE GUI, with a LOT of blank space… I'm guessing that more customisation (tab wise) comes with more bugs? I think sometimes I'd like to see the malt list AND the hops side by side…

Anyways, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mikfire]

Ok. Can you mock up your ideas? I am fairly certain I can implement what you've described.

But would the screen be too busy? I really want to avoid making brewtarget look like excel vomited all over my screen.

Mik

On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 2:23 AM, onesnzerosimon notifications@github.com wrote:

I sent the original email in the OP by the way… I run OSX 10.8.5 and Brewtarget 2.3.0 Great piece of software awesome peoples… Thank you so much!

I live and brew in Southern Thailand and DID manage to source a kilo of Horizon!! but 25kg might be a bit hard to stuff into my fridge :P

If you need me to do any specific testing etc, just give me a nudge, I also have a Windows 7 machine that i run Brewtarget on when this machine is busy.

Thanks again!

Simon

P.S. I have some ideas to perhaps make the most of the GUI also... Tabs are ok, and the recipe visualisation is very cool… but it would be good to be able to see a whole load of info at the one time without the pop up windows if possible? Say, upon clicking on the hops tab in the side browser, if half the sidebrowser window was the scrollable list, and the other half featured the hop information…? I just feel there is a HUGE GUI, with a LOT of blank space… I'm guessing that more customisation (tab wise) comes with more bugs? I think sometimes I'd like to see the malt list AND the hops side by side…

Anyways, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Brewtarget/brewtarget/issues/179#issuecomment-193641968 .

In a world of ninja v. pirate, I pilot a Gundam

[onesnzerosimon]

noted, yes not too busy... I'll give it a go, need to think a bit clearer on this one, cheers

[onesnzerosimon]

It may be a tad busy, but it beats clicking all over the show to formulate a recipe when there's free space everywhere… just an idea.

[onesnzerosimon]

The "Notes" tab could be beside the "Recipe/Extras/Brewday" tabs also… so it's just 1 click away from writing a quick note. What about the calculators also? they could open in their own tab? Sometimes the pop up window is handy, if copying hop oil data from a website for example, but it might be neater to have everything opening in tabs? It's probably just since v2.3.0 I have been getting cheesed at the pop up windows constantly disappearing behind the main GUI :P

[rodrigoA]

Hi @onesnzerosimon,

I like the idea of having the notes as a new tab on main window. I also like the idea of reducing the click-distance to accomplish something, but when I brew, I normally use my 15" notebook or my wife's netbook (1024x768). In these boxes, I don´t have much space ( I wish I had hahaha :) ) as you can see below.

Oh yeah, when I´m back from the cave to update some notes and readings from brewday, I use my desktop big screen and indeed there is a lot of space.

I'm not saying that it is wrong or right, I'm just showing you the conditions in which I use the software.

[onesnzerosimon]

both my OSX and Windows machine have 15" monitors also. but if I maximise the GUI, it is just a waste of space.

I also feel that the menu window to the left is a waste. I think if I click on the "Hops" button, it should bring up the list of hops, with the alpha values in the next column to the immediate right of the hop name. AND, the basic info should be displayed to the bottom of the list. If clicking on the "Fermentables" button, the same pretty much… half of the browser space should be the list, and the other half should be the malt info… yeast etc… If clicking the Brewtarget icon button, then the equipment profile tab is shown, or the like… Just saving time, space, and just generally being more user friendly…

in my opinion, he says.

[mikfire]

So we need a reactive interface -- something that is responding to how large the window is and actively rearranging the elements as it gets resized. I would like this very much, based on my desire to produce a mobile version without having to maintain two separate interfaces. QML will get us there. I think I will pick that project up again and see what sense I can make of it.

Before I respond directly to the mock up, I need to clarify a few things. Are you actually wanting the editors to be available like that, or is it just an artifact of how you generated the mock up?

Mik

On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 4:05 AM, onesnzerosimon notifications@github.com wrote:

both my OSX and Windows machine have 15" monitors also. but if I maximise the GUI, it is just a waste of space.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Brewtarget/brewtarget/issues/179#issuecomment-195274361 .

In a world of ninja v. pirate, I pilot a Gundam

[rodrigoA]

@onesnzerosimon yeah my resolution is killing me.

@onesnzerosimon @mikfire what if we have some docking areas? Then, the user can place anywhere he/she wants the editors or even calculators. I'm wondering something like a puzzle. QML would allow us very nice transitions and smooth drag`n drop actions.

[mikfire]

I'm working on a prototype. I'm having some dependency issues that I'm working through. If I get those handled tonight, I will push a branch for you to play with.

On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 12:37 PM, rodrigo notifications@github.com wrote:

@onesnzerosimon https://github.com/onesnzerosimon yeah my resolution is killing me.

@onesnzerosimon https://github.com/onesnzerosimon @mikfire https://github.com/mikfire what if we have some docking areas? Then, the user can place anywhere he/she wants the editors or even calculators. I`m wondering something like a puzzle.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Brewtarget/brewtarget/issues/179#issuecomment-195470940 .

In a world of ninja v. pirate, I pilot a Gundam

[onesnzerosimon]

@onesnzerosimon @mikfire what if we have some docking areas? Then, the user can place anywhere he/she wants the editors or even calculators.

Sounds GREAT!

[mikfire]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25337777/shot-2016-03-15_23-20-02.jpg for a screen shot, or https://github.com/mikfire/brewtarget/tree/skunks/docks for the code. The code compiles and works, but your only dockable thing is the hop editor. This is a POC and I am allowed short cuts.

My idea is to offer the user a 2, 3 or 4 pane window. The two main panes for the recipe and the ingredients will be constant. The two other panes will be dockable areas, consisting of the tree and the right dock area. The dockable things can be moved from one side to the next, or nested.

I haven't figured out a lot. Like how to allow the user to select what gets docked. Or how to recover a dockable after you close it. Or how to select a recipe after you close the tree dock. Or if a dockable should allow editing (I don't think it should).

If we chase what I've done in this example, we will need to rework many of the forms. We would want to be able to easily swap between a side-by-side view and a more linear approach. The current hop editor is, in the vernacular, a hot mess (just sayin'). I had to clean it up to make this idea work.

Mik

On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 3:04 AM, onesnzerosimon notifications@github.com wrote:

@onesnzerosimon https://github.com/onesnzerosimon @mikfire https://github.com/mikfire what if we have some docking areas? Then, the user can place anywhere he/she wants the editors or even calculators.

Sounds GREAT!

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/Brewtarget/brewtarget/issues/179#issuecomment-196691729

In a world of ninja v. pirate, I pilot a Gundam

[onesnzerosimon]

I think Equipment should be in a tab at the top, and not a drop down menu thing. I find myself constantly referring to the Equipment panel, would be good if it was a part of the browser to the left. If the browser was resizable from the bottom and could feature the Equipment profile in the bottom section?… Recipes, just like the Style - are selected once, then forgotten pretty much. I feel Style and Equipment don't need to be on the Recipe tab. and maybe put the name of the recipe on the icon section at the top… save space? I like the dockable panel to the right… if i could click on a hop or malt then the info appears like that - GREAT! Pop up windows for Malt, Hop, Yeast information is a bit unessential. If it were optionally detachable might be handy for some users?

I like the progress here! :)

[mikfire]

The code at the second is a simple proof of concept so I only did one dockable item. If we decide on this approach, then the other editors will all become dockable and you can put whatever you want on the screen. My eventual intent was to allow people to decide what dockable(s) would be shown.

You may have also missed that the trees to the left are a dockable area. So you could https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25337777/shot-2016-03-17_09-08-05.jpg if you wanted. If we don't mind the tabbed overload, we could also allow something like https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25337777/shot-2016-03-17_10-38-26.jpg or (FSM help you) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25337777/shot-2016-03-17_10-40-17.jpg Note: I added another dockable for those screen shots.

I would advise caution about using your usage patterns to decide what is or isn't essential. As an example, I never look at my equipment profile. I dialed it in years ago and it just works for me. The last time I opened my equipment profile for any reason other than testing was when I added the boil time field to the recipe panel. I would consider having my equipment profile always displayed as a waste of space. Which makes me wonder why you are referencing it so heavily? Are we solving the right problem here?

The more I play with this, the more I realize each of the dockables shouldn't be more than 8 lines long, they shouldn't repeat any information already on screen and they shouldn't allow editing of any field.

My reasoning for the last item is that brewtarget makes a copy of any ingredient and then assigns that copy to the recipe. So does a dockable editor edit the copy, or the master? No matter which we choose, it will confuse about half of the users. I think the only consistent solution is to not play and make the dockables readonly. Oh. This is why the style and equipment buttons are on the recipe panel, and why I think they need to stay there.

I do not want to move the recipe name into the toolbar. It isn't a tool and so it doesn't belong in the toolbar. Alternately, you shouldn't mix editing and navigation elements in the same areas on screen. I also prefer to have the important information of a recipe (and yes, the name is important) immediately available.

As a final comment, I am not sure this is a great direction. The dockable windows are .. weird. It may be my window manager. For example, if you accidently drop a dockable when you are moving it, you can't pick it up again. You have to close brewtarget, open it and then it is a floater which can be redocked.

Mik

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 5:35 AM, onesnzerosimon notifications@github.com wrote:

I think Equipment should be in a tab at the top, and not a drop down menu thing. I find myself constantly referring to the Equipment panel, would be good if it was a part of the browser to the left. If the browser was resizable from the bottom and could feature the Equipment profile in the bottom section?… Recipes, just like the Style - are selected once, then forgotten pretty much. I feel Style and Equipment don't need to be on the Recipe tab. and maybe put the name of the recipe on the icon section at the top… save space? I like the dockable panel to the right… if i could click on a hop or malt then the info appears like that - GREAT! Pop up windows for Malt, Hop, Yeast information is a bit unessential. If it were optionally detachable might be handy for some users?

I like the progress here! :)

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Brewtarget/brewtarget/issues/179#issuecomment-197788935

In a world of ninja v. pirate, I pilot a Gundam

[mikfire]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25337777/shot-2016-03-17_23-49-35.jpg and the latest commit on the skunks/docks branch for a slightly different idea.

This time, the docks are defined separately from the editors and are marked as read-only. I am still trying to control how the docs are displayed but this is closer to my original vision.

Tweaking is of course required, but I'm trying many different ideas to see which ones I like.

Mik

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 11:10 AM, mik firestone mikfire@gmail.com wrote:

The code at the second is a simple proof of concept so I only did one dockable item. If we decide on this approach, then the other editors will all become dockable and you can put whatever you want on the screen. My eventual intent was to allow people to decide what dockable(s) would be shown.

You may have also missed that the trees to the left are a dockable area. So you could https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25337777/shot-2016-03-17_09-08-05.jpg if you wanted. If we don't mind the tabbed overload, we could also allow something like https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25337777/shot-2016-03-17_10-38-26.jpg or (FSM help you) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25337777/shot-2016-03-17_10-40-17.jpg Note: I added another dockable for those screen shots.

I would advise caution about using your usage patterns to decide what is or isn't essential. As an example, I never look at my equipment profile. I dialed it in years ago and it just works for me. The last time I opened my equipment profile for any reason other than testing was when I added the boil time field to the recipe panel. I would consider having my equipment profile always displayed as a waste of space. Which makes me wonder why you are referencing it so heavily? Are we solving the right problem here?

The more I play with this, the more I realize each of the dockables shouldn't be more than 8 lines long, they shouldn't repeat any information already on screen and they shouldn't allow editing of any field.

My reasoning for the last item is that brewtarget makes a copy of any ingredient and then assigns that copy to the recipe. So does a dockable editor edit the copy, or the master? No matter which we choose, it will confuse about half of the users. I think the only consistent solution is to not play and make the dockables readonly. Oh. This is why the style and equipment buttons are on the recipe panel, and why I think they need to stay there.

I do not want to move the recipe name into the toolbar. It isn't a tool and so it doesn't belong in the toolbar. Alternately, you shouldn't mix editing and navigation elements in the same areas on screen. I also prefer to have the important information of a recipe (and yes, the name is important) immediately available.

As a final comment, I am not sure this is a great direction. The dockable windows are .. weird. It may be my window manager. For example, if you accidently drop a dockable when you are moving it, you can't pick it up again. You have to close brewtarget, open it and then it is a floater which can be redocked.

Mik

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 5:35 AM, onesnzerosimon notifications@github.com wrote:

I think Equipment should be in a tab at the top, and not a drop down menu thing. I find myself constantly referring to the Equipment panel, would be good if it was a part of the browser to the left. If the browser was resizable from the bottom and could feature the Equipment profile in the bottom section?… Recipes, just like the Style - are selected once, then forgotten pretty much. I feel Style and Equipment don't need to be on the Recipe tab. and maybe put the name of the recipe on the icon section at the top… save space? I like the dockable panel to the right… if i could click on a hop or malt then the info appears like that - GREAT! Pop up windows for Malt, Hop, Yeast information is a bit unessential. If it were optionally detachable might be handy for some users?

I like the progress here! :)

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Brewtarget/brewtarget/issues/179#issuecomment-197788935

In a world of ninja v. pirate, I pilot a Gundam

In a world of ninja v. pirate, I pilot a Gundam

[rodrigoA]

Good discussion. I'm more in the @mikfire 's line of thought.

The more I play with this, the more I realize each of the dockables shouldn't be more than 8 lines long, they shouldn't repeat any information already on screen and they shouldn't allow editing of any field.

I also don´t like a busy UI when there is no need for it.

The more crowded the UI is the more close to harm basic UI principles we are.

With all the respect, the first screenshot suggested in this thread contains so much information that UI principles such as, proximity, closure, similarity and continuity are almost impossible to achieve/apply.

To illustrate:

I like the dockable panel to the right… if i could click on a hop or malt then the info appears like that - GREAT! Pop up windows for Malt, Hop, Yeast information is a bit unessential. If it were optionally detachable might be handy for some users?

It is strange that clicking on an item at the left side of the screen will update fields on the opposite side of it. If it was also updating any value in the middle, which is not the case, maybe it would not detach the user's attention. A folding area bellow the three would solve this problem. I´m not saying this is the correct approach, I'm just saying it would not cause weirdness at the user.

Also, crowded UI gives the user the feeling of urgency or that the task he is doing should be done quickly.

IMHO, the following quotes sumarizes pretty much the important stuff.

Which makes me wonder why you are referencing it so heavily? Are we solving the right problem here?

My eventual intent was to allow people to decide what dockable(s) would be shown.

There is a problem which is the UI emptiness and probably the solution is not the opposite of the current state.

1. We could improve or decide together what really really are the important stuff and add them to the appropriate tab in the central widget.
2. Improve tooltips. Makes me sad that tooltips are so underestimated. Qt allows html formatted tooltips.
3. I still like the dockable area, but turn it, as you said, a user option to have or not tons of information in the screen.

I really like the current UI because it is not like the popular paid brewer software out there, lot of repeated infos in every tab.

@mikfire Your last screenshot looks really good

Well these are my 10 cents.

Rodrigo

[onesnzerosimon]

Oh sorry Rodrigo, I didn't mean clicking on an item in the left hand side brings up info on the right hand side, i meant directly blow the browser, ON the left. Similar to my picture above, though i didn't have the time to edit another screenshot to demonstrate it exactly sorry.

If the user clicks on the hop button on the left-hand browser, what information is available? The hop "name", "type" and "use" … that's IF the user stretches the browser right out to see those columns. Why does "type" and "use" even need to be there in columns? I feel all we need there is the Alpha value and cuhumulone for example… anyway THEN the user needs to double click on the hop to bring up some information. It's a missed trick. I think it would be so much easier if the user clicks on the hop icon -> the hop browser appears -> the user clicks on a hop name -> the information for that hop comes up in the area directly below the browser. I don't think the browser needs to be the whole hight of the GUI… or at least, if it were draggable, so that users could have the whole browser to the left without the info, or drag the bottom edge of the browser up so that there is a small space for the browser, and the info is right there directly below the browser window. It doesn't need to be editable by default, but it would be a good option for myself i can say.

Personally, i don't correlate having lots of information available to being "messy". It just means it's THERE, without needing to double click and bring up pop-up windows, which is just totally un-essential. When I'm creating a new recipe, I find myself darting backwards and forwards, looking at hop oil contents and malt values, summing up the best way perhaps - to lower PH without additives, to just visualise a good match for whatever purpose… I just think the user can quickly shuttle through the hops to see oil values and such, it's much easier to stay in the right brain and kind of PAINT a good recipe. When you need to keep double clicking on ingredients only to bring up pop-up windows, it's slow and frustrating.

mikfire - i think the "Equipment", and "Style" buttons/menus can be moved elsewhere on the GUI. If you don't use the equipment panel at all i can totally understand. I feel they are both using up space in their current positions, which is why i moved them on my mock-up. If there was a Tab for Equipment, next to "Recipe" "Extras" "Brewday" and hopefully "Notes"… maybe easier to tuck the Eqipment Profile away? I simply refer to it often in some recipes, juggling how my top-up water to add vs mash and sparge… and perhaps changing the grain absorption according to the grain bill… and perhaps adjust the kettle loss if i use half a kilo of hops :P

Thanks again for this discussion, i think this is great. I don't mean to offend anyone with my suggestions, i really appreciate the software and you people for putting in the time and effort to make it. Cheers and thank you.

[mikfire]

You know, the tooltips are really trivial to extend. They already use HTML with CSS, because I am like that. If you want more, I am happy to change what we have, to extend what we have, to put it into places never before considered.

I put them where they made sense to me, I put the information in them that made sense to me and my desires for simplicity. What makes sense to me rarely makes sense to other humans.

So where would you like them, and what would you like to have displayed?

Mik

On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 10:08 PM, rodrigo notifications@github.com wrote:

Good discussion. I'm more in the @mikfire https://github.com/mikfire 's line of thought.

The more I play with this, the more I realize each of the dockables shouldn't be more than 8 lines long, they shouldn't repeat any information already on screen and they shouldn't allow editing of any field.

I also don´t like a busy UI when there is no need for it.

The more crowded the UI is the more close to harm basic UI principles we are.

With all the respect, the first screenshot suggested in this thread contains so much information that UI principles such as, proximity, closure, similarity and continuity are almost impossible to achieve/apply.

To illustrate:

I like the dockable panel to the right… if i could click on a hop or malt then the info appears like that - GREAT! Pop up windows for Malt, Hop, Yeast information is a bit unessential. If it were optionally detachable might be handy for some users?

It is strange that clicking on an item at the left side of the screen will update fields on the opposite side of it. If it was also updating any value in the middle, which is not the case, maybe it would not detach the user's attention. A folding area bellow the three would solve this problem. I´m not saying this is the correct approach, I'm just saying it would not cause weirdness at the user.

Also, crowded UI gives the user the feeling of urgency or that the task he is doing should be done quickly.

IMHO, the following quotes sumarizes pretty much the important stuff.

Which makes me wonder why you are referencing it so heavily? Are we solving the right problem here?

My eventual intent was to allow people to decide what dockable(s) would be shown.

There is a problem which is the UI emptiness and probably the solution is not the opposite of the current state.

1. We could improve or decide together what really really are the important stuff and add them to the appropriate tab in the central widget.
2. Improve tooltips. Makes me sad that tooltips are so underestimate. Qt allows html formated tooltips.
3. I still like the dockable area, but turn it, as you said, a user option to have or not tons of information in the screen.

I really like the current UI because it is not like the popular paid brewer software out there, lot of repeated infos in every tab.

@mikfire https://github.com/mikfire Your last screenshot looks really good

Well these are my 10 cents.

Rodrigo

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[mikfire]

I have taken no offence, and hope I haven't given any. This is good conversation that I think is required if we set about redesigning the interface. I have also asked many people for their suggestions on improving the interface. I can't very well ignore what I've asked for, can I :)

I use the "use" column on the hop table all the time -- I do first wort hopping, normal boil additions, aroma (aka, flameout or whirlpool) additions and I dry hop, frequently with the same hop variety. If that column were to go away, it would increase the number of clicks required to for me to perform a common task. The "use" field figures heavily in the sorting algorithm. The use field impacts the IBU calculations too. Removing it make the sorting algorithm rather confusing, it would hide a field that is very important in our calculations and it would annoy me because now I have to click too many times. That last one may not be important to you, but it is to me :)

Showing ALL of the information at once is a significant UI flaw, frequently made when technical people design an interface. I have been reading UI design theory for years now, trying to improve brewtarget. We can have a long conversation if it has made any material improvements, but I know enough to attempt to avoid the main sins. So even if you don't find it a problem, 30 years of design theory says that is. I've also seen brewing software that does this, and it is (as another person described it) a hot mess.

What I am really hearing you say is that there is a lot of information you don't use currently displayed, and there is a lot of information you want to have immediately available that currently isn't. My usual counterarguments are that I do use that information, and I am resistant to changing things. So how can we approach this so that you get the info you want in a manner that doesn't create a hot mess and leaves the information I use available to me?

One idea would be to allow the individual to decide which of the available columns gets displayed. If you don't care about "type" and "use", but do care about cohumulone and myrcene, you can turn the first two off in the table and the second two on. Or you could turn them all on. This would include being able to order the columns, so that the information you want is nearer to where you look. I think Qt can do this, but we would have to work a bit to figure out the interface. I will play with this a little.

I think the docks I am playing at address many of your desires. I like them since I can turn them off and don't have to devote screen space to information I don't use. I am still uncertain if you want display or editing function. The docks will never be editors.

Yes. I am ignoring the style and equipment button discussion for the moment.

If you need to keep adjusting the top up level, then we the problem we should look at is having brewtarget automatically adjust your preboil volumes to account for the liquid lost to the hop mass.

Mik

On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 11:00 PM, onesnzerosimon notifications@github.com wrote:

Oh sorry Rodrigo, I didn't mean clicking on an item in the left hand side brings up info on the right hand side, i meant directly blow the browser, ON the left. Similar to my picture above, though i didn't have the time to edit another screenshot to demonstrate it exactly sorry.

If the user clicks on the hop button on the left-hand browser, what information is available? The hop "name", "type" and "use" … that's IF the user stretches the browser right out to see those columns. Why does "type" and "use" even need to be there in columns? I feel all we need there is the Alpha value and cuhumulone for example… anyway THEN the user needs to double click on the hop to bring up some information. It's a missed trick. I think it would be so much easier if the user clicks on the hop icon -> the hop browser appears -> the user clicks on a hop name -> the information for that hop comes up in the area directly below the browser. I don't think the browser needs to be the whole hight of the GUI… or at least, if it were draggable, so that users could have the whole browser to the left without the info, or drag the bottom edge of the browser up so that there is a small space for the browser, and the info is right there directly below the browser window. It doesn't need to be editable by default, but it would be a good option for myself i can say.

Personally, i don't correlate having lots of information available to being "messy". It just means it's THERE, without needing to double click and bring up pop-up windows, which is just totally un-essential. When I'm creating a new recipe, I find myself darting backwards and forwards, looking at hop oil contents and malt values, summing up the best way perhaps - to lower PH without additives, to just visualise a good match for whatever purpose… I just think the user can quickly shuttle through the hops to see oil values and such, it's much easier to stay in the right brain and kind of PAINT a good recipe. When you need to keep double clicking on ingredients only to bring up pop-up windows, it's slow and frustrating.

mikfire - i think the "Equipment", and "Style" buttons/menus can be moved elsewhere on the GUI. If you don't use the equipment panel at all i can totally understand. I feel they are both using up space in their current positions, which is why i moved them on my mock-up. If there was a Tab for Equipment, next to "Recipe" "Extras" "Brewday" and hopefully "Notes"… maybe easier to tuck the Eqipment Profile away? I simply refer to it often in some recipes, juggling how my top-up water to add vs mash and sparge… and perhaps changing the grain absorption according to the grain bill… and perhaps adjust the kettle loss if i use half a kilo of hops :P

Thanks again for this discussion, i think this is great. I don't mean to offend anyone with my suggestions, i really appreciate the software and you people for putting in the time and effort to make it. Cheers and thank you.

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[pricelessbrewing]

@mikfire Can you reupload the pictures from your dropbox of the mockups if you still have them?

I really like the idea of using more of the space at the bottom, and/or making the different panes draggable, but this conversation was hard to follow without images.

[mattiasmaahl]

@mikfire I would say the original issue of units and defaults was resolved? the latter discussions about UI layout should be its own issue? if they are still to be developed? You think we can close?

[mattiasmaahl]

Also, saw that the UI discussion was in its own issue! will close this one.