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phetsims / forces-and-motion-basics

"Forces and Motion: Basics" is an educational simulation in HTML5, by PhET Interactive Simulations.
http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/forces-and-motion-basics
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Should meter icons dynamically update? #218

Closed arouinfar closed 7 years ago

arouinfar commented 7 years ago

While reviewing #217, I noticed that the speed and acceleration meter icons next to the checkboxes dynamically update. This behavior differs from ESPB, where the speedometer icon is a static image.

At rest:

screen shot 2016-11-30 at 12 12 23 pm

While in motion:

screen shot 2016-11-30 at 12 12 33 pm

@jessegreenberg has confirmed that this behavior dates back to FAMB 1.0.0. Frankly, I find it a bit odd, and I think that it has the potential to interfere with predictive questions.

@ariel-phet do you remember a discussion about this particular behavior? Was it intentional? If not, is this something we can/should address in the upcoming redeploy?

ariel-phet commented 7 years ago

@arouinfar this was intentional.

@samreid basically did this at the time because he thought it looked cool and the team agreed (it was sort of a bell and whistle at the time). However, I don't think the idea of interfering with predictive questions was considered.

It seems a static image has become more of our standard, so I think it would be fine to make it static. I would say for acceleration use an image that shows some level of acceleration present on the meter. I think the speedometer is iconic enough that it does not matter whether the speed in the icon is zero or some nominal speed.

ariel-phet commented 7 years ago

@arouinfar I agree certainly seems like an easy tweak to make for the next deploy/maintenance release.

arouinfar commented 7 years ago

Thanks @ariel-phet!

he thought it looked cool and the team agreed

My initial reaction was along the lines of "wow, that's cool!" so I can see how the behavior made it into the sim. :)

I would say for acceleration use an image that shows some level of acceleration present on the meter.

I think ~5 m/s^2 looks pretty good

screen shot 2016-11-30 at 1 02 09 pm

I think the speedometer is iconic enough that it does not matter whether the speed in the icon is zero or some nominal speed.

Agreed. For consistency with ESPB, I would leave the needle at zero.

jessegreenberg commented 7 years ago

@arouinfar @ariel-phet here is the latest with this change:

http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phet/dev/html/forces-and-motion-basics/2.1.1-rc.3/forces-and-motion-basics_en.html

Are we ready to redeploy this maintenance release?

arouinfar commented 7 years ago

Looks good! I think everything's ready for the redeploy @jessegreenberg, but @ariel-phet can confirm.

jessegreenberg commented 7 years ago

Thanks @arouinfar, I think we are ready to go. Closing this issue and I will track the maintenance release in #217.