UI/UX suggestions for Addon Installer

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Kunda1
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UI/UX suggestions for Addon Installer

Post by Kunda1 »

The FreeCAD addon manager (https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD-addons) opens exciting FreeCAD possibilities. As of Jan 20, 2017 the addon manager looks like this:
Addon-Installer.png
Addon-Installer.png (21.48 KiB) Viewed 4080 times
Observations:
  • FC addon manager could use a Details pane instead of linking the user to the github page
  • Each FC Addon could be represented by an icon as well.
  • Progress bar could be a spinning FC gears
Just for reference, here is QGIS's (v.2.99) plugin manager:
QgGIS-plugin-manager.png
QgGIS-plugin-manager.png (59.57 KiB) Viewed 4080 times
Last edited by Kunda1 on Wed Mar 21, 2018 10:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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agryson
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by agryson »

Kunda1 wrote:Observations:
  • FC addon manager could use a Details pane instead of linking the user to the github page
  • Each FC Addon could be represented by an icon as well.
  • Progress bar could be a spinning FC gears
I like the idea of a details pane, we could pull the info from the README.

The icon is a nice idea but we need a generic icon for any developers who are unable or unwilling to create an icon for their plugin. We could request an icon be added to the repo, then it gets pulled from there too and pull requests could be made to help those Devs out.

I'm not so hot on changing core UI elements like loader indicators though, doing so often leads to inconsistencies, even if it'd be a nice personal touch.
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agryson
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by agryson »

Other little ideas:
  • that search bar/filter could be handy
  • Have install/remove buttons be active when relevant i.e, only show remove active if you've selected an installed add-on, ditto for install
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yorik
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by yorik »

The preview pane might be a good idea, if we keep it simple, in other words, not add a ton of new dependencies just to be able to display some html.

The other ideas I'm not sure, looks complicated to me, and I'd be -in a first time- more interested in making this addon installer rock-solid than adding whistles and bells.
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agryson
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by agryson »

yorik wrote:more interested in making this addon installer rock-solid than adding whistles and bells.
Of course, my tendancy would be to view this as a wish list.

However, showing proper state on the buttons would be a low cost benefit I think.

So, for any enterprising souls, I'd suggest as a first step, cleaning up the active/inactive states before moving on to trying to show a description with minimal overhead. Other bonuses like icons, filters and such could be looked at after that.
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by yorik »

Of course, I have no problem if someone wish to implement these features! The code is (still) small and easy enough :mrgreen:
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kkremitzki
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by kkremitzki »

So, just so i understand this right, the plan is to break out this macro to its own item in the UI, e.g. Tools > Addon Manager? Rather than having it live in the system-distributed macros folder?

I've been looking at the code a bit and there's definitely some clear-cut improvements to be made. I'll see if I can implement some of the suggestions in this thread in the next few days.
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agryson
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by agryson »

kkremitzki wrote:So, just so i understand this right, the plan is to break out this macro to its own item in the UI, e.g. Tools > Addon Manager? Rather than having it live in the system-distributed macros folder?
I don't know if that was said, but maybe it was implied by the desired functionality...
It's not a bad idea though, but is it necessary to do that to implement the README viewer?
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kkremitzki
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by kkremitzki »

agryson wrote:
kkremitzki wrote:So, just so i understand this right, the plan is to break out this macro to its own item in the UI, e.g. Tools > Addon Manager? Rather than having it live in the system-distributed macros folder?
I don't know if that was said, but maybe it was implied by the desired functionality...
It's not a bad idea though, but is it necessary to do that to implement the README viewer?
No, it isn't necessary or related, I just was curious. I double checked and saw in the first post of this thread that the plan is indeed to add it to the Tools menu.

(as an aside, I think workbenches and toolbars should be moved from view to tools)
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agryson
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Re: Soft UI/UX suggestions for Macro Addon Installer

Post by agryson »

kkremitzki wrote:No, it isn't necessary or related, I just was curious. I double checked and saw in the first post of this thread that the plan is indeed to add it to the Tools menu.
Ah, nice shotspot, hadn't seen that thread. We'll then, all steam ahead!
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