WebSketch - animation tool added (alpha)

[williamfawcett]

Hi all,

I thought you might like to see / comment on my latest addition to WebSketch at:

http://www.williamfawcett.com/websketch

It's a fairly simple tool at the moment - it simply plays back your drawing in the order you drew it. The playback speed is user-selectable and any previously saved drawing can be loaded in, replayed and then amended / undone in the usual way.
I should add that this is a first draft of this tool, so I'd be grateful to be notified of any problems you come across.
I've also updated the main toolbar help and other windows will have similar help notes (though only the colour mixer palette has them at the moment).
Any other comments / criticism welcome!

Bill

[Colin Campbell]

you know what, I love what you have there. I'm super impressed. Photoshop, here you come :p

[webguy]

looks good, but you should put the help thing at the bottom and have it span the two columns. Would make it more visible and obvious. <- you like that don't you colin :)

[williamfawcett]

that's a pretty good idea - I wasn't sure about the inverted L shape of the toolbar (it goes against the 'standard' layout), but it does match the other dialogue boxes.

I'm trying to stop twiddling with the layout and other superficial stuff and knuckle down to write the missing tools. Of course they're all more complicated than I first imagined, but I'm making a bit of headway with the text tool; I reckon I'll have a good base for an online word processor when it's done! I wonder if there's any market for one of those...

Roll on thin clients a la Star Trek TNG.

[JGizmo]

I like that too myself, good work!

Just to add on, I have recently done a drawing application for my final year coursework which I only had little time to put it up in a day. It is not as complicated as that one but the arm of the application is for children of age 10 or below. Point of my exercise is to use HCI approach to develop an interface for that user group. However, I dont have kid myself and now I am scratchin my head on evaluation of the design. So, if anyone of YOU know about usability issues and have kid who can test it or have experience or have past skills on develop interface for kids or have better idea / feedback, please share it with me.

The file is Number 26, Experment session 2

www.wdheaven.com

Thanks Heaps
John

[williamon9]

cool stuff. keep it up~

[williamfawcett]

John,

I had a play with your drawing app - very nice. My daughter's only two, so I couldn't get her to help with your user testing, but it seems pretty intuitive to me.

I like the way the tool drops to the canvas when the mouse is pressed, I'm considering doing something similar myself for websketch. The other thing I was thinking of - and it's probably relevant for you too - is adding a faint circle at the point of the tool on the canvas to indicate the size of nib / eraser etc. (just like in PhotoShop when capslock is down).

Bill

[JGizmo]

Bill

Thanks for comment.

The tool drop thing can be fun, I used that in my design because I felt that it is more logical in motion (while mouse up, you are not doing thing - like browsing over a paper, but once mouse down on the canvas, the motion of dropping indicate action perform, just hope kids can related to this theory :D) but personally I perfer using precise indicator like a crosshair. However, different users had different expertises on drawing app, use of object graphic as the mousecursor can visually re-insure what user had chosen from the tool box + that new idea you have which is great I thought because it can take care those user (who like to be precise and accuracy drawing). Maybe you can think about add a option of two handcursor mode for user to choose, 1 object base type and 1 precise indicator type ..... well I dont know! :)

Good luck with the work anyway, looking forward to it!

John