[Kde-games-devel] Palapeli: a belated review

[Stefan Majewsky]

Hi,

sorry for the long delay. Here goes the long and detailed answer:

Am Freitag 06 November 2009 10:38:35 schrieb Ian Wadham:
> Firstly, picking up pieces is a bit uncertain, especially when they
> are small.  I think the hand thingy is supposed to cover the piece
> (as in grabbing a door handle), but for a long time I was trying to
> use the tips of the fingers (which is more intuitive for picking up
> or moving a jigsaw puzzle piece).  Then, if the hand closes, I think
> you have actually missed when you may think you have got it.
> Worst is that if you miss and the view contains only part of the
> table, the whole view shifts and you lose sight of the piece you
> were trying to pick up.

I could add the possibility to configure another cursor.

--> Bugreport 213769 (new)

> I see that the RMB now moves the view, so I would suggest
> removing the LMB move of the view, maybe with a popup to say
> to use the RMB.  Also I would suggest a  more "positive" mouse
> pointer than the hand.

I'm with Matthew here. LMB is the default behavior provided by many 
applications, although Matthew is right that "if there is a way to make [piece 
selection] more forgiving, e.g. grab closest piece within so many pixels, even 
if you are not actually on the piece, [...] that would be a big help".

--> Bugreport 213771 (new)

> Using the mouse wheel to magnify the view quickly is excellent,
> but please could the view remain centred on the mouse-pointer,
> so that the area you are working in remains visible, even when
> you are working near the edges of the table.

--> Revision 1046496 (turned out to be a two-liner, committed just now)

Note that the implementation is not complete. The view will still remain 
centered on the puzzle table when the puzzle table is smaller than the 
viewport. (See Qt bug 5437.)

> Several people have suggested a multi-piece pickup and that
> might be the single greatest way to improve the GUI.  With the
> larger 1000 piece puzzle I find myself continually searching for
> and picking up pieces with some common characteristic, such
> as timbers for the house in the center of the scene, edge pieces
> for the left side or even pieces with the same color and similar
> shapes (e.g. tabs at top and bottom, sockets at left and right).
> [...]
> So I would like to suggest a "magnet" mode for the mouse.  When
> the magnet is on, every piece you click on sticks to the mouse and
> is carried along with it.  When the magnet turns off, the pieces are
> dropped wherever the mouse then is.  As the pieces are dropped,
> they are spread out into a small rectangular array in much the same
> excellent way as when the puzzle is started.  There might be various
> ways to turn magnet mode on or off.  The Ctrl key is an obvious
> choice, but maybe there are better ways.  It would be up to the user,
> of course, to make sure there was space where the pieces are
> dropped.  If not, he/she would only make that mess once ...

--> Bugreport 211870 (I think the second paragraph is what you already 
mentioned there.)

> Matthew's boxes could also come into play with magnet mode.
> I suggest the boxes could be iconised or shrunk, so that the sorted
> pieces need come back into play only when they are required
> and would not take up much space on the table meanwhile.  One
> of the pieces in the box could be used to "label" an iconised box.

That's exactly how I'll implement it.

--> Bugreport 211866 (just for the record)

> Maybe someone asked for this already, but could we have a readily
> accessible view of the picture we are aiming for?  At present, I open
> one in Gwenview, but have to keep shuffling windows.

I've changed the puzzle file format to include the complete image some days 
ago, so previews of any quality can be implemented in later versions.

--> Bugreport 213773 (new)

> With a 1000 piece puzzle, the small size of pieces is a problem
> when searching for a piece.  If you view the whole table, it is
> very hard to see what is on each piece.  If you magnify the pieces,
> you scroll a lot and tend to lose track of where you are on the table.
> [...]
> My suggestion is to have a "magnifying glass" mode for the
> mouse pointer (using the M key perhaps?), so you see a magnified
> image of the piece under the pointer and maybe also the edges of
> neighboring pieces.  Magnet and magnifier combined could be
> a fast way to find and collect related pieces.

Great idea.

--> Bugreport 213774 (new)

> Just a few more minor points:
>   - Can we change the properties of a puzzle in My Library?  I gave
>     one of my puzzles the wrong name ...

I'm not sure about this one. The puzzles in the library could also be imported 
from some external resource, and it is not a good idea to let the user put his 
name on puzzles made by others. Perhaps some special rule could be inserted to 
allow editing only for puzzles created on this computer, but that would 
require to change the library format. I do not like changing formats some days 
before release (even if the release is only to kdereview).

>   - Could the tab be called "My Collection"?  "Library" is for books and
>     programs I would say.
>   - How do you get access to the example puzzles?

Aren't they installed for you? If not, do a "bash make-puzzles.sh" in the 
puzzles subdirectory, then "make install" again. (I know, it's awkward. That 
will change when Palapeli moves to kdereview.)

>   - Could the minimum size be 2x2?  I'd like to get my 3-year old
>     grandson started on Palapeli ...

Will do that tomorrow.

>   - Long-term we may need ways to be not so obvious when a fit occurs
>     and to tear a piece loose if it is in the wrong place.  I've seen
>  puzzles with that level of difficulty ...

Currently, you cannot at all affix pieces to other pieces that are not direct 
neighbors. This is due to the generality of Palapeli's game engine: It does 
not make any assumptions about how pieces are ordered.

>  - Talking about real-estate, do we really need the scroll bars, progress
>  bar and gadgets at bottom right.  I would rather be able to see more
>  pieces ... and it is not hard to estimate jigsaw puzzle progress visually. 

Will do that tomorrow.

>  - Is there some way (like mipmapping) to improve rendering of
>  small pieces that contain fine detail?  They just go "speckly" ATM. 
>  Perhaps an "average" uniform color would be more useful.

--> Bugreport 213777 (new)

>   - Could the auto-saving feature be made more obvious to a first-time
>     user?  Maybe a message with a "Don't show this again" box.

Will do that tomorrow.

Greetings
Stefan

P.S. For my birthday two days ago, I got a 1000-pcs puzzle which I'm currently 
working on with two fellows. Photos will appear on my blog soon.
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