[Kde-games-devel] Palapeli preview window survey

[Ian Wadham]

On Tuesday 10 August 2010 5:22:50 am Johannes Loehnert wrote:
> Some weeks ago I made some propositions to Stefan about how a preview
>  window for the whole puzzle in Palapeli could look like. As it goes in the
>  world, he had a different opinion :) and after exchanging some mails, the
>  topic fell into oblivion.
> 
> One of Ians Mails reminded me of it. So, survey question to all who care:
> 
> How would you imagine the "assembled puzzle preview" of palapeli?
> Just imagine you had to implement and use it yourself. How to switch it on?
> Where shall it pop up? Does it have any interactivity? etc...
> 
As a general rule, I think the user experience in Palapeli should be as much
as possible analogous to a real-world jigsaw puzzle, i.e. similar look and
feel when playing.  That is its present charm.

Look at the way the pieces melt together when you fit them.  It gives one
the same feeling mentally as when they fit together mechanically in real life
(IRL).  Even the new "bevels" are much applauded, being "just like the real
thing", though I feel personally that seamless melding is the way to go and
am glad it is still an option.

I think real puzzles would be seamless too if they did not have to press
cardboard to cut them ... :-)  In my young days, puzzles were often made
of plywood and cut with a saw, which gives quite a different look FWIW.

So, to the puzzle preview, which is just one of many things needed to
improve the playing experience IMHO ...

Firstly, I think the preview should be *always on* unless the player (a
masochist perhaps) decides to dismiss it.  IRL the box-top of a puzzle
does not go away when you are playing and you can put it wherever
you like.

So, secondly, please do not put it in some artificial container (e.g. not in
a sidebar).  In normal use I think it should float on the puzzle table at a
small size, a bit bigger perhaps than in the "My Collection" tab, with the
default position top-left or configurable.  The preview should have
minimal framing or "decoration" (screen real-estate is everything in
this game IMO).  Maybe it could have a shadow under it.

I think the preview's position should be draggable to anywhere on the
puzzle table, so that it can be put out of the way of any work in progress,
and the position should be remembered between sessions.

Obviously there is not enough screen real-estate to keep the preview
at full size (like a real box-top), so I suggest making it work like the icons
in Plasma's Folder View widget, e.g. hover over it and it expands to give
you a quick look: click on it and it and it stays expanded to give you a
more detailed look.  It could have an X at top right to close it because
we (almost always) know where to put the corner pieces and do not
need to see that part of the picture.

BTW I love the way the Folder View works.  I can drill down and find any
file or folder very fast and hardly ever need to use a file-manager.

In closing, I think the ideas presented here could be generalized to
include viewable "patches" other than the puzzle preview, such as the
much-discussed boxes or piles into which you could sort and collect
pieces of similar appearance when doing a large puzzle (> 200 pcs).
Of course, each of those patches would have to contain functions
(similar to those of the puzzle table) for manipulating pieces into, out
of and within the box or pile.

Finally, it would be nice if the images in the "My Collection" tab could
be treated as a preview and expanded on demand, as described above,
to get an idea of the complexity, difficulty or beauty of the picture before
attempting the puzzle.

All the best, Ian W.