Re: Releases

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SkyHard

What puzzles me is, how hard it seams to change the position of the button. Why is that so? It's just the position attribute of an HTML element, is it not? So why not give the user the choice where he wants to place it? That cannot be that hard, right?

Ingix

Previously the button was in a place that was overlaid/on top of the chat area. That place is no more.

And try to think about how general games usually have not that many options to adjust the position of UI, and those have full control over how they render (unlike browser games, that are at the mercy of browesers). It's not like the update indented to ruin the chat feature on mobile for example, it's just that the changes made worked perfectly well on Desktop browsers, but not on mobile browers.

Any time you give a position UI choice you need to consider how all of those choices can combine. That soon becomes a nightmare to maintain. It doesn't matter if some part is red, green or yellow, if it always is in one place. But if you need everything else to consider all the possibilities of where UI elements might be, that's not really doable.

The exception of course would be a totally customizable, window-based approach where the user is responsible for how the different parts are laid out (small chat, big log, etc). But then again the layout of the in-play area will like be bad for different aspect ratios, as buttons and descriptions need to be put into it and then removed again.

AdamH

Quote from: Ingix on 24 July 2020, 12:43:27 PM
Previously the button was in a place that was overlaid/on top of the chat area. That place is no more.

Do you not use source control? Just revert the change, the change has made the software clearly worse if that place is gone, and that doesn't include all of the other bugs introduced with the chat. Reverting the change should take less than 10 minutes of development time. That also makes me wonder if the code is being properly tested before it's released. You could also revert changes until those bugs are worked out.

All of these are extremely basic concepts of software engineering and testing that I even learned in school before I had any experience in the field. I offered my services as a consultant free of charge when this product was first being developed and received an extremely rude response from Stef that basically said he didn't want it for personal reasons. It's a shame that the software has suffered for years because I was not able to provide basic software engineering guidance like this (and other things that I offered free of charge and any obligation that were simply ignored further on in the process). Perhaps Shuffleit is in need of some guidance from someone else? I'm sure there are people out there that would be happy to help.

Ingix

If you want to say that development processess and testing could be improved, I'm with you. If you are actually saying you want to help testing, especially with regard to mobile behaviour, I would very much like that.

For the game, as always, the question if to revert a change or work on a fast fix is not easy. I think you are right that in this case the time for a quick fix is too long. But let's be sure, that is about the chat problems, not your button problem.

While of course you may have the opinion that the new placement is much worse, to me it seems just that, your opinion.

AdamH

Quote from: Ingix on 24 July 2020, 09:34:10 PM
If you want to say that development processess and testing could be improved, I'm with you. If you are actually saying you want to help testing, especially with regard to mobile behaviour, I would very much like that.

I asked to be part of testing a long long time ago and was not given any special access. I have no reason to believe anything will change if I ask to help again, and I'm not going to reach out to Stef and be ignored. If he wants me he's going to have to ask me himself and I would be large amounts of money that he won't.

But on the other hand if I have a chance to actually be heard and improve the software I'm not going to turn it down


Quote from: Ingix on 24 July 2020, 09:34:10 PM
For the game, as always, the question if to revert a change or work on a fast fix is not easy. I think you are right that in this case the time for a quick fix is too long. But let's be sure, that is about the chat problems, not your button problem.

This is not a hard problem, it's not a question. You don't release software with bugs because you test it. If bugs get by testing then you obviously want to improve your testing in the future to catch those bugs, but you don't let bugged software stay out there for users for any length of time at all. You revert the changes so that users don't have to use software with bugs until you fix the bugs.

Reverting can be done in a matter of minutes and you go back to a known-good state that has gone through all of your own testing plus users having time to find things that may have slipped through. Any bug fix with proper testing will take longer than that, even if it's just a one-line fix. Considering any other course of action for any piece of software ever is simply bad practice. I don't need to know anything at all about your software to tell you this. This is just how software development works. You don't let releases sit out there with bugs in them that you can fix by reverting to a previous version. Ever. The end.


Quote from: Ingix on 24 July 2020, 09:34:10 PM
While of course you may have the opinion that the new placement is much worse, to me it seems just that, your opinion.

I don't know how to tell you this other than that you are absolutely wrong. Read this thread, there have been zero positive comments about the button placement and color and several negative ones from at least 4 different users if you look back the last couple of releases when it started to change.

The fact that you just want to wave your hand at this and say it's OK without soliciting any feedback from your users is a systemic problem that Shuffleit has. Please stop. This change is extremely bad and you're just putting on your blinders and saying that it's good.

You don't get to decide if your UI is good, your users do. That's how UI works. Ask your users and find out what's working and what isn't. Your software has vastly suffered since before the first release because of this.

It is not hard to solicit feedback from your users. Make a poll on this website. Go do a Discord server and make a poll. You can get a general idea of what the community thinks so that you don't have to just guess and make awful design and implementation decisions and then stick with them and make your software worse.

xyrix

The button placement and colour are good.

xtruffles

Quote from: xyrix on 25 July 2020, 08:41:20 PM
The button placement and colour are good.

I love the colors!!!!  ;D

amoffett11

I like it too.  You typically hear from the unhappy people and not the happy ones, but just in case someone would get the idea that everyone hates it, I'll also throw my hat in the happy ring. 


markus

I prefer the current location and style over the old one below the log.

alibby1152

I didn't even notice that the buttons had moved, so IMO it's at worst a neutral change. They're still in a spot that in the course of a normal turn I have no business clicking unless I mean to

jsh

I also didn't notice they had moved and have not had any mis clicks.

AdamH

Well I guess I can assume that no actual effort was taken to see what the real users of the software actually want, just waiting around for some more forum posts so that we don't have to do any more work. If people want different things for this button was there even any consideration for having an option to move the location?

That's the real issue I guess I have here. Shuffleit just doesn't seem to care about putting in any work to make its client user-friendly. Or follow good software engineering practices. And it's a shame because the software still constantly suffers from it. Even here.

AdamH

Yup. I guess this is it then. Not even a reply. It's a huge disappointment to see this.

tracer

I don't know what they're supposed to reply when you just keep repeating the same things, many or even all of them not true. My read is that Ingix has already addressed the things in your previous post. I don't know what continued aggressiveness on the matter is meant to accomplish.

xtruffles

Quote from: AdamH on 28 July 2020, 09:02:00 PM
Well I guess I can assume that no actual effort was taken to see what the real users of the software actually want

mfw I'm not a real user.  :(