[DZR] Re: Next release - call for feature requests
- From: "James Althoff" <jamescalthoff@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <directixer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 09:03:21 -0700
Here is one simple suggestion:
I think the user interface would be just slightly more standard if an Edit
menu was added to the menu bar and the menu items:
o Create Plugin ...
o Delete Plugin ...
o Properties
were moved from the File menu to this new Edit menu.
The next suggestion is more involved.
I do the following a lot. I see information about a new plugin on the net,
download the demo, unzip it, etc. Now I want to test the plugin in Sonar.
Then I find that I don't like it and want to delete it. I would like to be
able to very quickly:
o add (wrap) a plugin
o delete that same plugin
In theory, this is already very easy and straightforward to do in
DirectiXer. The problem for me is that I have over 100 plugins that are
managed by DirectiXer. For organizational purposes, I tend to keep plugin
vendors and their corresponding plugins in their own folders. In any case,
when I open up DirectiXer with this many plugins, it can take sometimes
almost a minute to scan all the current plugins. A minute might not seem
like much. But if I do this three or four or five times in a row, it gets
tedious. And I can't just leave DirectiXer open and running all day because
it uses up memory. And, besides, sometimes these crazy plugins crash Sonar
and require rebooting. <wink>
What I would propose is something like this:
o Add an Options menu to the menubar -- this would be good for future
enhancements, as well.
o Add an entry (checkbox-style) to the Options menu "Scan During Startup"
(or some similar, preferred name)
o By default this option is On and DirectiXer operates exactly as it
currently does
o If this option is turned off, then the next time that DirectiXer is
started, it skips the scanning process
With this option off, DirectiXer will start up almost instantly. So I can
quickly add a new plugin, test it out, and possibly delete it.
If I decide that I need to see all the other plugins (that DirectiXer is
managing), I can just click on DirectiXer's existing Refresh button.
o Clearly, the On/Off state of this option needs to persist from run to run.
o It might be good to pop up a dialog upon startup to indicate to the user
that the normal scan is being by passed.
An alternative to the above, would be to dispense with the Option menu and,
instead, show a dialog every time DirectiXer is started. The dialog would
have Yes and No options for scanning current plugins. "Yes" would be the
default. "No" would bypass the scanning process.
... or any variation of the above that has the same effect of allowing a
quick startup followed by add and delete.
Also, I agree with the suggestion others have made about processing a folder
full of dll's in one step. How about adding an entry "Add All in Folder"
to the File -- or newly proposed Edit <wink> -- menu. This would bring up a
"folder-chooser" dialog. The user would be expected to select a folder for
processing (or to Cancel out). DirectiXer would scan all dll's in that
folder and its subfolders. Ideally, it would then put up a dialog with a
checkbox in front of every dll that was found. Initially each checkbox is
On. There could be "All On" and "All Off" buttons in the dialog. The user
fine-tunes the list of dll's in the dialog by checking/unchecking whatever
entries and then clicks on OK. Then DirectiXer processes all the checked
dll's at once with the same mechanism it currently uses with the "drag from
Explorer" feature.
James
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kirill 'Big K' Katsnelson" <kkm@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <directixer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 1:27 AM
Subject: [DZR] Next release - call for feature requests
>
> Everybody,
>
> I am working on the version 2.3 of DirectiXer now. I would like to
> gather feedback on features that you would like added to DirectiXer.
> Everything goes - something obvious may be eluding me, and even crazy
> suggestions may appear to be reasonable on the secont thought!
>
> Please post to the list, so we can start a discussion here.
>
> -kkm
>
>
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