NoteCraft 2 finally made its way to the SamsungApps Store and can be downloaded to update your older version! The price is also halfed to just 1€. I will update the NoteCraft page later on with all the country specific SamsungApps links for NoteCraft.
Hey! Sorry for the late response, have lots of work to do right now. And wow! that’s a lot of great feedback! I’ll just start right away:
1) I will submit a version with slightly bigger fonts for the title and description. But I don’t plan to make styles like font size customizable by the user because of the additional work and minor significance. Nevertheless I will try to find the best font size, of course.
2) Ah, I haven’t heeded that at all and it actually has no meaning whatsoever. The equal distance in the previous version is just a coincidence. I don’t think the unequal distance has any effect on the user experience, does it? ;)
3) The main-“plus”-button is as large as it is because it’s the primary navigation element. The top-bar with Settings is just very secondary and of lesser importance, so it’s smaller and users only tap that if they really intent to. The main button size is also optimized for touch input unlike the top bar.
4) These are some nice thoughts. Adding today’s date into the top bar seems like a good idea, better than into the due date as it’d clutter the info as well as would be more work to rewrite. If done, though, it won’t link anywhere. The NoteCraft calendar’s only function is to pick the due date and isn’t useful for anything else.
5) A recycle bin system would be great but it’s an awful lot of work.I don’t think that pays off for its function. There is now the confirmation question on deleting a note, so the user already has to make up his mind whether he really wants to get rid of it, for good.
Sorry, that I can’t implement most of your ideas. Currently, I also have to see where I’m heading as I’m everything but excited about how I’m being treated as a developer by Samsung.
2) It’s all about ergonomics and usability. There are some rules of interface construction. Here are some examples – http://savepic.net/1213435.png
That’s all for user to feel comfortable.
And more about interface… Do you see the “EvMemo Fit” widget?
The working area of the “EvMemo Fit” looks more pretty in some points:
– shadow
– border
Thanks to these drawing entities the working area of the widget is rather like flying glass. While the working area of NoteCraft is 2D and rough. I mean – http://savepic.net/1231862.jpg
And one more… don’t you think that if the working area will be a little bit more transparent it would be nicer? But I’m not sure about this suggestion.
Continue…
6) For non English interface it would be more convenient to put a linebreak by entering (for example) double comma – “,,” – but not “\n”.
Thereby the number of keyboard layout switching will be reduced from 4 to 2 times.
NOW: typing in Russian “Abc” > “?21” and put “\” > to Russian “Abc” > English “Abc” and put “n” > Russian “Abc” and continue typing.
WOULD BE: typing in Russian “Abc” > “?21” and put “,,” (double comma) > Russian “Abc” and continue typing.
7) Don’t you think that if not marked “Well done” checkboxes will be a little bit more transparent (in comparison with marked) it would be nicer?
Hello again and once more great thanks for your thorough feedback and suggestions!
2) I find ergonomics and usability quite big words for just 8 pixels of asymmetry but I can see that this minor awkwardness can get on the nerves if the user is aware of it and keeps focusing on it. So I just took some time and fixed it! Next version will be pixel-perfect symmetrical ;)
About more “eye candy”: With NoteCraft I propagate “function over design” and chose to agree on some trade-offs in return for usability and performance. Apart from the checkbox arrow, NoteCraft is styled head-to-toe purely with CSS for minimal resource consumption and highest responsiveness. Disappointingly, bada only has poor support for CSS3 attributes – gradients and shadows are none of these. Thus the only way to implement these are transparent PNGs, which are very inflexible and extremely resource-intensive. I agree that bada has an ugly rendering of the CSS3 border-radius without anti-aliasing, but at a 270ppi pixel density, I tolerate this. Biggest issue is, bada is awful in resource-management.
And personally, I find flashy glass along with fancy plastic reflexions outdated and very early-web2.0-style. You call NoteCraft “2D”, I call it “clean”. I draw inspiration from the WP7 Metro UI, which is controversial itself, so…
I tried out transparent input fields for title and description. I can assure you, it’s just wrong. Additionally, on text input, bada puts another solid white box above the fields, which looks even weirder.
6) Thanks for this suggestion. Adding just a few letters of code will now make possible to transform 2 dots / fullstops “..” into a line break. That way, you really only need 2 key strokes for an actual line break: 2 long taps on the space bar! (I reckon, fullstops are even more convenient than commas as you just have to hold and release the space bar instead of tracking the comma in the consequent popup.)
I don’t know what you mean by this, though:
NOW: typing in Russian “Abc” > “?21″ and put “\” > to Russian “Abc” > English [..]
7) I will have a look at this, too.
I will submit the new version to the Appstore Certification soon. Right now, though, SamsungApps undergoes reconstruction and will be drastically changed and resumes at 30th May. I’m not sure if certification until then is possible.
Hi, Jörn!
2) I agree with “minimal resource consumption and highest responsiveness”.
4)
If done, though, it won’t link anywhere. The NoteCraft calendar’s only function is to pick the due date and isn’t useful for anything else.
Hope you’ll do it some day. Well,.. not link to the NoteCraft calendar… maybe link to the Bada calendar? A calendar is a very useful feature per se. So why not?
6) I agree with 2 dots too but with one condition – three dots mustn’t transform to linebreak + 1 dot. Three dots must remain three dots. I use this punctuation symbol very often.
P. S. “>” means “click”
Thank you for developing!
Super high quality widget!
My suggestions for a possible update:
1) When an entry is clicked, the +/- buttons appear. If another entry is clicked now, another +/- button appears. Here you could let the first +/- button dissapear. Alternatively let all +/- buttons disappear automatically after not being clicked for maybe five seconds (needs to be tried out first).
2) Standard prority should be “low” rather then “mid”. Most things I note to be done are low priority. Some things then are more important, and very few are high priority at some time. (Just my experience with notes.)
3) A little cosmetics: Change the + (left to the arrow) in the “edit entry” window into an “OK” or some checkmark.
Furthermore the arrow to the right is confusing, even when you got familiar with the widget already. Mayby change it to a “Back” or an “X”.
Am I right with the assumption, that you are left-handed? ;-) As a right-handed person, I would expect the back-arrow to point to the left, instead to the right, like it is now.
Whatever you do, keep the performance of that widget like now! Low/no CPU, low RAM.
Everything else is just perfect. Great respect for that!
Gruß Patrick
http://www.badanation.de
Hi, Jörn!
Here’s one more…
8) Have you ever thought of highlighting events which expire on current day?
I mean, a word “today” (which is orange now like all other scheduled dates) could be colored, for example, in red (or some other font style, or additional postscript like “!!!”, or something else…) in order not to miss an event scheduled on today.
To my mind, if one schedule an event on strictly specific date, he don’t want to miss the event in any case. Thus, there must be some (simple) signaling mechanism of today’s date coming.
******* About Patric ideas:
1) I think automatic disappearing will be quite uncomfortable in some cases.
2) Agree. It’ll be more confortable for me too. The goal is to reduce the number of color patches if there is no need (ergonimic’s theme). So, a typical way is “just notes” – absolutely unremarkable gray color square boxes. Thereby the low priority on default will reduce the numbers of clicks while adding a simple note (whitch is majority).
3) Sounds sanity. This idea is to be considered.
8) That’s a great idea! Will assess later on how that can be implemented.
For Patrick’s suggestions, see below ;)
Hi Patrick! Thanks for your suggestions. Really glad you like my work!
1) I don’t really see the need to automatically minimize notes when another has been opened or after a timer runs down. I think it’s a plus that the user can view multiple note descriptions at once. After all, closing a note just takes a really quick tap on it.
2) Will consider this. Haven’t thought much about it yet.
3) I agree that the “+” isn’t very intuitive as a confirmation button. The special check mark character isn’t properly displayed in the Samsung Font. I also want to stick with iconic buttons, so it’s not going to be an “ok” text. Will try an image there.
In fact, I’m right-handed ;) The reason that the arrow is on the right side pointing outwards is as follows: the more important confirmation button “+” is on the left because for right-handed people it’s easier to tap on the left side on the screen, reaching the bottom right screen corner isn’t very convenient. And a “go-backwards-arrow” pointing inwards the widget just looked odd to me. I can take a look at this again, though.
There were no new versions so long! )
There have been recent unpleasant events with Samsung’s services which are rather discouraging and annoying as hell. I hadn’t had motivation nor time to deal with that yet.
Sorry for the spongy response but that’s all I can say right now.
Wish you to leave your bad mood ;-)
It’s more up to Samsung but me. They keep putting humongous stones on developers’ roads. And I don’t intend to bend over for everything they have to offer. I understand that, despite being unrelated to the issue, it’s the users that are affected in a bad way, too.
It’s not like I’m not trying. If you saw my tweet, you might know that just this Friday, the new MeteorClock and also NoteCraft version, which contained some of your suggestions, were rejected. I am just reading the rejection reasons for MeteorClock and they are just hilarious….
Jörn! We’ll be waiting for good news!
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Some thoughts about 2.02:
1) Some people are talking about increasing the font size… To my mind, the font size of the title is ideal. The description font perhaps needs to be increased a little bit.
By the way, is it difficult to make font size setting personally customizable?
2) It seems, “+”/”-” buttons are moved slightly to the left. So in new (“slightly wider”) interface blue circles are not equal, while in old (shorter) interface red circles are equal (details on the screen – http://savepic.org/1751247.png).
I think “+”/”-” buttons should be moved slightly to the right for the correction of this defect.
3) Don’t you think that the height of the bottom “+” button-line should be the same as the top line (with “number of notes” and “settings”)?
4) NoteCraft works with note dates (creation date and the date of the final). But the snapshot shows us (screenshot) that there is nowhere on the screen information about today’s date. Therefore, if you would like to get this information you would have to perform additional steps (go to the Bada-native calendar or switch to another desktop, which may (or may not) have a widget that shows the current date).
So I suggest to add current date for example on top menu-line. By clicking on current date could be opened NoteCraft calendar (calendar screen).
Maybe (for better useability) the “settings” text-button should be remaked to an icon-button.
5) To my mind a recycle bin (roominess is about dozen notes) will be useful.
By the way, the “recycle bin” button could be icon-button too.
Jörn, do you think any ideas are eligible to be realized?