Wire: some feedback on the help/docs and other usability things

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vt100
Met Resolume in a bar the other day
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2021 18:36

Wire: some feedback on the help/docs and other usability things

Post by vt100 »

Hey there - this is the right place to give bugs and feedback stuff right? I've been getting into wire, and I just had some feedback on some of the docs within the app. I should say, I am having fun playing with wire - so my intention here is to help make it better and for apps like wire, being able to understand what nodes do/are doing is key.


:: The examples - wbn to open them without closing your project ::
The examples that are integrated are super helpful, the only thing that sucks about them is that, since you can't open two projects, you can't like reference them while you build your own thing - like you'll go to click the example and then you have to close your project. This just makes the examples harder to use.

:: internal node docs - could be more thorough ::

There are a couple problems with the docs for the nodes:

- The docs can be ambiguous
- The docs are a little sparse

I'll give some examples, but I noticed this a lot in like the midi nodes. Take for example the docs present in the inspector for the node "Filter Note On" - the description says "filter a midi note on message" and then provides a link for the example.

So, i was recently working with another device called midihub, and on that device when you filter, you exclude the thing you're filtering. In this case, I believe this filter *includes* the thing you're filtering. I think the description could be easily augmented to make it more clear, because 'filter' on it's own is a little ambiguous and different folks have different meanings for it.

Then, it would also be nice, if each note described it's parameters on the description. Like a python doc string:

'''
This node does this thing. In great or expandable detail, it does this thing.

@parmeter vel. 0 = Off: If true, when velocity is 0, a note event is not triggered
'''
I'm not suggesting that particular format - but for each 'function' or node, I wanna know what it does and what the parameters do. Maybe treating them like API docs is too much for some people, but for me it's so helpful.

:: Mouse over could provide short descriptions of parameters ::
I noticed that when you mouse over parameters you don't get little mouse over pop ups. Either on the nodes or in the inspector. Could be a nice add (or option to turn on), so you could quickly mouse over some parameter and see the description (assuming you guys like my idea on descriptions).

Note that when you mouse over a node, you do get a description in the little text window in the inspector, but not for parameters. I don't think there's anything for parameters, or maybe I missed it?

:: Is there a way to see the input/output values without mousing over the input/output? ::

So on any node's input, outputs, modulation inputs etc, you can mouse over and see the values present on that input/output. I was doing this thing where I was pressing a trigger button and I wanted to see the values on some other node, but I couldn't find a way to 'sticky' the values on the output so I could move my mouse. Maybe this exists but, it'd be cool if there was some way to 'watch' one or more node input/output values somehow. That is they're sticky somewhere and i can just, look at them - if that's in the UI or a special viewer widget, not sure that matters, I'd just like to be able to see the values.

-- Okay - thanks for bearing with me on this stuff, but somme ideas that might be helpful for folks learning and working within the Wire ecosystem.

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MarkyMark
Team Resolume
Posts: 63
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2020 09:40
Location: Groningen

Re: Wire: some feedback on the help/docs and other usability things

Post by MarkyMark »

Hey vt100,

Thank you for the feedback.
I am glad to hear you're having fun with Wire!

About opening the examples as secondary projects, I believe this is something that is being worked on.

I agree that the MIDI documentation can be improved, I'll look into it.
Thank you for noting on the Filter Node, that should be cleared up for sure.

About the parameter tooltip, we think that is a good idea, we're looking into that.

About the "sticky"-readout, this will be done at some point, but is not a priority right now.
A little work around for your issue is adding a Float node(math) to have a readout of the values.
This only works at event flow, but you could add an onchange node to get that done.
Like this:

--begin-wire-patch--
697.3ocyU0ziZCCD8uxJeFux1wejvM9JR8TkZ6sU8fIw.Qavll3rzsq3+dmjr.AAKeztG3BIYxadim2L4wanDm0ZR7YNaIp+SuglU3VB2P5gbU9UUdzO6g7NHBsGJyBAHneto2Nbzs3H6.xNIP9QDJfqEYymaJN.n7XFUmjQwQLJ6fChYcoFnodCQp+Q6gpMsx2FRa8YXcdlt4I+qqLn9noNWNpG5EcdE73LcdoYSMkkdsMwzEosZ4T3buCKEvUYyV4x0EWfP.4TWkMsgtElr4K7P9AffuNK0u.tOB5rei5y4PrWQ8YxHHmjbcYSJYo.wJkLRwjBbbjHFyoiCwgwi33wwjwiDxIThfVWXSQILYQ8IML3RdFx8krTiCdIL4qaLeqdrbUdluJ0z4zOK2o8G1iyJL+pxXSd8igQdjI.jtYyJM9y.CvrZgtzfuFjEF.BtAeGfaWe1A0VkmWKvKxRSMPa+zAIVuRnWVm320qQ.L5w6Es6O31BruP0W1Uk2OfW8pwIm3mXfKUWw.ehbHCyiXTbTbLGOZXv.x.UH71w2z.+8OTNip2UG2Kce09vnEZ6bSc+yNV.AZVeHqq6nblWL1+WkSDdjxEQosJGmdFkKZBEyGNXDNRwYXHzDAinFPIAetJ2igJZHGlIpHoPFEx3efVFucOhepEw+YAJjsWfpWy53kHHhOVfLR5LLmkPvgRlFSRSzDtgxgd31Ena6yz1T1qL+nMkG9hsVdDepxyo7ZkB1k0mwQgDLOXX.NhEnvRYXvPpfOPLjbadsduN4YrOao4baQ0mj7Lq4L+ihunxz3NlatFmwcHuPsC153dULBMVgGq83+XJbW5ntkla0D+fZrSW.ejRbpy10aePi59v2dWS.hj2W17gQxKuqcWYyqtSr4oz.UizwUp6.e9y6p29sgqpns62r4u.zZElsB
--end-wire-patch--

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