The suggestions for expression and action editors

Under Consideration vs1969-2 ● 6 years ago

After working extensively with expression editor and with actions for some time, I would say there is much room for improvement in usability in these pieces of code. What I would like to see (and, if I am missing anything and some of this is achievable somehow, I would appreciate any help):

1) in the expression editor - ability to see the full name of the variable and the name of the control in the circles on top - at least in tooltip, or e.g. by switching to some specific "full-view mode" which could include auto-fit, internal scrolling - anything of this kind. While making massive replacements of the certain variables or certain controls throughout the whole prototype I found the lack of such visibility a major annoyance - as you are not able to see what is in the expression by just looking at it in editor!

2) in the expresson editor - ability to specify the name of the variable or the name of the control not only with drag-n-drop (which in my case e.g. included switching to some faraway panel via outline) but with just typing in its name. For variables this can also include double-clicking on the circle including variable and selecting the new one from the list in some popup dialog.

3) ability to undo the operations in the editor

4) ability to copy-paste the fragments of expressions in the editor (i.e when the fragment is selected, only deleting it is possible now, copying, cutting, and pasting are natural extensions for this).

Some more remote possibilities could include

5) ability to edit the expressions and actions as text. The tool is already able to show actions and expressions this way if the alternative view mode is selected, the next step would be making us able to edit them in-place in this format. Small changes and copy-pasting the fragments of expressons are sometimes much easier to do this way.

6) ability to search-and-replace in actions and expressions.

Also, some minor usability problems:

7) I would appreciate the event panel not making itself scrollable horizontally when it is resized over some width, as it is done now. Instead I would like to keep the wrapping functionality which is provided when the panel is resized below that width.

8) why cannot I double-click on the calculated expression in Set Value action form to go to editor, why must I always right-click on the gear icon (which is small) and then select Edit from the context menu?

My overall impression is that the tool goes to great lengths to prevent users from specifying an incorrect input as all is constructed from predefined blocks via drag-n-drop. And sometimes this leads to major usability problems for the people who exactly know what they are doing.