It is time for another Developer MeetUp, as promised on the first Wednesday of the month 2022-03-02T15:00:00Z
March Presentation What UI functionality is missing from our APIs? What have you been needing or wanting to do in the SketchUp UI, that our API’s don’t currently offer? Kathy Davies from the UI/UX team will join us as we listen to your UI needs, wants, desires and big dreams! You’re invited to tell us what you need from our UI API - we are excited to hear from you!
Mark your calendars! We will be hosting these virtual MeetUps the first wednesday of every month.
Join our Developer MeetUp mailing list at the link provided below. We will send out a link to the MeetUp an hour before the meeting starts, only to the people that have joined the mailing list. We will be letting people into the meeting 10 minutes before our planned start time. If you have RSVP’d to a previous MeetUp, you do not need to sign up again.
It would be better and more efficient if Kathy reads and becomes familiar with the existing formal filed issue threads.
Again, it would be better if discussion continues in the formal request threads in the GitHub tracker which can be accessed by anyone at any time, rather than a chat discussion which will not be accessible later to those not connected to the chat. Such ad hoc discussions are outside the norm for an engineering change protocol.
The proposed MeetUp is a waste of time!
If you really are excited, show it by fixing the currently reported bugs and implementing the previously requested features.
Over the years y’all have asked us repeatedly to file requests in many (3+) different places (past forums, etc.) even before the GitHub API tracker was implemented.
To ask us once again for UI feature requests in another way is beyond disrespectful !
Dan, this meeting isn’t excluding or invalidating already logged issues. We have these and the team, and Kathy are aware of then. This is an addition, another means of collecting feedback. As we’ve mentioned a few times now we’re looking at some larger UI/UX changes for SketchUp to refresh and make things more consistent. Part of that is taking a big picture look on things which goes beyond only fixing one to two things in the existing UI.
I understand that meetup’s aren’t your thing, but please keep an open mind. We’ve had some great feedback from these meetups that’s been of great value. This is us bringing the conversation closer to our users and developer partners, something that’s been asked for for a long time.
Which becomes unpublished data that anyone not in the meeting can know, comment on or later reference. You guys have not yet (AFAIK) published any of the prior meetings. Not even a summary, (correct me if I am wrong.)
Sorry, but this implies virtue signaling. I’ve been around since v7 and remember coders asking for many things (specific and general,) but not begging for brainstorming via video conference.
Now you are minimizing the 500+ open issues currently logged. There is far in excess of “one to two things in the existing UI” that are broken.
And again I remind you and Chris that there still is a list of at least 30 API requests that have yet to be processed in the Alpha Dev project.
I’m not against progress. But I dislike (with a passion) when current features are left unfinished or unrepaired and effort is redirected into new features that get half-implemented.
I’ll come right out and say that I personally see the move toward web-style Modus interfaces for a desktop application as cosmetic.
I’d like to emphasis that these MeetUps are not a substitute for the issue tracker. If anything they are a substitute for the Devcamps we’ve missed out on due to the pandemic.
Today’s MeetUp was not another forum to bring up existing bugs but to think out loud about possible future directions. For actual bugs I would specifically direct people towards the issue tracker.
The UI is only a small part of this. We’re looking at a larger UX overhaul. Rethinking the UI and UX. That’s mainly what yesterday’s meeting was about.
Developer meetups are a good idea. Almost everybody agrees. Please keep them coming.
This is also true. Both are true.
A good way to increase the productivity of the meetups would be that Trimble starts announcing a clear and distinct meetup agenda well in advance. Say at least two weeks.
It could be a traditional 1-2-3 agenda; or one well-defined topic with some thematic questions and a poll; or similar. For instance:
· Top 3 API improvements
· Find low-hanging performance fruit
· Panel access MVP features
· Out-of-tool drawing solutions
· Your API pet peeve
This way, we developers can mull the topic over, perhaps email input in advance, and have a better chance to prepare a substantial contribution to the meetup.
What about the recording? For me, this date for the meetings are the worst possible. (That’s why I haven’t registered yet.) I don’t know if such an amateur (but enthusiastic) “almost” developer like me, can add anything to the conversation. But if I knew how it was going, maybe I would upset my life …
Making UI changes to existing features is a dangerous activity, as hopefully was learned during the recent 2021 episode when the behavior of Move modifier keys was changed “for consistency” as I recall.