- Declutter LifeViewer's main Settings menu
- Have as many of the "purely visual" options as possible easily accessible under a single menu
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This initial proposal will involve some minor changes to LifeViewer's top bar. To start off with, the button present in the top left of LifeViewer will depend on what "mode" LifeViewer is currently in:
- In Draw mode, the button at the top left will toggle Auto GridLines, which is currently located under Settings > Display.
- In Select mode, the button at the top left will be the "Sync" button. As the "Sync" button is only relevant to clipboard actions, which are themselves only relevant to selections since selecting a pattern is required to cut or copy it, having it permanently visible seems like an odd choice.
- In Pan mode, the button at the top left would open a new "Visual Settings" menu, for which I've used an eye icon (subject to change if anyone has any better ideas).
Here is how LifeViewer would look by default, upon first opening:
Here is how LifeViewer would look when the Visual Settings menu is opened:
Two of the buttons usually present on the top bar, namely Toggle Gridlines and Toggle AutoFit, have been relocated into the Visual Settings menu. These two buttons are strategically placed as to be the two closest buttons to the Visual Settings menu button, since these buttons see relatively high use compared to other visual options (at least according to Chris). Having these as close to the button as possible helps to reduce the impact of moving these into this menu.
Also moved into this menu are the four graphics sliders from the Settings menu: Angle, Layers, Depth and Tilt. Since the Visual Settings menu maintains more of a gap in the center, this permits the slider settings to be changed while permitting a clearer view of the board itself to make their functionalities more obvious without being obscured by several buttons in the center of the screen as well as the darkening of said screen. At least one other member has complained about the placement of these sliders in the Settings menu, stating that they contribute to clutter as well as noting that their functionality as novelty graphical tweaks contrasts with more technical offerings from the Settings menu. As such, moving these to a menu solely dedicated to graphical changes would help to distance them from more technical options. Finally, having all four of these sliders oriented in the same way would resolve a minor quirk I've noticed with the sliders: moving the bar up in the Layers and Depth sliders corresponds to an increase in value, whereas moving it up in the Tilt slider decreases the value.
A third thing which has been relocated into Visual Settings is the theme selection menu, located at the bottom left. This, too, currently resides in the Settings menu, but since themes fundamentally involve color changes to cells and the grid with no real functional changes to the pattern itself, we can declutter Settings even more by having themes be accessible via the Visual Settings menu. The button would work the same as it currently does: clicking on it would take the user to the theme selection menu, where a theme can be selected.
Finally, there are fifteen more buttons which exist in the new Visual settings menu. Two of these are entirely new, with two more being moved here from Settings > Playback, three from Settings > General, and eight from Settings > Display. I've left these as mostly featureless squares with numbers so that Chris can decide on what abbreviations or pictograms are suitable for each button. From one to fifteen, these buttons represent:
1: Settings > General > Snap Angle
2: Would reset Tilt to 0.0 when clicked. The Tilt dead zone would be removed.
3: Settings > Playback > AutoFit History
4: STATE1FIT (currently not toggleable in the viewer)
5: Settings > General > Center Pattern
6: Settings > General > Integer Zoom
7: Settings > Display > Major GridLines
8: Settings > Display > Alt GridLines
9: Settings > Display > Cell Borders
10: Settings > Display > Use Rectangles
11: Settings > Display > Render Quality
12: Settings > Display > Annotations
13: Settings > Playback > Perf. Warning
14: Settings > Display > Rainbow
15: Settings > Display > Starfield
I've attempted to distribute each of these buttons as to be close to others with similar functionalities (for example, all grid options are next to each other, all autofit options are also next to each other, the Center Pattern and Integer Zoom buttons are close to the Fit Pattern button, and the two buttons that change the Angle and Tilt are next to the respective sliders), as well as to balance the amount of buttons around each part of the viewer as to allow for the center to remain open to make the effects of each button clear.
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To clarify: the Visual Settings menu is where each of these options will be moved permanently, as opposed to being implemented as a more convenient way to access options simultaneously available elsewhere.
As a result of these changes, the normal Settings menu would be far less crowded: to start with, all four of the sliders as well as the Theme button would no longer be present in Settings, as they will have moved.
The Settings > Display menu can also be easily removed as a result of these changes: of its ten contents, eight will have been moved to Visual Settings, and Auto GridLines would instead be available at the top left when in Draw mode, leaving only Info Bar, which can be easily moved into the Advanced menu. As a result of these changes, the Settings menu will now have six buttons, compared to the current eight, and none of the sliders.
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This is the first revision of this idea I've posted here (disregarding an early iteration from 2021, which predates major changes to how the speed slider functions), so I'd be very happy to hear feedback on it, both from Chris and everyone else on the site. Is there anything that could be improved about the layout, are there any better choices for the Visual Settings icon, or are there any other things that may be worth tweaking here? I'd be interested to hear any and all thoughts on the matter.
(For anyone wondering, the choice of bright cyan as the color of the viewer elements isn't actually part of the suggestion itself, and is just something I did for convenience's sake since MSPaint isn't the greatest tool to use for creating mock-ups like these, but it's what I felt like using. Future revisions of this idea may use a different color for viewer elements.)
