Comment by fuzzythinker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fuzzythinker | Hacker News Reader

Oh wow, just realized looking at the footer here that @thunderbong posted it 2 weeks ago, thanks!

I didn't get a chance to reply to some feedback to another post I commented on few days ago (one on Origami Simulator), so I'll post/reply them here.

The Creator is capable to make most squash, petal, crimp, rabbit ear, and inside & outside reverse folds.

- the step indicator has been changed from a "play" like icon to a circle to lessen the confusion, thank you.

- I will likely add point # circles to points for the next step in play mode.

- Not in complete agreement with showing fold arrows then animation of the fold is bad. Even if it is, it's difficult to change that, and there are more important bugs, fixes and features that to me have a higher priority.

- Not knowing that the model can be panned. The hand cursor is a big hint. I also appreciate finding features and gems on my own, and I think many users can find this feature.

ps. You can email/share the heart as an autoplay V-day "e-card" with http://foldmation.com/fold/m7ua3j8e6feac--heart?p=-1 . The p=-1 makes it autoplay, but it errors out if model has more than a few steps and the heart is the only model with a few steps so it's prefect.

I appreciate you making changes based on the previous feedback!

Looking at the V-day heart you linked, the “autoplay” feature is more like what I expected the “play” button to do: play through the whole construction, start to finish.

I also like the 3D folding animation for the last step; it would be nice if all the folding/creasing steps were fully animated like this. Unfortunately the last animation doesn’t seem to work correctly when I try to replay it, I have to reload the page entirely for it to work again.

The idea for the play mode is a better tool than video, as mentioned in my top main text. So while autoplay to the end is cool (when I fix the timing issue on more than a few steps), I don't see how that can be more useful than a manual controlled one for learning purpose if I have to choose only one for the play button. If I can fix the timing issue, the autoplay will likely get its own button.

Forgot to reply to "why can't click on step in steps viewer to skip". That's my original intention, but the effort to make that work well is too time consuming, so the step viewer is just that, a viewer.

My original thought on selecting other models to view is something like youtube. But I like the cleanliness of the current layout and not clutter it with next suggestions. I think clicking "folds" at the top is a fairly easy thing to do to find the next fold.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with going a different way than auto play. But call it something else. ”Play” as an action has well-established conventions, and contradicting them will just cause confusion.

Maybe just rid of the play button and use next/previous arrows instead? Something like that has a clear expectation of “one thing at a time”.

I don't see an contradictions. It is just play all vs. play 1 step. There are existing previous/next buttons already, they skip back/forward a step. If anything, it is the play-all that will the odd one since it doesn't really fit along with all the other buttons. When it's ready, it will likely be placed on the rightmost and be clearly labeled.

the triangle play arrow is frequently used as a next page arrow as well, and noone expects pages to advance automatically instead of just going to the next page when clicking it

Yup. Thank you. It is playing 1 step, so play is right icon for it. I've found a movie/reel play icon that is perfect for the play all should I find a way to fix the timing issue on > than few step folds.

You dont need another icon.

Play for playing all steps in succession. Pause for pausing play. Next track for next step in the folding. Its the most logical. You should see each step as a new track and the whole origami object as an album. No need for other icons

I totally agree. You COULD use play for next step. But the convention is that the next step is used by the "next track" button. This is because play usually also goes to "next track" and then plays it. Play should continue while the end is not reached (end of album/end of book/end of origami object).

Replying to your comment 4-lvs deep:

> Play for playing all steps in succession. Pause for pausing play... No need for other icons

Good idea, I'll give it a go when I fixed the timing. All other icons - replay a step, fast forward/backward, and restart from step 1 are all still needed.

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