All applications: 3d software, Search Engines, etc. Use a standard horizontal bar that goes across the screen, giving you buttons to decide what to do next. 2.0 does not have this. I want to see this community grow. I worry that people will not choose Esenthel because of the start up design. Now before I get ripped for saying that it attracts the wrong kind of people. There are no such thing. Some of us around here would help new people that don't know anything about game design. I ask Gregor to make 2.0 a little more user friendly.

This is not to be-little Gregor. We all know he is brilliant.
This is not to bash his game engine or compare it to any other engine. This is only intended for showing what improvements could be done to make 2.0 more user friendly. Thank you.

I guess it could be improved if the settings from the down of the editor can be at the top and it will be appeared to everyone that's much more user friendly experience

thanks for the Suggestion bro

well since I am working on a large scale project on my university which includes basically everything I can think of I have to say the following:

I had to use many programs such as dymola, solid works multiphysics, ansys fem, cfd analysis, word on an advanced level and others. What I want to say is that most of these programs, tools and things have the common menu layout but still what counts is the program itself. As I progressed through Esenthel 1.0 and also 2.0 short cuts feel easier, and such. Same with Blender. At first you do everything manually and after some models you got the basics and do your thing.

Also I know that the layout or the first impression is important but I think Esenthel 2.0 is very simple and "clean". Not overloaded - very simple and only the options you need are there.

I would say if someone wants to customize it like the suggestions that would be good. But in general I wouldn`t change it - from my perspective

I agree with what you are saying but at what cost.. How many superficial / user friendly changes are required before we get some more really powerful game stuff such as hardware instancing and Hardware Assisted Occlusion Culling...

I want hardware instancing...and a more Modern Occlusion Culling just as much as you do. those things take a long time for one man to do...what I am asking for wouldn't take much time at all. so I don't believe the cost is that great, cost meaning time. I am glad that both of you agree with me though. 2.0 needs to be a little more user friendly. Scarlet thread, 1.0 was over 5 years in development. what you are asking might not happen for a couple of years. It sucks to hear that, but it's probably the truth.

I personally find EE1.0 way less cluttered and cleaner than 2.0 by far, gui wise EE2.0 is a mess, another issue I see is that for people working with the engine purely through visual studio has to do alot of rework for 2.0 projects. Especially if you are porting from 1.0's way of using assets to 2.0's way.

I must admit that to a newcomer the 2.0 interface is completely non intuitive. Once you gain familiarity I see little issue with it. Perhaps all that's needed is a basic introduction tutorial with screen shots which could be provided by the community.

Having never used the 1.0 interface I can't compare the two although from the pictures I've seen it does look initially more intuitive.

I would back Scarlet though in his comments regarding where our developers valuable resource is probably best spent. It doesn't take long to get used to the interface and you only ever move from 1.0 to 2.0 once (although I do sympathize with those having mature projects and not much enjoying the experience).

I guess I'm the odd one out then... I found 2.0 much cleaner and easier to work with than 1. I like how everything is self-contained based on which element you click. There were only a couple small things that took me a little bit to find, but overall, I love the design.

Using the word "intuitive" as you all are isn't quite the right word to use; mostly what I see is that you guys want it mimic other applications, which confuses "what you have experience with" with being "intuitive". If you make that distinction, 2.0 is far more intuitive. What could be more so than drag and drop, or create and click?

I tend to fall on the side of "it's fine the way it is". That doesn't mean I believe it is necessarily intuitive but no complex software packages are truly intuitive. After you work with it and learn the ropes, then it become very intuitive. Not because it is like that by design, but because you have become familiar with how to use it. This is true whether or not there are menus across the top, at the bottom, tool bars, side bars, etc.

With that said, I'm not trying to argue against changes that are suggested here. I'm just saying that I don't really see these types of changes as making the editor more accessible to new users.

To Rubeus: Mimic other applications, you make that sound like a bad thing. It is a good thing. It's easier for the general public to understand. that's why every application under the sun does this, which I prove in the picture above. Game engines are not supposed to be complex, but instead, the goal is to make it as easy to use as possible. Would that mean that Google, Blender, Unity, Adobe Photoshop, etc...etc, have bad interfaces because they do what is expected?...I think not.

To Pixel Perfect: You make a lot of sense. A basic user video tutorial should be made. If Gregor isn't going to listen to us, he should at least make a user tutorial...Or he should tell everyone to go make one, and whoever he feels did the best video, he will put it up on the Esenthel Website. This would benefit everybody and help the community grow.

To Zervox: You make the most sense. You pointed out the biggest problem. You should be able to use Visual Studio with 2.0 with no obstacles in the way. Visual Studio is a standard program that a lot of people love. Why alienate all those programmers out there who love to use this application? That will turn a lot of people away.

To Rofar: You are right, it is about becoming familiar with it...but there are a lot of people who shop around everyday, looking for a free demo of a game engine to try out, and if they don't like it the first 15 minutes, they move on to the next one. These are all potential buyers.

I think what I told Pixel Perfect should be what we should ask of Gregor. We should ask him to post one of our community made user video tutorials on the Esenthel Website, or link it on the wiki page. I don't feel that would be too much to ask, and he will probably be okay with it as long as the Tutorial is good. I really feel in my heart that if he is going to keep an unorthodox interface, then this community made video will be necessary to see this community thrive and grow.

We all want to see Esenthel grow, and we want to see Gregor succeed even more; That we can all agree on. If anybody is interested in helping me make the tutorial please P.M. me.

Having it the same as everything else isn't BAD; it doesn't make it automatically intuitive, though. Likewise, different can be good. I'm pretty easy-going about this kind of stuff. I was a UI programmer for a while, so I have a little insight into this kind of stuff. Sure, the Esenthel UI is a little unorthodox, but once you see the overall design, it's actually quite brilliant. But because it is different, it takes a little while to get the hang of. It's like having worked with Maya, then switching to Blender. (Ouch.)

lol...fun times my friends, fun times. It is obvious that I am having some problems with 2.0. If anybody would like to help me out before I pull all my hair out, then please Skype me. My Skype is Anastasious.Shatterstar

"Intuitive" IS the right word to use. Over the past few decades, large companies have spent tons of money on research and focus groups and gathering user feedback to create the common types of user interfaces that 90% (or more) of applications tend to use. Someone just didn't make this stuff up, it was a result of a culmination of years of research into the topic of "usability". And on top of that, people are use to the common approach automatically, theres no learning curve there. I think its somewhat arrogant to second guess standards that exist based on feedback and study of millions of users, spanning many, many years.

(06-17-2013 12:44 AM)phleshdef Wrote:  "Intuitive" IS the right word to use. Over the past few decades, large companies have spent tons of money on research and focus groups and gathering user feedback to create the common types of user interfaces that 90% (or more) of applications tend to use. Someone just didn't make this stuff up, it was a result of a culmination of years of research into the topic of "usability". And on top of that, people are use to the common approach automatically, theres no learning curve there. I think its somewhat arrogant to second guess standards that exist based on feedback and study of millions of users, spanning many, many years.

Wow... Actually, the common interface WAS just made up. Look back at Windows 3.1 on. Microsoft came up with it when they were a wee little company with no money to spend on stuff like research or a QA team.
Was it arrogant of Apple to create their own GUI for their OS? For Linux? You are right to a degree, though. Companies often like to use something similar because there *is* less of a learning curve, but having something that is the same as something else does not make it intuitive.
Let's be glad your logic is flawed, or we would still be using command line interfaces for everything rather than risk being arrogant and trying to second-guess the CLI standard and creating a GUI.
Keep in mind that MS now, with all their near-unlimited funds-is fundamentally changing the interfaces of all their software. Your argument doesn't hold water.
That aside, my opinion is that I like the EE 2.0 interface. And at least for me, it *IS* intuitive. Whenever something changes, you are going to have a lot of people that have problems with it-people inherently don't like change. I think THIS is the bigger issue, here.

Microsoft had plenty of money by the time Windows 3.1 was released. By that time, Microsoft Office was already the dominant business suite... not to mention they were already successfully selling many other products by then.

"having something that is the same as something else does not make it intuitive. ",

No, but having something that follow the same principles as everything else has for many years does make it intuitive because the vast majority of users are familiar with it. Intuitiveness and familiarity go hand in hand.

"Let's be glad your logic is flawed, or we would still be using command line interfaces for everything rather than risk being arrogant and trying to second-guess the CLI standard and creating a GUI. "

Wow, you are putting up a whole field of strawmen there. I never said we shouldn't improve, refine and refocus interface approaches. Changing from CLI to an advanced GUI wasn't just "changing the UI", it was bringing a whole new way to use a computer to the market. But comparing a situation like that to moving from Esenthel 1.0 to 2.0 is rather ridiculous. Its such an apples to oranges situation, it really has no place in the discussion.

There have always been ongoing incremental changes to the "norm". And I'm fine with doing something completely different for a completely different technology... like say if we move from using monitors to holograms or something major like that. Theres a difference between doing that and doing something completely different just for the sake of being different. And even OS-X and other non MS environments still use pretty much the same paradigms for the way an interface is organized. My logic isn't flawed, its just your understanding of it that is.

"Keep in mind that MS now, with all their near-unlimited funds-is fundamentally changing the interfaces of all their software. Your argument doesn't hold water. "

And people don't like it. Windows 8 has been met with a lot of complaints. They also have been using the same ideas in their mobile phone OS, and that sucks pretty hard as well. Don't be surprised if you don't see MS end up scaling back this whole new "app based" paradigm and returning to a lot of the ideas that Windows 7 has or atleast offering an alternative setting that allows users to choose. Just the fact that you brought up the new MS approaches helps further illustrate my point and my argument is practically drowning in its own sense of victory right now.

"That aside, my opinion is that I like the EE 2.0 interface. And at least for me, it *IS* intuitive. Whenever something changes, you are going to have a lot of people that have problems with it-people inherently don't like change. I think THIS is the bigger issue, here. "

Yet, from what I can see reading this thread, a lot of people disagree with you. Now I'm not claiming to know what the vast majority of people that used it are thinking, I have no way to quantify that. But if that were in fact an indication of the popular opinion on the topic, then that straight up proves you are wrong. Because if the majority of users think something isn't intuitive, then it isn't. That's the best measure of how intuitive something is... what do the users think? There is no greater indicator.