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I would build up a hierarchy system very much based on the standard files and folders system that people are used to. Use the standard naming, New Folder,delete etc. This should make everyone no matter their OS feel at home.
For multiple files in a project, I would see this going out like a treeview with expansion
–Project 1
----File 1
----File 2
I personally don’t really care about having offline access, and would prefer the time and energy be put elsewhere. As a Dir of Engineering in the medical field, I look at every single feature, and although it may look simple today, it has to be tested, documented and maintained for it’s life when it is released. Nothing is simple or free.
In the project sidebar (where recent projects are shown ) have only folders and projects. Folders can be multiple deep, e.g.
-Holiday Projects
–Christmas
–Halloween
—Monsters
—Ghosts
-RC Cars
etc
Then, on either the main Easel page, or a new sidebar between the projects sidebar and easel, the file and layers navigation. The sidebars would need to be independently collapsible. I also don’t know if the word “file” is the best descriptor, might be worth investigating graphics programs for something similar. I’m assuming layers would have different bit/cut settings and could be cut by themselves. So the new sidebar would show
-File 1
–layer 1
–layer 2
-File 2
–layer 1
e.g.
Front View
-roughing pass
-detail pass
-drilling pass
Rear View
-detail pass
Since this could be it’s own sidebar, it could be hidden for a simple operation, one file and bit, e.g. the Carvey user, and then expanded for a more power user.
@Zach_Kaplan IMNSHO (e.g. “my opinion”), for archiving an easel project, the Easel developers get to decide on the file format, this is not an exchange (import/export) scenario, it’s “merely” backup and restore.
That said, you have to keep in mind that you will want to change the format at some point, so you have to be rigorous about being able to restore from really old project backups into newer versions.
Also, less proprietary is usually good, maybe a combination of formats, zipped up. So portions of the data that align well with an existing format, use that existing format, and tie the files together with a control file. As a totally made up example, say that .SVG or .STL was “the perfect” format for representing a single layer of an Easel project, but totally inadequate for representing all the project data and relating the layers to each other. In this case, perhaps a single .SVG or .STL file per layer and an XML file that references all the layers, along with project details that are specific to Easel.
Tree of folders that contain projects. A project contains one or more files. Each file would be able to have a different bit assigned. This way you can have multiple “layers” (in the Photoshop sense) to your project.
I suggest that file selection be done in a full-frame overlay instead of a 1/4 frame pullout as we see now.
File selection is a full-attention item. If a user opens that panel, the intention is that they want to open a file. It’s not something they interact with momentarily and then go back to the main work area from.
Making it a full-size overlay gives the real estate to allow for full file names, and perhaps a more robust directory tree structure.
Regarding exporting Easel files, I believe the question was asked “What type of file should Easel export?” I think a better question is "How does Easel save the files remotely now? Can we just have local copies of that? It’s not as though we’re expecting cross-software compatibility or anything. All I want is to be able to save my Easel files (however they’re structured) locally to my computer, in such a way that I can organize them to my liking and load them back into Easel when I so choose. The onus is on the user (me) to determine how (or if) to sync my files on the server or at home. That way users can have both. Easel can work just like it does now, but with the option to save a project locally for those who want it.
To keep from having extraneous browser tabs open, don’t use the interface exactly as designed. Instead of clicking on a project in the list to the left of the page, start by opening a page to “Easel” and then use it to open your projects.
And for what it’s worth, in order to deal with the truncated project names (and for lack of a better solution), I’m gonna maintain a text file containing FULL project names along with their respective URLs. Then all I have to do is drag that URL into the tab bar of Firefox. Hopefully, the project IDs don’t change over time…
Thanks Phil. Right you are. I hadn’t seen the new search feature. I did see the thumbnails (kind of subliminally, as I wasn’t actually using the list, figuring the names were still truncated…), and what do ya know, the project names are complete! Talk about bad timing on my part. I just happened to be really frustrated by the project name truncation issue on the very day the improvements were apparently released. lol!
Absolutely. Inventables resources aren’t unlimited. No worries. I wasn’t actually venting my frustration, only hoping to help others to circumvent their own. I just literally happened to be “a day late”.
