"Selection Interface" superfluous

[tristanlbailey]

"As for merging them - I don't see the point. The selection interface already provides all the tools that the original interface does (or should)."

Right. Exactly. Why not get rid of one of the interfaces? Or merge them together?

As I said, the buttons could be changed around with a new option in the View Menu. If the program didn't always start up in the "Original Interface", but instead whichever interface you wanted, then I might not have made this suggestion.

Imagine you can start up Foldit, open a Science Puzzle, and start selecting whatever segments you wanted to work on straight away, without having to first open the Menu at the bottom, and select "Selection Interface". Piece of cake.

Unfortunately for the developers, it sounds like it might not be so easy to implement, which does come as a bit of a surprise.

As for the "Expired Puzzles" checkbox, thanks for pointing this out. I hadn't noticed that option there before.

[beta_helix]

"Why not get rid of one of the interfaces?"

because certain players prefer one interface over the other.

It is the same reason we would never get rid of the GUI cookbook, even thought the Lua cookbook is much more powerful.

Really the 'original interface' is the main one (which is why the 'selection interface' doesn't show up unless you "show advanced GUI") and the 'selection interface' is just there for those the advanced players that prefer it. Both use different ways of manipulating the protein, so we would never get rid of one over the other.

[tristanlbailey]

The cookbook isn't such a good example, because there is a vast contrast between the GUI cookbook version, and the LUA scripted version. One is easy and user intuitive; the other is much more difficult, requiring users learn a particular language / scripting method to build recipes.

Maybe this word "interfaces" is confusing people. Again, I'm not suggesting any of their functions are taken out, just the switching method (i.e. merge the two interfaces together).

The reason why people have a preference, is because they have to make a choice. If there wasn't a choice to be made, there wouldn't be a preference. Sure, it might take people a while to get used to the change, but having a single interface is more user intuitive than having two.

[tealight]

I like having the choice of two.
There is very little I personally like about selection interface, apart from rebuilding helices, I never use it.
I would not like to see the original interface mucked up in any way at all.
People have preferences because they like to do things a particular way, here they have a choice of interfaces to accommodate that.
There is no need to change it, that I can see

[beta_helix]

"If there wasn't a choice to be made, there wouldn't be a preference."

I would really try to think of the situation as:

There is only 1 interface, there is only 1 choice: the original interface.

This is why there is no intro level for the "selection interface".
This is why it doesn't even show up unless you "Show Advanced GUI".
This is why there is basically no more support for it.

We never post a puzzle requiring the "selection interface" and I don't think we've mentioned it at all in the past 2 years.

It's really just there for those players who made that choice back in the day (since we would never remove it).
There have been many things in this game that have come and gone (Duels is one example) and the "selection interface" is basically one of them (we just decided not to remove it).

I hope this clears this up, I'll close this thread soon.

[tristanlbailey]

It's a shame there wasn't more input from other members. I tried putting this on the forum to raise further awareness of an idea that I put considerable thought into (which I'm sure would still work out very nicely if implemented), yet the forum seems to be playing up at the moment.

I have many more ideas, so I guess I'll just forfeit this one for now.

[wlemmon]

The selection interface lets you simultaneously wiggle non-contiguous segments of a protein without freezing the whole structure. Try to wiggle two loop structures simultaneously in the original interface without freezing the rest of the protein. The selection interface in often essential for efficient work – I am voting down this suggestion. It wasn't even a suggestion to begin with! Why is it of type "suggestion"? It was just a negative comment.

[wlemmon]

This topic contradicts itself: it calls the selection interface superfluous, and in the details claims that the interface is essential to performing a certain task. Which one is it?

[Hanto]

Been playing over a year now, and have never spent more then a few minutes on the selection interface that Tristan is talking about, personally if it differs even one iota in results compared to the normal interface, then it needs to be incorporated into the normal interface, not left as a separate and distinct interface, rarely seen or used by average people. That way if nothing else a common language regarding interface use and results expected from the use of the interface can be delivered/assumed for all players. One of the problems with Foldit is that there are to many features and not enough good GUI. Features need to be secondary, GUI needs to become preeminent in the design of the client, so that it becomes less cumbersome to use and takes less time to configure when setting up, loading new puzzles, etc, etc. The Recipe Book and various GUI functions are merely small symptoms of the overall problem with client design. Nuff said. Glad I finally found your comments Tristan.

[tristanlbailey]

Once again, thanks for commenting on my suggestions. Regardless of how you feel about them, it makes me feel like I am part of the community at large, and not being ignored.

wlemmon, the initial post I submitted accidentally without completing it, and since I could not edit my post, I sent a follow-up post soon after. So, it was for all intents and purposes, a suggestion, which I will now clarify again.

It has become clear that people have misunderstood my suggestion. Granted, I could have typed my initial post better, but we all make mistakes. I will take this chance to clarify my suggestion.

I understand that most people prefer a particular interface from the two that have been made available, which is an inherent attribute of a program providing such options. I also understand that since the game has been around for well over 3 years, it would be difficult for many players of the game to consider the removal of one of them, especially those with considerable experience. While there are undoubtedly many bugs and good suggestions that will take precedence over this particular suggestion, it is still something which should be considered.

By the term "removal", I am referring to the absence of the ability to switch between two interfaces, the idea being that only one consistent interface is required and used. The features from both interfaces would be retained and merged (or unified) into a single interface; in particular, the segment selection feature. The other feature, the large menu buttons, could be switched on/off through an option in the View menu.

What I am NOT suggesting, is that the selection feature of the Selection Interface is useless, and should be removed. Far from it.

I cannot come up with any advantages for having two separate interfaces, within the context of "Selection Interface". There may be advantages outside this context.

Disadvantages:

• Currently, inconsistencies between mouse and keyboard combinations over the two interfaces make the combinations confusing, and thus the game becomes harder to use when switching between interfaces, consecutively. This is one reason why players use one interface predominantly over the other.
• The Selection Interface features are unrelated. This is further compounded by the fact that the interface is labelled "Selection Interface", but also changes the menu appearance and behaviour. Players may like the selection feature, but dislike the menu buttons, and visa-versa.
• There would likely be overhead in relation to the code within the game, in keeping two separate interfaces, causing larger executable file size. Many of the same functions may need to be mapped twice (e.g. mouse and keyboard combinations), in order to cater for both interfaces.</ul> If a questionnaire were to be put forward by the developers, asking which of the two interfaces each player used mainly while playing the game, most players that started playing Foldit after the implementation of the Standard Interface would probably say they mainly use the Standard Interface over the Selection Interface. This is because new players are exposed to the Standard Interface by default in the Intro Levels, and only discover the other interface some time later, through experimentation, chatting to other users, or reading the Wiki. In some cases, it could be a very long time before they discover it, if at all. Therefore, they are much more likely to become conditioned to the use of the Standard Interface over the Selection Interface. "Older" players are more likely to use the Selection Interface. I am certain there are players that want to use both interfaces (read this to mean all features from the Standard Interface, and the selection feature), but find it tiresome switching backwards and forwards between the interfaces, and having to remember the differences between mouse/keyboard combinations they want to use. Unfortunately, the divide between the two interfaces will prevent the selection feature from reaching its full potential, when it could be put to far better use. Unifying the interfaces would make the game more streamlined, less confusing, and improve gaming efficiency for many players.