Mac UI + Apple guidelines

[audiodacious]

After my previous experiences with 3D Coat crashing, freezing my machine and forgetting all my preferences etc, I haven't used it in quite a long while, but today I thought I'd take a look at the latest build. It does seem a bit more stable but something just happened that really takes the biscuit and makes me just want to throw my hands in the air in desperation at the way in which unix app programmers seem to have such a laissez-faire attitude toward their users ...

Please let me rant here...

<begin rant>

I went to save some preferences and an alert box appeared with this text ( it's too long to quote all of it so I've edited it )...

< quote>

You are attempting to write file to 3D-Coat installation folder. Since 3.5.07 3D-Coat avoids writing to the installation folder and writes files to your user folder, if you will define environment variable COAT_FILES_PATH or creat .....

etc etc etc

< end quote >

Eh? Duh? wtf? and other similar exclamations!

Apple have UI guidelines for a good reason, really they do! ...

Most 3D artists are not geeky hackers and who the heck understands what an environment variable is if they're not a programmer ?

This is the most ridiculous alert I've seen in many years on the Mac!

Ok I realise it's trying to be helpful but with a little more knowledge and CARE about the platform you're targeting you'd know ( for consistency of user experience ) you're not meant to write to the top level of the user folder. There is a place for application support files and it's called the "Application Support" folder.

Why even show an alert like this when it would be SO SIMPLE to automatically create the 3DCoat support folder in the correct place and open the file dialog to that place without bothering the user with any this nonsense!

Please try a bit harder, go read the Apple UI Guidelines.

3D coat is great, I repeat I think it's really great, but the user experience is generally coming from the past ( from about 20 years ago as far as I can tell ).

Ridiculous and confusing presentation only make users far less likely to choose 3DCoat as their first port of call.

User experience of an app EVERY BIT as important as the functionality of the app. You don't seem to get that at all.

<end rant>

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not actually suggesting you go off and make a full blown Cocoa UI for 3D coat, but just that you try to have a little more care about us the end user.

After all 3D Coat isn't all that cheap and we're paying for this pain.

I tried out 3D coat originally because it was such a tempting offer, maybe I'll come back to 3D Coat again in a few months, I think at this moment I'm more tempted to fork out the extra dosh to Pixologic, after all they don't require me to learn Unix.

So now, Fanboys, please feel free to troll away ... I won't make any more comment ...

[BeatKitano]

I heard that pixologic release most of their updates 1-2 years after windows version (with the exception of 4.0 which was a simultaneous release on both platform).

Maybe, that should tell something about how much apple guideline are friendly to programmers. Maybe you should be thankful to get the chance to have a "almost on par" with windows version so quickly, or at the very least be patient for a stable mac version ?

I understand your frustration, this error msg is most likely due to transposing windows env functionality (user folder to gather applications preferences), and I do agree that this shouldn't happen in a mac version as this is not standard.

Now I'm waiting for Michalis to go western on me ahah. But this truly sadens me to read bad comments about innovative 3d softwares (and I'm not talking about 3dc only here, it's a common problem) being plagued by some poor choices from apple. I'm not gonna be liked here, but as much I recommend using nvidia for 3d software, I fail to understand why professional still chose apple for 3d work. You have to admit, games are for windows, osx is an excellent coding platform, a fine 2d/press platform, but for 3d sorry it's not the few apps out there that will help it make a serious choice for that kind of work. With every system you have to chose your use...

Not gonna go into OS war, pointless, just my opinion.

[moska]

hi audiodacius,im a mac user and what you say sounds right to me (the actual 64 version is not usable to me)

but im not a programer and i dont mind that that folder has change place some versions ago.

i even don t care when 3dcoat (the normal 32version) frezzes and i have to shut the machine power!

so as i agree that mac version should have more care,i tell you that you are making a big mistake and a bad change on getting the Zbrush route!

its just that this voxel sculpting thing is far superior,so you ll lose with that bisness!

[pavig]

First things first: Run disk utility (applications>utilities>disk utility) and repair permissions on your hard drive. This message is about 3dcoat running into a permissions issue, which should not happen, and is probably an issue with the operating system. If you continue to have the problem, ensure you installed 3dcoat under the same user as your home folder. If you work in a networked file system environment you'll have to talk to your administrator about ensuring permissions are correct.

If worse comes to worse, trash 3dcoat and download the latest stable version. Install and run that to create the required directories in your home folder. Then download the latest beta if you wish and install that over the top.

It's funny, as I came to 3D-coat from Zbrush. I had waited around for 9 months for them to fix a showstopper baking bug on windows. It wasted literally hundreds of hours of my time. Then I realized their mac version, which I wished to migrate to, was released half finished. It was going to be a year before it was in parity with the windows version and usable in my pipeline. In the time it took pixologic to clean up a couple of minor issues, 3D-coat developed voxel sculpting. Despite bugs it worked, and it solved the problems I needed to solve which had wasted so much of my time previously.

3D-coat may not be the most polished application from a UI perspective, but that's what you get when you choose to run true multi-platform software. As a mac user we are used to a fairly clean user experience, but there are linux users here who are delighted to have 3dc in their seldom supported OS. It can't be easy keeping all three platforms active, and a few rough edges are to be expected. It could be worse; messiah studio mac version runs by using the linux windows emulator, so to use that awesome app you have to navigate the most frustrating aspects of windows, mac and linux all at once.

The team are very quick to address any critical issues. Once you learn the idiosyncrasies of the application (which is true of most complex software) it works pretty well.

[robotbob]

three points really . .

1/ i agree the program runs well enough for me to enjoy using it most of the time, apart from having to force quit my machine ( not just the program but the machine - and this gets tiring losing unsaved work )

2 / i believe its pointless to stake an opinion about one operating system being better than another for 3d apps when 3D coat is sold as a mac version at the same price, - if 3dc decided to stop selling a mac version i would accept that and move on, but if they continue to sell it, and the mac version lags far behind the PC version i think its fair to courteously ask questions about this from time to time. Ultimately mac users should not just be told to feel lucky to be here, which seems the attitude sometimes.

However I don't see a reason to feel overly hard done by - I think apart from an infant and problematic mac 64 bit, no cuda and a slower update cycle ( mac is still not to 21 but this is a 3dc bonus anyhow ) we share the same bugs more or less than our PC friends.

3/ brad peebler ( modo ) has gone on record saying that the dev tools for the mac have come along hugely to be equal if not better than the PC equivalent so perhaps bagging the apple dev tools is a lazy statement to disguise other problems

in saying all that i am really happy overall to have picked 3DC over zbrush to learn sculpting, its a great program that works for me most of the time, but i do encourage accountability and encourage it to be better.

[BeatKitano]

a reason to feel overly hard done by - I think apart from an infant and problematic mac 64 bit, no cuda and a slower update cycle ( mac is still not to 21 but this is a 3dc bonus anyhow ) we share the same bugs more or less than our PC friends.

3/ brad peebler ( modo ) has gone on record saying that the dev tools for the mac have come along hugely to be equal if not better than the PC equivalent so perhaps bagging the apple dev tools is a lazy statement to disguise other problems

An excellent coding platform. with retarded choice regarding 3d support.

[audiodacious]

Well it seems I lied when I said I wouldn't comment further, well actually I'm certainly not getting into childish platform arguments. I was a bit hard in my original outburst but I think I do have a valid point. On reflection the best solution for me is probably to use (or at least try) both apps so today, on recommendation from other users, I'm downloading a z-brush trial to give it a go. Like I said before I think 3DCoat is, or at least will be, really very good but it desperately needs attention to it's outdated, confusing and generally awkward user interface. Although I'm sure everyone will say that ZB's UI is also just as confusing, which it probably is! I personally prefer a minimalist approach to UI design, less is almost always more. A good UI always strives not to overload the user with the unnecessary and there is far too much of the unnecessary visible at any one time in 3DCoat's wordy menus and buttons. I realise Andrew and Co are working hard and most certainly getting off on the challenges of creating such a complex software, but nonetheless it's all almost worthless in the end if it's not a joy or at least not painful to use, because soon enough someone else will create something that is and blow all the hard work out of the water. In my opinion while bug fixes are extremely important, 3D coat probably does not need new features at this time, the developers aught to start thinking about improving the user experience. Mine, so far, has been a particularly frustrating experience leading me to feel the need rant on forums! I realise that's plainly not true for everyone, but I think a lot of folks are too readilly prepared to settle for less and I think I feel the way I do because deep down I want to love 3DCoat because it offers so much promise. I will keep coming back to 3D coat and I'll keep a good eye on it and when I need it I'm sure I'll use it, I just hope someone up there is listening because I'd love to come to use 3DCoat without having to continually swear and curse at it's awkward foibles. One always needs to learn new tools but doesn't require for example to learn how to extract iron ore and forge steel in order to wield a chisel with skill. Oftentimes software writers need to step back and take a holistic view of what have and haven't achieved and it seems to me that time has arrived for this app.

[cakeller]

I have a cross platform license, because when I travel I use the mac.

yes, the interface isn't conformant to windows, or mac. But IMO it's ALWAYS been relatively easy to use.

You say you're going to try ZBrush... I have, and OMG! the UI is... well, you'll see. (talk about non-conformant)

Autodesk switched to a cross-platform UI dev kit called QT because the cost of doing all the same work on all 3 platforms, and keeping up with platform specific bugs gets ridiculously expensive.

I'm happy to say, I personally have had the SAME experience in 3D-Coat on both mac and windows. I've Never had permissions problems on either system. Windows, I am definitely geek, mac a relative noob.

On occasion - preference files do have to get tossed... IF YOU tend to keep up with the latest build but skip builds. I haven't had to toss any, but I update pretty much with every 1-2 builds...

Most important, to me, is to make the point - in my very personal opinon:

I TAKE STABLE FEATURES IN A NON-CONFORMANT UI, OVER A CONFORMANT INTERFACE WITH LESS FESTURES, ABSOLUTELY EVERY SINGLE TIME.

every features andrew's crew adds, has added value to my experience. the speed improvements are INCREDIBLE!...

you say you want a conformant UI? I want live clay finalized. I want radial symmetry. and whatever other cool things are coming down the line.

and yeah, I do want them stable.

--- if you want conformant, go with mudbox.

--- if you want top of the line features, go with whatever has them, and learn the UI.

--- if you want your cake, even after you've eaten it: wait a few years... and then lets talk.

just my opinion - not saying your desire, as a non-geek non-hacker, isn't valid... I'm just sayin' I prefer development to be on the underlying technology, rather than the UI. Why waste 1/3 of your dev budget maintaining 3 different UIs?

Mac users are not "Lucky to have 3D-Coat available" we are ALL lucky.

ONE LAST THING:

if you have specific issues/problems. Post them, without a rant, and 9 times out of 10 someone else has seen it and can help you get it fixed.