Dice Tower Changes banter

[Eric]

Use this thread for active discussion of the in-progress Dice Tower changes. There are a couple of interrelated themes that we're going to tackle:

 

1. Making the layout consistent and responsive.
2. Making sure there's enough space for complicated dice rolls, image dice, etc. to display without clipping or unnecessary wrapping.
3. Making it easier to post multiple dice at once.
4. Streamlining the "workflow" of making a post with dice in it.

 

At this point, I'm working on 1 and 2 with an eye toward supporting 3 and 4. This is why dice are now consistently below the post content regardless of desktop/tablet/phone. In playing with the location of the dice button, there were roughly three options available in mobile layout:

 

 

I started with position 3 as was the easiest and most obvious. 2 seems like it would be undesirable since it would necessarily extend the post in the vertical direction. 1 is possible and may be the way to go given the ipsItemControls section disappears when the editor is active.

 

Mobile layout: Thoughts?

Desktop layout: More options here. Easiest for me is to make them the same, but we could consider the equivalent of 2 since there is some space beneath the author info on the left side.

[Eric]

Visibility of dice rolls has been updated. The dice are always under the post rather than depending on screen width. The dice sub-panel will be automatically expanded if there are existing rolls; its visibility can be toggled by clicking on the dice button.

[Neopopulas]

I had some time today so i was playing with the dice roller a little bit more and had some thoughts, some have been brought up before but i just thought i might as well go over them.

 

I like the position of the dice below the post, i think it looks good with the wide layout and gives the option of putting a lot of information on that one line.

 

Can you add dice together yet? like 1d10+1d6 or do they still have to be separate? I've tried it, and it works, the preview shows two numbers but because the result doesn't show the combination, not does the preview line up with the final result its hard to tell.

 

Is there way to remove the confirmation dialogue? I understand there is probably no way to remove the 'contacting the tower' loading bit but the dialogue box that just says 'dice added' seems unnecessary. I mean, its obvious whether the dice are poster or not and its just another box you have to click through. If i had my ideal, when you hit 'roll' the whole box should just disappear and the dice should appear when ready - though i assume its to prevent people from interrupting the rolls by doing something else.

 

The preview shows - though its not accurate but it wasn't on OGMW either so its neither here nor there - the actual dice rolls. Is there plans to make the actual rolls visible (if possible) so if i roll 1d10 + 1d6 it will show say '4,2 = 6' or something along those lines?

[bwatford]

The Dice Roller toggle icon is now in the top right corner. This open and closes the dice roller.  

 

White and faded = No dice in post, roller/rolls closed.

White = No dice in post, roller/rolls open.

Red = Dice in post, roller/rolls closed.

Green = Dice in post, roller/rolls open.

 

[Eric]

Dice icons have been applied consistently across all themes. And we fixed the fieldset thing we broke while we were playing, too.

[bwatford]

@Butchern might want to get the info above added to the user guide before someone screams "How do I roll dice?" at us.

 

Thx

[Eric]

It may have to be @Colin since B is in Africa.

[Llyarden]

I don't know if I'm missing something, but why have changes to the dice tower hidden the edit button away in a menu?

[Eric]

It’s mentioned in the announcement; this was actually a change to how Invision Community behaves that was masked by the old Dice Tower. I’m sure we will be having a separate discussion on that topic.

[Scarecrow71]

So...when can we expect actual functionality changes?  The aesthetic changes are nice and all, but we have been asking for better functions for a couple of months now.  Adding multiple rolls at once, or seeing successes (rolling above a given number on a die), or even multiple types of dice in the same roll.  Why were the anesthetics deemed more important than functionality?

Edited July 4, 2022 by Scarecrow71 (see edit history)

[Colin]

@Scarecrow71 That’s actually part of what’s happening right now (all part of the same phase, UI is step 1). The UI layout is helping determine how the improved functionality is displayed/implented. 

[bwatford]

@Scarecrow71 yeah, I think at this point the UI stuff is not hindering any code work going on behind the scenes for functionality. That functionality will begin to be pushed out into production as it becomes ready. In fact, the UI stuff is mostly done except for where to place the rolls when the interface is open (current poll for that) and we have already coded the button changes and graphics are completed for it.

[Scarecrow71]

22 hours ago, bwatford said:

I think at this point the UI stuff is not hindering any code work going on behind the scenes for functionality

 

My point is that we have been asking about functionality changes for a couple of months...and we get UI.  I understand what @Colin is getting at above in that the layout helps in seeing how the dice rolls will look once everything is coded.  But in its current state, the tower is nearly unusable for anything other than single rolls.  I guess it just seems like our complaining about functionality was basically pushed to the side so it could be made to look pretty, functionality be damned.

[Eric]

Ball's in my court here. I prioritized getting things fixed in the realm of post editing because not being able to write a post was a barrier to people actually using the site immediately. The whole point of this thread is that I'm starting on dice functionality changes right now. While it may not seem like the location of the dice panel matters from a functionality delivery perspective, there is a not-insignificant amount of coding setup that goes into displaying the interface, and it's my goal to make sure that gets done right so any new features are actually usable and not "first-gen fieldset crap" 😆

 

Based on the current results of the poll (>50% in favor of more or less what we have already implemented), I'll be putting the finishing touches on that work over the next couple of days, peacing out on vacation the following week, and then diving into enhanced dice functionality on or about July 18.

[CharmingSatyr]

On 7/2/2022 at 10:53 PM, Neopopulas said:

Is there way to remove the confirmation dialogue? I understand there is probably no way to remove the 'contacting the tower' loading bit but the dialogue box that just says 'dice added' seems unnecessary. I mean, its obvious whether the dice are poster or not and its just another box you have to click through. If i had my ideal, when you hit 'roll' the whole box should just disappear and the dice should appear when ready - though i assume its to prevent people from interrupting the rolls by doing something else.

 

I second this.