Singleplayer browser vs. hack browser

[Simon]

I'm unhappy with Lix's information architecture within the application. Playing Levels and viewing their replays should be close together. But it's not: You play from the singleplayer browser, and view replays from the replay browser.

Idea: Redesign into a singleplayer browser, and a hack browser.

Singleplayer is for play, and viewing replays. Singleplayer browser can list replays for the selected level.

Hack browser is for play, edit, delete, mkdir, list and view replays, rename replays, export level as image, what-have-you. Hack browser is a strict superset of the singleplayer browser. The hack browser is a nightmake to make, because it must be powerful and needs lots of extra GUI for rename, mkdir, list replays, etc. Whatever you maintain by your favorite shell or file browser right now, it would become a reasonable feature request for the hack browser.

If hack browser exists, why keep singleplayer browser? Reason #1 is streamlined UI without clutter. Reason #2 is that you don't want a full-fledged filesystem shell within other people's packs.

-- Simon

[namida]

I get the feeling this would be better implemented as a "Show Advanced Options" setting in a single browser (and, are non-Lix-specific features really needed even then? It sounds very much like reinventing the wheel for little benefit). Although "View Replay" might be better off displayed even in Basic mode.

[IchoTolot]

I am highly in favor of merging playing and replay watching.

A simple button in the normal level selection browser for replays which opens a selection window should do the job in my opinion.

[Proxima]

This is a very interesting question. There are certainly a few ways in which the current system is undesirable:

(1) As already mentioned, it takes up unnecessary time going between the browsers. In particular, if you finish level A and browse to level B, and then want to view a replay for B, you have to do the A-to-B navigating all over again. This doesn't take much time in itself, but it adds up to a fair amount of annoyance over the entire play of a levelpack (with occasional play of other levels in between).

(2) Uploading levels and replays to dropbox or forum: you have to go up four levels and back down if your previous upload was a level and you now want to upload a replay.

(3) If your play session is interrupted and you save a replay, you can't resume from the replay and have it count as a success.

A merged browser would certainly address (1), not sure about the others. It depends on exactly how the browser ends up working. Would the current folder structure also be changed to a single folder for levels and replays?

In the old Lix, I liked to have a single folder of favourite replays for re-watching for fun. This is an esoteric use case and doesn't need to be supported.

I don't like the idea of a separate "hack browser" -- everything you've mentioned sounds like it could and should be a function available in the main browser. You certainly do want to be able to maintain and manage your replays, whether the pack you're playing is your own or someone else's. D Lix currently has space for six large buttons, of which only four are used. The space for each large button could be given to four small ones. "Delete" and "Back" could become small buttons.

[ccexplore]

This may also fall under "esoteric use case", but it sounds like merging would mean it's no longer possible to get to a replay in the browser if you don't already have the associated level?  Currently you can do the "extract level" thing from a replay file.

[Simon]

I get the feeling this would be better implemented as a "Show Advanced Options" setting in a single browser

I don't like the idea of a separate "hack browser" -- everything you've mentioned sounds like it could and should be a function available in the main browser.

Yes, very good. Advanced mode, the progressive disclosure of rarely-needed options, is a standard GUI solution. I should have come up with it; you did, very good.

Although "View Replay" might be better off displayed even in Basic mode.

I am highly in favor of merging playing and replay watching. A simple button in the normal level selection browser for replays

Yes, this is the main idea.

(2) Uploading levels and replays to dropbox or forum: you have to go up four levels and back down if your previous upload was a level and you now want to upload a replay.

Would the current folder structure also be changed to a single folder for levels and replays?

Hmm, this is a problem of the raw folder structure, not problem of the ingame browsers.

I plan some magic for the ingame browsers to show relevant content from completely different directories. In this light, replays look more like data in a database, not like files in a tree.

I don't have a good idea for the folder structure yet. I see this standard workflow of level designers, and I want to make their jobs easy. On the other hand, I don't want to write to the level tree when making replays. The level tree is more sacred than the replay tree.

(3) If your play session is interrupted and you save a replay, you can't resume from the replay and have it count as a success.

This is fixed since 0.6.11. When you view a winning replay, you earn a checkmark, provided that:

• You are listed as active player in the replay.
  
• The replay points to an existing level file in the tree. This level will get the checkmark.
  
• The included level matches exactly the pointed-to level, or you play back the replay against the pointed-to level.

Automatic replay verification doesn't give checkmarks yet.

This may also fall under "esoteric use case", but it sounds like merging would mean it's no longer possible to get to a replay in the browser if you don't already have the associated level?  Currently you can do the "extract level" thing from a replay file.

This is important. The replay format was designed to deliver the level inside the replay, therefore a replay is standalone content. This is too practical to dismiss. My only idea so far is to keep the existing replay browser, in addition to beefing up the main browser.

-- Simon

[namida]

This is important. The replay format was designed to deliver the level inside the replay, therefore a replay is standalone content. This is too practical to dismiss. My only idea so far is to keep the existing replay browser, in addition to beefing up the main browser.

Perhaps (maybe under the advanced options) have an option for "Show Orphaned Replays".

Alternatively, list them automatically, perhaps with a different icon that clearly identifies them as a replay rather than a level. With this approach, it may be desirable to instead have an option to hide them nonetheless.

[Nepster]

Perhaps (maybe under the advanced options) have an option for "Show Orphaned Replays".

I would list orphaned replays even in basic mode: Advanced mode exists, because we don't want everyone to modify all levels. So we want to hide possible interactions with files. What we don't want to hide - and in fact shouldn't hide at all - is the existance of files. Otherwise players will wonder why they cannot find the replay they just copied into one of their folders!

[Proxima]

Instead of "basic" and "advanced" modes, you could have "Show replays" and "Hide replays", so that you have all the replay-interactioney goodness available, but you can also view the pristine list of levels, for those times when you want to just play a pack without doing any replayey stuff, or want to see at a glance how your column of ticks is looking these days.

[NaOH]

Currently there's a replay browser, right? Couldn't there be a "view replays" button which switches to the other browser in the appropriate directory? And then in the replay browser there would be a button to take you to the level in the single-player browser.

I don't think there's a need for a hack browser or even an advanced mode; any players "advanced" enough to use it would be perfectly capable of using their own OS browser to do any of those things.