Michael Matti's dashboard

Michael Matti marked one of Giacomo 'Peldi' Guilizzoni's replies in Balsamiq as useful. Giacomo 'Peldi' Guilizzoni replied to the problem "Command line PNG export ignores vertical curly braces color".

A comment on the problem "Command line PNG export ignores vertical curly braces color" in Balsamiq:

Nailed it. Just verified with the latest build, generating PNGs from my standard production script. Appreciate your persistence. – Michael Matti, on December 15, 2008 17:29

Michael Matti marked one of Giacomo 'Peldi' Guilizzoni's replies in Balsamiq as useful. Giacomo 'Peldi' Guilizzoni replied to the problem "Text color changes don't survive command line export".

A comment on the problem "Text color changes don't survive command line export" in Balsamiq:

That got it. Just tried it with disabled and colored labels, and then command line image export, and everything looks like it should. Thanks for chasing this down. – Michael Matti, on December 15, 2008 17:26

A comment on the question "Can we have an option to change selection color instead of green?" in Balsamiq:

Yup, definitely better, based on those gallery shots. Let's go with this unless/until someone comes up with a better option. – Michael Matti, on December 14, 2008 23:02

Michael Matti replied on December 14, 2008 19:49 to the question "Can we have an option to change selection color instead of green?" in Balsamiq:

Peldi, I see your point about the potential washout. How about a just a little bit darker, with just a touch more saturation. The top swatch show below uses 0xcceecc, while the one below it uses 0xaaeebb:



The second one -- 0xaaeebb -- looks like it might stand up better, and is even a little more attractive. Worth another ten-minute try?

A comment on the idea "Image import for coverflow component" in Balsamiq:

Very nice ... simple and consistent with the image component, right down to that handy sketch option. Many thanks. – Michael Matti, on December 14, 2008 12:59

Michael Matti marked one of Chris' replies in Balsamiq as useful. Chris replied to the problem "After AIR 1.5 upgrade, Mockups can't remember Show UI Library / Notebook preferences".

Michael Matti replied on December 08, 2008 20:15 to the problem "After AIR 1.5 upgrade, Mockups can't remember Show UI Library / Notebook preferences" in Balsamiq:

Well, after 20+ restarts, it looks like this nailed it. Closed Mockups, deleted the SharedObjects folder (which contained two .sol files), and restarted Mockups. Turned the UI Library and notebook background off, then quit.

A new SharedObjects folder was created, holding one .sol file. After restarting the app, and then twenty-odd more restarts, my settings have been staying set.

Chris, if you're following this thread, try removing SharedObjects.

Michael Matti replied on December 08, 2008 16:10 to the question "Can we have an option to change selection color instead of green?" in Balsamiq:

Two selection color candidates, for discussion and maybe the poll:

Michael Matti replied on December 07, 2008 16:14 to the problem "After AIR 1.5 upgrade, Mockups can't remember Show UI Library / Notebook preferences" in Balsamiq:

Where are those local shared objects stored? Maybe I should try deleting the BalsamiqMockupsForDesktop.###etc###/Local Store directory if that's where they are kept.

If that's the correct location, what else will be destroyed and need recreation ... maybe my registration info? (I know about the BalsamiqMockups.cfg file, and will keep a copy of that safe.)

Don't want to try this unless you think it might work. Is there a more appropriate target file or folder to whack?

A comment on the problem "After AIR 1.5 upgrade, Mockups can't remember Show UI Library / Notebook preferences" in Balsamiq:

Are you sure that that XP-under-Parallels setup has the AIR 1.5 runtime? It was immediately after upgrading to AIR 1.5 that the problem cropped up. Prior to the upgrade, never an issue. After the upgrade, the very first time I ran Mockups the problem was obvious, and it's continued ever since (on Windows, not my Mac, which runs Mockups under AIR 1.5 without mishaps). – Michael Matti, on December 07, 2008 04:48

Michael Matti replied on December 06, 2008 12:52 to the idea "Image import for coverflow component" in Balsamiq:

A double-click to dive into a group would cure most of the current headache, and would help in other contexts, too.

Michael Matti replied on December 06, 2008 04:02 to the idea "Image import for coverflow component" in Balsamiq:

Peldi, you're right that the main issue is the manual grouping of image and label. The problem for me is that, in the evolution of screen designs, the text label for a given icon will often change. (The functions bound to these icons are often highly specialized, which accounts for my interest both in importing icon images and in easy re-labeling.) Aside from the three-part icon+label+grouping process, any revision to a label requires un-grouping, editing, and regrouping the pair. Not a big issue if you do it occasionally, but kind of tedious if you do it a lot.

One last possibility: to preserve the icon quick search option, suppose "Import" were added to the bottom of the sources listed in the inspector (Arrows, Browser, Media, etc.) Selecting "Import" would then display the existing file/web/flickr import mechanism on the right, where the icon previews are otherwise shown.

Michael Matti replied on December 06, 2008 03:42 to the question "Can we have an option to change selection color instead of green?" in Balsamiq:

Michael agrees with Michael. The current green is so saturated and intense that it tends to draw attention from the rest of the mockup. If that value is hard-wired, it'd be nice to dial it down a notch. Even better would be setting the value as an application preference.

Michael Matti started following the question "Can we have an option to change selection color instead of green?" in Balsamiq.

Michael Matti replied on December 04, 2008 05:12 to the idea "Image import for coverflow component" in Balsamiq:

A couple of thoughts on how it could work:

1. Importing from a Web address and from Flickr makes no sense for icons, so there's no need for the three-way import control used by images. Only local file system import is needed.

2. The import trigger could be a pulldown selection very similar to the image control's "Default Placeholder / Import Image..." options. The icon component would have "Icon Inspector / Import Icon" options instead of the current "icon search" button. The first option opens the existing menu of built-in icons, while the second option launches the local file import menu.

3. Icon size is an issue. There needs to be a way to prevent users from inadvertently bringing in a 600x600 "icon", in part because that will mess up the icon-with-text variant. Maybe a cap of 36x36, with automatic scaling if the source PNG exceeds that?

4. If the user sketchifies the icon, the existing color control should work. If not, not.

Clean enough, or showing lots of wrinkles?

Michael Matti replied on December 03, 2008 22:23 to the idea "Active tab indication in Tabs Bar control" in Balsamiq:

What happens when the user changes the "Selection" pulldown in the tab bar properties panel? At that point there's a conflict to resolve. Is the existing panel pulldown inconvenient?

Michael Matti shared an idea in Balsamiq on December 03, 2008 21:03:

Image import for coverflow component

Been using the coverflow component for a series of screens depicting catalog interactions. To make things a little more realistic, have been placing an image component over the center coverflow frame and importing pictures from both local and Flickr sources. Then I group the two elements for positioning, resizing, etc.

You can see where this is headed: since coverflow is all about image browsing, why not give that component the new image upload capability? Seems like a perfectly natural extension, and would save a couple of steps.

Also, not to beat the topic to death, would still like to upload small images within the icon-with-label component.

A comment on the problem "After AIR 1.5 upgrade, Mockups can't remember Show UI Library / Notebook preferences" in Balsamiq:

Chris, thanks for chiming in; glad to know it's not a quirk of my system. – Michael Matti, on December 02, 2008 23:46