Game Development Community

New Tutorial Format

by Matthew Langley · in Torque Game Builder · 04/02/2007 (10:44 am) · 11 replies

In the latest beta release we included a new tutorial for making a fish game with behaviors. Not only was this covering a new concept but (as you can see) it uses a new tutorial format. Anyone have any feedback on it? Do you like it? Does it flow well? What don't you like?

Keep in mind that we will get an artist to "pretty it up" with graphics (instead of a bunch of css lines lol, hey I'm no artist ;) and there are some layout issues with it (such as images not playing nice with different resolutions etc)... the image layout issue will be worked out, so please ignore that for now (pretend you don't have to scroll to see the entire image, if you run in a big resolution you probably won't already).

Any feedback is appreciated :)

(I actually created an internal Doc Builder to create tutorial in this format, so with some feedback I can make it as intuitive as possible and flow as well as possible so we can re-create the existing tutorials and create new tutorial fast and easy)

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Torque Owner Chip Lambert
Crusader Games
#1
04/02/2007 (10:46 am)
I like it and thought it made things a lot easier.

Torque 3D Owner Matthew Langley
Torque
#2
04/02/2007 (2:09 pm)
Note: There is an error in the tutorial noted here.

Thanks for the feedback Chip, glad you like it. Is there anything that you thought would've helped the workflow better?

Torque Owner Chip Lambert
Crusader Games
#3
04/02/2007 (5:17 pm)
Not that I can think of Matt. I haven't had a chance to go through it fully, but by browsing through and seeing it in action, I can't think of anything short of prettying it up some like you mentioned. But hey I understand that too, I'm by no means an artist myself. :)

Torque Owner Neo Binedell
#4
04/03/2007 (10:02 am)
I like the step by step wizard but can't say I care for having all the sections on one page, the menu should suffice and have each on its own page.

Torque 3D Owner Matthew Langley
Torque
#5
04/03/2007 (10:10 am)
Thx for the feedback Chip and Neo... In fact I was hoping someone would say that Neo, glad you did so it isn't just me lol. The more I tested it the more I realized that each tutorial should fit into one section so adding multiple sections seemed redundant (especially since, as you said, they can just be listed together in the ToC), though I hate taking only my own feedback on something like this.

Torque Owner Fucifer
#6
04/03/2007 (10:33 am)
Outstanding format, it is very easy to read and follow. It is to the point and take very little time to complete. I agreed with Neo but other than that outstanding job Matthew.

Associate David Higgins
DPHCoders.com
#7
04/03/2007 (7:15 pm)
I'm not really to fond of the new layout, just a first-glance impression of it ... too many scroll bars ... and the actual 'content' I need to read is squished inside of a small container ... which means I have to scroll left/right to read it ... I run at 1600x1200 by default, but I usually don't have my browser maximized ... and the new tutorial format more or less requires me to max out my browser ...

I do, however, like the 'next', concept, etc ... just not fond of the way it's all cluttered up ... we have the left-nav section, then the right section which then gets broken down into another left/right pane ... very clumbsy ... and if I use my scroll mouse, or the scroll wheel on my keyboard ... and I'm not over the right area, I scroll the wrong part of the page ...

All in all, I love the documentation, and the direction its going ... I thought the 1.1.3 documentation format was great ... gave it a semi-MSDN style feel to it ... however, I wasn't too happy with the memory foot-print it brought with it ... I found myself opening the 1.1.2 PDF doc more then anything else ... but this has been discussed before ...

I also don't find myself using the 'search' very often, and I always disable the highlighting feature when I do search ...

Now, this is just my opinion, and I realize all the hard work that went into it, and I can see it being very clean and having a nice feel to it for others, I'm just old school I guess ... "man t2dSceneObject" would be awesome ;)



Torque 3D Owner Matthew Langley
Torque
#8
04/03/2007 (10:41 pm)
I definately appreciate honest feedback David :)

Would some sort of maximize button that maximizes the section you are in to full size of the browser (including smushing (lol great word) the left Table of Contents bar.

Associate David Higgins
DPHCoders.com
#9
04/04/2007 (5:38 am)
Matt, having some sort of a "pin" icon or something on the left-nav menu would be awesome ... something like how you can "pin" the toolbar in Visual Studio ... a mouse-over "pop out" type thing with the ability to "pin" it in the "out" position ... would probably be great ... I think resizing the tutorial pages frame/div height to fit the content would be nice too ...

I didn't look at the html, but I assume your using an iframe for the tutorial content (hence the added scroll bars) ... perhaps just using a div that grows with the content ... *shrug*


and, just for a laugh .... "smush"

Torque Owner Oliver Rendelmann - DerR
#10
04/04/2007 (5:46 am)
I agree with David regarding the scrollbars but other than that I think the documentation is great! Just one more thing though.. I wish the other sections wouldnt close if you open up the next one... sometimes I like to jump back and forth.

Other than that.. still an outstanding documentation!

Torque 3D Owner Matthew Langley
Torque
#11
04/21/2007 (10:21 am)
In the latest beta I tried to spend a quick burst of time to do some efficiency tweaks as far as memory... let me know if you notice a difference (I didn't get much of a chance to test it out but figured I'd at least do the quickest thing that should give some results).

Didn't get a chance to add a "pin" icon yet, though I like that idea... btw you can drag the table of contents frame to resize it...