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 The Start Page

csanyk

Member
I am posting a series of articles on my website as I explore and discover things in the GMS2 beta that I find noteworthy.

Last night, I posted this on the Start Page:

There are two main issues that I have with the new Start Page.
  1. The image slide show. It takes up a lot of space, serves no purpose, and is distracting when the images rotate. If I could, I'd hide it or disable it. I'd prefer a no nonsense Start Page with options that are relevant to tasks I might expect to do on launch: Create a new project, open an existing project, upgrade/check for upgrades, view news and release notes, manage my YoYo account, etc.
  2. I found the UX to be very strange. When I moved my mouse through the rotating image, I noticed the mouse cursor changed to a pointing finger, which normally I interpret to mean I'm hovering over a hyperlink. I clicked, to see what would happen.

    Intuitively I expected that clicking an image in the rotating slide show would take me to something having to do with the image, perhaps in a new browser window, or perhaps in a new tab in GMS2.

    Were these slideshow images links to demo projects that I could use to learn the new features and workflows?

    No! Instead, clicking the image changed out the stuff below the slideshow. "Getting Started" and "Explore" were gone, replaced by "Owned" and "Official". Which, I gather, are two categories of tutorials/demo projects/Marketplace Assets.

    I was puzzled as to how to return to the Getting Started/Explore options, and after poking around at the UI for a couple minutes, eventually determined that clicking the "GameMaker Studio 2" logo navigated back "home", bringing me back to "Getting Started" and "Explore".

    To me, that navigation is very un-intuitive. I would have rather seen a traditional scroll bar, or a pair of left/right arrows that clearly demonstrated their purpose, to show the next section of start options.
Both are minor issues, to be sure, but I felt it was worth making the suggestions.
 

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
The carousel is going to be more important than it seems now, this is basically instead of the news page. new things - tech blogs, sales, news posts, cool GMS2 links etc will all be pushed out through the carousel. without an ugly news page, this is the means we'll let users know about things.

Once these things are pushed out, they will open in a browser, not the IDE, this should make it a little easier to follow.
 

csanyk

Member
The carousel is going to be more important than it seems now, this is basically instead of the news page. new things - tech blogs, sales, news posts, cool GMS2 links etc will all be pushed out through the carousel. without an ugly news page, this is the means we'll let users know about things.

Once these things are pushed out, they will open in a browser, not the IDE, this should make it a little easier to follow.
Good to know. I may change my mind about the carousel once I see what you have in mind. The concept as you explain it doesn't sound bad. I still think the navigation as it is currently is odd, but hopefully that will change.
 
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