@MiniPilote @Alan @vankichline @AndySchmitt @Timon42 @Lowteck @Ender5r
Folks, we are ready for testing.
Just go to the above link and make sure you read the instructions on the home page. There are more detailed instructions in another post in this forum.
Thanks. Irv
Hi, Irv!
Just wanted to ask how you want to receive feedback, and to what level.
I haven’t created an account yet, but have some bug reports on the intro page, attached.
MwTalpha1.txt (1.02 KB)
Finished an initial walkthrough and took some notes. More to come when I have a bit of time…
MwTalpha2.txt (3.95 KB)
Hi Irv,
I just tried a few things and here are my notes.
Happy New Year!
A short report:
On the Thingiverse page:
I typed “platonic” into the search string, and clicked on “Cubic system special forms”
There was one scad file and seven stl files.
I can view a picture or a 3D projection of the stl’s.
I can download or customize the scad file.
It would be nice if I could download the STL files here, too. One of them might be just what I need.
I can confirm that in this view, but then getting that file is convoluted.
If I click on the customize (tilted cube) icon, then I cannot navigate back to the previous page with the browser’s ‘back’ button.
Instead, I return to the search page, with only my search string preserved and nothing selected.
This can be frustrating, because after a search with a general search string, the object I selected may take many 'next page’s to locate again.
Feature suggestion: a ‘Recent’ list of objects I’ve selected in this session, or at least a ‘favorites’ list.
Clicking on customize, I come to ‘Model: cubic_forms.scad’ and the description begins:
null // [0:cube,1:rhombic dodecahedron,2:tetrahexahedron,3 pentagonal dodecahedron,4 octahedron,5:tetrahedron,6:icositetrahedron,7:triak is tetrahedron,8:triakis octahedron,9:deltoid dodecahedron,10:hexakis octahedron,11:diakisdodecahedron,12:hexatetrahedro n,13 pentagonal icositetrahedron,14:tetrahedral pentagonal dodecaheron]
The leading ‘null //’ part should be removed and the list should be unwrapped.
Ideally, the content could be converted into a numbered list in HTML, which would be quite easy to read.
My last post was a bug report message and was blocked as spam, so I will go back to uploading text files.
Have you considered using an online tool or github for tracking bugs?
The attached bug was pretty serious. It made me think I could not use the system at all.
MwTalpha4.txt (711 Bytes)
@Lowteck The app should now work correctly on Safari. Thank you for reporting this. Ironically I do all of my development on a Mac but use Chrome and Edge as my browsers. I have now tested on Safari, Chrome, Edge, and Firefox and they all start up fine.
You should see a feedback button that looks like this.
[ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“custom”,“height”:“679”,“title”:“models_feedback.jpg”,“width”:“800”,“data-attachmentid”:13243}[/ATTACH]
@vankichline Well, your input pushed me to spend my Saturday night coding. I believe I was able to address many of your concerns. I hope navigation now works as you would expect. It returns you to the correct search page, with the tables filled in, and it also includes the files you were looking at when you switched off the page. Going back to the home page clears these values. This did introduce one minor bug, which you probably will figure out. That is a bit of a challenge for you. 
I reworked the display of ranges as you suggested with one per line. I have begun to consider how much work will be required to change this to just using these values as input ranges and selectors. This will require some refactoring of my data structures, which may not be completed before the public release of the POC.
Since the primary reason for this application is to better support customization of Thingiverse models, I decided to allow users to download STL files associated with SCAD files. However, I still do not allow the user to download regular STL files but instead direct them to the appropriate Thingiverse page.
I do not want to lose sight of the fact that this is Proof of Concept to see if this would be valuable to people. However, your comments about the navigation made it clear that I needed to fix it.
Thanks for your help.
Thanks, Irv!
I will use the feedback button for reports going forward, and I’ll focus on the key question for now:
to see if this would be valuable to people
I was a professional software tester for part of my career, so I easily fall into old habits of ‘look everywhere, report everything.’
@Ender5r, alas, button mashing moved offshore many years ago. That still leaves a lot to cover, though.
I meant for this PoC.
@Ender5r I haven’t found many bugs that way in web applications. Fuzzing and SQL injection on the other hand are pretty effective but take a lot more preparation.
But Irv isn’t really looking for a quality check at this point, he effectively focused me with the question “will people find value here?”
So I am focusing on usability and off-ramps for now (those places where people give up before they reach the payoff.)
There is a high concept-count in the PoC, and from previous discussions I believe the goal is to not let this be a blocker. That means new concepts need to be named well, explained when introduced, and should be referred to consistently. This is the time to decide on terminology, so that’s a good thing to consider in feedback at this point as well.
