Newest version of Studio is a terrible step backwards IMO

Support
#1

Why would you remove the Component Palette? :frowning: A palette of items to choose from is a very normal staple of designers of all types - removing it is a big step backwards in UX.

Was there at least a good technical reason for it? It really was a way better experience.

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Jmix 1.5 release candidate
#2

It’s still there. Theres a button at the top of the screen designer window labelled Insert Component. Click that and the palette reappears!

#3

Except, it doesn’t. It is just a little pull down. It’s not a normal palette as has been provided in pretty much every “designer” in every piece of software…ever.

#4

It was a deliberate decision to get rid of the palette in a tool window. Mostly as an outcome of several Studio UX testing sessions with developers unfamiliar with Jmix. 5 out of 5 people just couldn’t find the Inspector window (left bottom) to setup a component properties or generate handlers. They didn’t see it even after looking to screenshots in the tutorial and following its recommendations. Too much information on the screen overloaded them. So we thought we need to do something radical to reduce the number of tool windows.

The current palette is not just a little popup, it has the same contents as before and allows you to search and drag-and-drop components to the hierarchy or code. The only difference is that it’s not always on the screen, but it can be opened from different places: top editor panel, context menu of the hierarchy, “Generate” menu in code to open by keyboard.

Also, this way of working with palette was in Flow UI designer since last November, and we didn’t get any negative feedback on it so far.

Could you elaborate what is frustrating in the new palette from your point of view? We would like to improve it.

Regards,
Konstantin

#5

It’s not that the new way is frustrating, it’s just that it is not familiar. On-screen palettes have been “The Way” in most software, since, well, ever.

But if your studies show this is better for new users, then so be it. (Wish there was an option to have the old way though.)

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#6
  1. Having to pulldown that menu for every component to add if you click some other widget and loses focus.
  2. Longer distance to Drag and Drop
  3. Every time the screen is gone the search text is gone
  4. Can it be always visible and collapsible on the place of the old Inspector? just add it and leave the other things as they are?
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#7

1,4 - we’ll think about it.
2 - try to open it through the context menu of the component hierarchy by right-clicking on a neighbor or parent component.
3 - good point, we’ll try to save the filter state

Thanks for the feedback!