So, this is something that has been on my mind on and off for awhile now.
Fear of the Feature Creep.

Even tho Feature Request is one of the more active forums, and I make my fair share of posts there, I've been getting the feeling ComicRack is becoming maybe a little too complex for the average user.

I enjoy all of ComicRacks features and the amount of control I'm allowed.
I also enjoy the amount of power these feature allow me in organizing my collection.
But as time has gone on, and more features get added, the unuser-friendlyness of the UI and learning curve for ComicRack in general has increased. The UI has had improvements, it just the complexity that starts to make it harder to use I think, with more submenus and options to browse through.

600's Manual aliveates this somewhat, but the sheer size of the manual should be a sign that the Creep is indeed in full effect.

As a result I'm starting to become of the mind that a concentrated effort to streamline the UI while maintaining advanced functionality is something that should be addressed at some point in the future. Just to make the first time user a little more at ease if nothing else.

I'm a control freak and customization freak. I've been actively and deeply involved in the Miranda IM project from it's conception, so by no means am I saying we should dumb or neuter it's abilities. But perhaps coming up with two modes, a basic and advanced mode, may help here.

This would basically involve identifying the the basic need to have functions and cleaning up menu's, while hiding away what may be considered Advanced User functions.

Of course, we can discuss what we consider is and isn't a basic or advanced function through the discussion in this thread, and this is more theory crafting (the code involved in implementing this could get abit hairy, cYo does this in his spare time and we already ask him for enough features ), but I think it would still be worthwhile to discuss this and share our opinions about it.

So, what do you think? Is ComicRack becoming a little too complex for the new users?
_{no, make it more complex, where are my clickable hyperlinks cYo, where are they!?!?}

If ever there was a well-written post, its this one by Fain

Agreed that ComicRack has a lot of features (Bill-Gates features rich ? ), but if you outright choose to ignore them, it won't disturb you to seek attention. I've seen many users just use the reader; they don't care about the browser part at all ! And what does ComicRack say to them.. nothing !

You can not have the cake and eat it too. The best compromise may be an advanced mode, like we have in antiviruses:







(Just for the record... I don't need this.. But maybe good for new users..)

Still I feel that ComicRack is an excellent software that gives its user what he deserves...the deeper you swim, the better it gets !!

Fain wrote:

its getting even more pages daily...

I do like the idea of some kind of Basic mode for the UI, although personally I think it's pretty friendly and about on par with any other program this powerful. You can't expect to know what every button does on sight...

I'd actually have to agree with you Shinrai. Why I put it here and not in Feature Request.
This isn't a request by any stretch, just theory crafting about how ComicRack might be made more "noob" friendly. Or casual user friendly, or whathave you.

I think pretty much everyone here in the forums is going to fall under the Power User category. Which makes this line of thinking somewhat hard. cYo is absolutely excellent when it comes to design. I've always had a nagging feeling he has avoided adding some features that he might otherwise add, simply because of how cryptic it would come out. And when e does add features they tend to be fairly straight forward and well implemented.
But the Creep is there. I'm pretty sure he is aware of that too.
It's a good and "bad" thing. And like you said, you expect it from software this powerful.

Regardless however, the initial dive into ComicRack I have to assume it scary and confusing for the less tech savy. The less tech savy isn't exactly ComicRacks "market", so that isn't a "bad" thing. (I think ComicRack's market is cYo and his groupies, IE; us )

So how would ComicRack be made simpilier while still being ComicRack. Is it even possible? If you take away it's more advanced features, should you even be using ComicRack? Do you need to take away advanced features to make it more noob friendly? How about cleaning the UI? Perhaps grouping common feature? The UI is pretty darn spiffy to me, but there are alot of submenus. Can those be eliminated while retaining functionality?

600 nailed it with what I was thinking about with Basic and Advanced modes, Antivirus programs have it sometimes, as do a number of other programs (Spybot has one)
but are those basic and advanced modes worth it? Do they work? Are they really making the initial use of the program easier, or do you HAVE to turn on Advanced mode to actually use the program as intended.

ComicRack can basically in my eyes been looked at this way. It started out (and really still is) as a personal project of cYo's to fill in an area of software he viewed as lacking. Readers that were on the market didn't do what he wanted, like he wanted. They were simplistic "show comic, scroll pages" programs. He seems to have said "I can do better than that." and went about making just a reader at first, that would support antialiasing, incremental zoom, page positions and size, nice looking overlays and whathave you. Then it just kept growing. And growing, and here we are. Now the most powerful tool of it's kind of the market.

In that transition however, the feature creep occurred however, and what started as a fairly light weight alternative to other readers, turns into a full fledged scripted comic library/file management tool with metadata to tell you how many staples held a certain comics bindings together

Of course, going back to what I said earlier, if you are looking for just a simple comic reader out of ComicRack now, perhaps you are looking in the wrong place.

edit: not referring to you in the later bits when I refer to "you" Shinrai, for clarification Just in general.

I think it's time to add my 2 euro cents .

My vision for ComicRack was always an ITunes like application. Before ComicRack (and still now) Comic Readers are simple Image Viewers (with some extra features). ComicRack was the first REAL Comic Reader, e.g. it never supported image folders (even if the code to do it is actually in the codebase ). It makes no sense. eComic/eBooks are files and not folders.

I'm fully aware of the feature creep problem. It was one of the reason I revamped the UI with 0.9.116 (reduced importance of main menu, combined tabs and top toolbar, added chrome like most important commands menu in the toolbar). And I think it came out quite well.

It is always a problem how to prioritize feature sets in a UI. I think lots of you have experienced the "oh it can do that too, I did not know that" moment with ComicRack. Lots of features are not "in your face" but rather implemented unobtrusive (switching cover thumbnails, or ordered reading lists, or the myriad ways on how to display your lists, or filtering ads in th reader). Sometimes they are even hidden too much.

ComicRack can be many things. Hide the browser (and turn off auto open of browser) and you have a rather UI less, spartan Comic Reader. Dock the browser in fill mode and you have a comic management tool without an obvious reader.

I think when people use ComicRack the first time, they expect something different. There's the empty browser at the bottom. The eComics is so small etc.

In UI development there's the so called "Law of the Default". Most people use software the way it was installed. If the viewing mode is Fit Width, and people don't see the bottom of the page, something is wrong with the application. Next they try to scroll down and it JUMPS to the bottom. Also not wanted. Every other image viewer they used displayed the image fully and scrolling with the mouse is pixel oriented. On the other hand, I always thought of the auto-scroll feature as one of the strong points (simply hitting space to read on - or as one devoted user in a hentai forum called it "the very useful one handed reading" )

I'm not a fan of "Advanced" toggles. People who are asked this question usually click "yes" - they don't want to miss the good stuff. You won't find an advanced option in any Apple software (still a benchmark for user friendliness).

To bring this to an end. I always try to remove clutter from the UI, prioritize important feature sets, but still make them available (see the different way commands are presented in the toolbar and main menu). I'm often thinking about removing some stuff like the 8 different page view modes, but on the other hand they all make sense for some situations. It's a constant struggle.

I think the manual will help a lot. And maybe I'll add some initial welcome wizard sometimes (welcome, setup your library etc.)

I don't think that ComicRack is more complicated than the current incarnation of ITunes. I think most people just do not expect something like ComicRack when they start that "Comic Reader".

As always, I'm very open to suggestions on feature sets that are to hidden or "advanced" stuff that is to obvious.

cYo wrote:


Some people (like me) like to dig a little in software they really like. But, some of us prefer only to use the big "you can't miss" options and don't nitpick as much as others. I think that it's really hard to have something that can satisfy both ends of the user type spectrum from the setup (or rather impossible). You have to hide a little advanced options so that the common user doesn't get lost, but not so much so that the "digger" doesn't have to go through 15.000 different options...

cYo wrote:


Maybe, you could by default, put the library/explorer browser on the side (right or left, it doesn't really matter) rather than on the bottom. It's true that it is rather surprising when you start CR up for the first time to have this large white (and empty) area under what's supposed to be the eComic you want to see.

cYo wrote:


I'd have to agree with you here. The main problem with this is that you have to arbitrarily determine what a "basic" user will be able to do and won't be able to do... Sure, it'll make their UI easier to use but, on the other hand, it'll cut them from a lot of features that "advanced" users consider as essentials...

cYo wrote:


The manual isn't very helpful for the moment since it's only available on the forums. Don't get me wrong, it's an absolute gem, well detailed and everything. But the problem is that most of the CR users never come by the forum. Sure they may know that there's a manual through the RSS feed of CR but I don't think it's enough. When the manual is integrated in the actual CR setup (or a link pointing to it in the start folder or anything), it'll be a whole different story. For the start-up wizards, it's a good idea (if we can disable them of course ) since it'll allow users to do some more advanced things with their CR without having to open the manual but I think that a reference to the manual (like: "For more details, see chapter xx, page xx of the manual) would be a good reminder as well.

That was my 2 euro cents as well.

I've already implemented the code to open the manual in ComicRack and open it at the right context. Cool thing is that when converting the manual to djvu, it "only" has 8 MB. So I may add it to the package or make a separate installer. ComicRack can check if it available and switch from online wiki to installed manual. Something like that.

You know that last bit about the manual is pretty nice, including it as a default/optional install. 8mb, hrmm, somewhat large, know you want to keep the installer at a small size.

Then it hit me. Webcomic.
If the manual were hosted somewhere in a form that a webcomic file could parse correctly, couldn't you do something like have the "webcomic" of the manual included by default, but not have it populate it's images until requested? Taking that a step further. Maybe on first time installs have the manual be open on the first start.