UI refresh causing UX issues

[jacob.small]

@Paul_Wintour

1. Node scaling - Used Monocle’s graph resizer and it works great. Would have been better if we diddn’t need to use it at all, but at least we have a workaround. Thanks John.

Look into the bulk updater as well; if you’re moving one thing from an older version you likely have a whole set and should start managing on a per release basis to account for the number of changes to both Dynamo and it’s hosts in a rather short timespan.

@Paul_Wintour

2. Deleting nodes - @solamour to elaborate, if a node is not in a group ‘properly’ and the node is moved, the node is automatically added to the group. This is expected behaviour. The UX problem is that once added, the entire group is selected, so if you hit delete expecting to delete the node, the entire group is deleted. The solution is for Dynamo NOT to modify the current selection once the node is moved. This seems far more logical to me. Why would I need to select all the nodes in a group?

This makes sense to me - can you add to the wishlist?

@Paul_Wintour

3. Right-clicking on a group allows some functionality but not minimise/expand functionality that the carrot provides. This means you have to scroll in to the (very) small icon to minimise/expand groups. Not a problem for small groups/graphs, but a major issue for large files.

Another great wishlist item.

@Paul_Wintour

4. Adding nodes to group - I don’t see why this would be so problematic. If adding elements to a minimised group, the nodes should stay exactly in-place.

How would you deal with the added node having a location atop a node already in the group? Or are proposing we allow multiple nodes in the same place? Seems like that would be a nightmare.

@Paul_Wintour

4. …If it is not compressing the extent of the graph, then what is the point of minimising the group. …

Reduce the clutter on screen. For compressing large sets custom nodes are better from both a scalability and a supportability standpoint, and moving to those would be recommended.

@Paul_Wintour

6. …I have a large file (2300 nodes)…

This appears to be the root of the problem with the slowness… I haven’t seen a graph with that much in it which maintains functionality well… You’d likely get some gains with custom nodes, but not sure that’d be enough… Certainly worth letting the team explore this one in the context of the engine overhaul which is on the roadmap already - can you share the file with Sol and/or I (DM is fine). In a related thought, I’m guessing that at that size navigation is tough in general. Would it help to have a ‘go to group’ similar to the ‘go to node’ function of graph node manager? Or perhaps a ‘mini-map’ to navigate such files?

@Paul_Wintour

7. NEW - Updating a note causes Dynamo Revit to crash. Crash file has been sumbitted to Autodesk via the popup. I believe the issue is to do with bullets. Adding a dash creates a bullet but sometimes, not always, it will crash Dynamo on existing nodes with dashes.

Can you reproduce in Dynamo sandbox, or just in Dynamo for Revit? Any chance you have the CER number?

@Paul_Wintour

8. NEW Custom properties in Graph Properties - What do they do? They don’t seem to be visible anywhere.

They allow users to associate new data into the file, used primarily for management purposes. Stuff like finding the ‘right set’ of Dynamo graphs. They are not currently exposed anywhere in standard functionality, but stuff like gathering all your MEP/Structural/Architectural/whatever graphs into a readily indexed toolset is achievable by associating such data. They also allow a (relatively) consistent way to pack data into the file which you want to associate to the file long term, but don’t need to access often (ie: the associated Revit file for testing graph functionality and the expected test result).