Proposed changes to the GameOn Developer experience.

We’re really proud of the growth that we’ve experienced in not only user base but also the application itself over the past number of months developing GameOn Developer Toolkit. From the beginning the goal was always to build an experience for developers to take advantage of the GameOn Extensions platform and help developers do the best job they can. As developers ourselves, we understand how difficult it can be to develop for a new platform (especially one as great as ours).

This being said, as developers we can also see shortcomings in our tailored experience. We know that we can do better and we plan to. Since our first release of the GameOn Developer Toolkit, we’ve rolled out the following great features and updates:

• Modern UI with Ribbon Controls.
• One-Click Code Inserts for UI Objects.
• Testing capabilities to run your projects in GameOn.
• Custom library support with the LX Package Manager.
• and much much more.

We’ve also made sure to do a better job at creating tutorials, code samples as well as creating, maintaining and updating our technical documentation.

So where does this leave us?

We’re going to introduce some proposed changes. We’d like for you to please read over them and then let us know what you think at the end of the page.

Re-branding the application

We’d like to make the application less confusing by dropping the “Toolkit” from the name of the application, simply calling it GameOn Developer.

New User Interface

While we’re big fans of what we’ve done with the user interface, we think that there’s room for work to be done. We’re proposing a brand new interface that would not only give you new features (such as templates for new projects, update management and more) but it would also make the application a little more future proof. You may have noticed we’re running out of room for more “Developer Tools” options in the current version of the Developer Toolkit.

We’re proposing the following changes to the front page of the application:

Changes to the “New” project menu

• Moving the menu to the left in a sidebar type design.
  • Changing menu items will change the content that takes up roughly 2/3 of the application.
• Introducing the blank project option along with template options.
• Presenting available updates in a less intrusive fashion by removing the popup during startup in favour of a small notification on the left side of the application beneath the menu.
  • Updates can be deferred as well as installed manually or automatically by the user.
  • The user can also decide to disable updates entirely (though we don’t recommend it).

Changes to the “Existing” project menu

• We’d like for the existing menu to not just jump the user into Project Editor with a file explorer dialog.
  • Instead the content area of the application would adapt to give the user options.

• We’d like to introduce the option to open a project from the web.
  • • • We’re planning on introducing a new extension to our RWE WPS Spaces.
      • This would allow WPS admins to add the ability to have editable files in their space that can be accessed via a URL.
      • All changes are logged and can be merged together, kept independent and can be collaborated on.

Changes to “Tools” (formerly “Developer Tools”)

• Tools would now have all available tools in a list. The screenshot above has hidden tools that can be turned on via the settings.
• This features a new cleaner design that allows us to continue adding tools (as we’re kind of running out of space currently.)

Changes to “Settings”

• Settings would be laid out much like the “Tools” menu.
• Debug options would be renamed to “Show hidden options and features”
• There would be an update settings option to configure updates.
• We would also merge the About screen with Settings.