ObiQuiet:

Two quick requests:

* An interaction event called "Set Panel(s) to Next State" which would simply move the panel to the next state in its order, without my having specify a daisy-chain of interactions.

* Abilty to simply hide/show elements without having to create a dynamic panel to contain them.  For example, a bitmap, text area, table, whatever.

If there are ways to do this, I'd love to add them to my bag of tricks.

A lifesaver of a product, BTW!

Hi ObiQuiet, thank you for the requests. There isn't a way to do these yet, but we'll consider them for a future release. There are a couple situations I can think of off hand that Set Next would be helpful for and showing and hiding without using dynamic panels makes sense too.

victor:

Hi Supreme, when you set a variable value it persists through the duration of the session as long as you are navigating from within the prototype. Keep in mind though that if you click on a link in the sitemap on the left side of the prototype, the variable values are cleared.

 Is there a reason like some technical limitation for that Victor? Because I don't see the usefulness of clearing the variables if people navigate the prototype by using the sitemap on the left. The session should still be kept alive in that case IMO as I'm sure clients will try to navigate that way at times and expect the prototype to still work normally.

Stéphane Bergeron:

Is there a reason like some technical limitation for that Victor? Because I don't see the usefulness of clearing the variables if people navigate the prototype by using the sitemap on the left. The session should still be kept alive in that case IMO as I'm sure clients will try to navigate that way at times and expect the prototype to still work normally.

My two cents: I can imagine that being a benefit in some situations, but it could also add complexity to the interaction of using the sitemap navigation. Most of my work is for web applications, so I may have screens in my prototype that are viewable only under certain conditions. If the prototype is open to a screen where one thing is true, and I use the sitemap to navigate to a screen that I would never be able to see based on where I was before, what then? Considering that a page's appearance and behavior may vary based on what variables are passed to it from other specific pages, it seems like it would be hard to define "normal" operation in a predictable way when the pages are accessed in a sequence that the final system won't support.

If there were such a change, I'd hope for an easy way to revert back to the defaults. To me, the sitemap is a way to browse an HTML version of my wireframe screens, and I like that you get the same view of the screen that you see in the document. If I'm walking someone through the prototype to collect feedback on the design I will generally close the sitemap frames and create a start page that links to the beginnings of as many different flows as I want to illustrate; however the sitemap may function, I find it tends to distract from the business at hand.

Jeff

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Jeff Harrison
Sr. User Experience Consultant
Evantage Consulting
Twitter: MrJeffHarrison

Excellent points Jeff and I agree with you. I have no bright idea of how this could be handled at this time but I think it would be useful to have both behaviors. The current one and another where sessions are kept alive even when navigating through the site map.

Stéphane Bergeron:

 Is there a reason like some technical limitation for that Victor? Because I don't see the usefulness of clearing the variables if people navigate the prototype by using the sitemap on the left. The session should still be kept alive in that case IMO as I'm sure clients will try to navigate that way at times and expect the prototype to still work normally.

Hi Stéphane, there isn't a technical limitation here. The decision had more to do with what Jeff described. I think there is a need for a variable debugger where values can be viewed and set in the prototype and options like for persisting or not when clicking in the sitemap can be set.

I'd like to see basic support for rotating images, cropping images, and setting a transparent color on images.  I've figured out how to use a dynamic panel as a kludge to crop an image that was too big, but I'd rather just crop directly.

A few animation tools would go a long way.  Some of the ones in PowerPoint would be welcome.  I've used panel states to flip through several images to create animations, but it gets really old after the 8th "wait 2000ms" action, and there's no good way to make frames just loop.

Basic math and basic string manipulation for variables.  Just +1/-1 and appending strings would help.  Or you could just allow insertion of a custom line of script or two.

Thanks!

I made a google moderator app for these questions, not sure if its useful but here it is:

http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=2d720

you can add requests and vote on them. 

I've been using Axure for almost 2 years now on a regular basis.  One of the areas that regularly trips me up is the 'sitemap' and handling of individual pages.  I tend to build more web apps than web sites and find I need to group my pages in sections.

So my first request: The ability to add folders to the site map, or something that would allow for more organization.  Right now I just create empty pages, but when I generate a prototype, I get a lot more junk thank I need.

 Along the same lines, my wireframes and prototypes rarely tend to be the same.  For wireframes I mockup most pages individually so they print nicely and can followed easily within a document.

 For my prototypes, I make extensive use of dynamic panels to minimize page reloads.

 So my second request: When generating a spec, I choose to leave pages out, but when generating the prototype, it generates everything.  Can the prototype generator be updated to allow me to only create the pages I select.  Again here, the existance of folders would allow me to store the wireframes and prototype in the same file, while generating separately.  Today I have to manage two different files.

 And to agree with someone above, add the ability to rotate objects.

Hi walkingfish, thank you very much. Folders in the sitemap and selectively generating pages to the prototype make a lot of sense.

I have another suggestion that I just thought about - how about being able to provide annotations to Masters?

 

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Kind regards,

Andre

stactum:

I have another suggestion that I just thought about - how about being able to provide annotations to Masters?

Hi Andre, thank you. We will consider this.

petervandijck:

I made a google moderator app for these questions, not sure if its useful but here it is:

http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=2d720

you can add requests and vote on them. 

 

Thanks for doing this. Seems like a great way to keep track of just how important various feature requests are to all of us. I added a few features of my own and voted on a number of items as well. 

This may have been covered, but I didn't have time to look through 252 messages...

 What about exporting notes, annotations, etc. to PDF as well as the wireframe? As it stands, my company doesn't have a server that I can use to post HTML to, so I'm not quite able to use Axure to its fullest just yet. And, I imagine there are often times when PDFs are really the easiest/best way a company can share documents.

 

Maybe I'm alone though:

Hi, Elusivone.

If you are looking for a document-based documentation, then I would suggest generating a Word specification. Similar to how you generate HTML prototypes, you can also generate a specification to Microsoft word. To learn more about specs, please visit our online training at http://www.axure.com/p101_6.aspx.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
Andrea

An example where this may be useful: When deploying a custom widget library for a large shared project, changes and updates to various custom widgets are likly (especially widgets that are created early on and are tied to the visual design of the project which also likly to change). Team memers need a relaiable way to identify the version of the custom widget they are using in their wireframes and compare it to the refreshed widget library. By creating an setting to 'read-only' a 'Widget Version' annotation field for the custom widget, it is possible to protect this information from being cleared unintentionally when the widget is using in the project file.

Another example is protecting certain annotation fields from further modification. This is useful in a phased project, when specifications captured and approved in an earlier phase need to be protected from unintentional change in later phases.

Thank you,

Ezra

 

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Disclaimer: I am not an employee of Axure nor am I compensated by the company in any way, shape or form. Rather, I have a vested interest In its continued development as an avid user of the application on a daily-basis.