Realized what the iPadOS version really needs

iOS App
#1

In most regards, this is quite well designed and implemented as an iOS app – good and clear appearance everywhere, just as in Windows, abilities you’d need prepared and pretty readily findable, plus some real thinking evident in how information can connect (or not connect) according to what will be helpful.

The nagging thing, I realized, is that you can’t make visible as much of a picture as you’d like.

Then I think I realized, the display is hard-scaled for iPhones, not even an 11 inch iPad…so everything is too large, and view actually is as limited as it felt.

You can fix this very easily, by providing a Scale/Magnify/Zoom ability, just like the Windows version has. This should operate in iThing fashion, via two-finger pinch/unpinch, and then all will be very much as expected, and smooth.

Will be very much appreciated, and make Aeon on iPad much better for visualizing any story, whether a novel as I’m interested in, or a commercial project plan as I see you’ve opened as a venture…

Thanks, and hope the thought helps…

#2

On iOS, the size of the overall display is linked to the settings of the device. The Text Size setting on your device (under Display & Brightness) determines this, so if you want to see more on the device, you can set this to be smaller.
The pinch gesture can be used to zoom in/out on timeline view (but this is not an optical zoom, but one that zooms the timeline axis scale).

#3

Hi Jess,

  • ok, yes, resizing text in Settings does affect Aeon. But…
  • only the smallest text size begins to be reasonable for Aeon on iPad
  • ideally one could go quite a bit smaller, as this is really a median value
  • most important, who wants to squeeze up every other app on an iPad so Aeon can be reasonable??
  • another consideration would be those of us more ‘experienced’, who prefer one step up already for text size in general on a standard 11in iPad alone.

You’ve got a great deal of welcome configurability for data labels and types. It seems we need you to think through in the same careful way about data presentation, no?

  • one simple way I’ve seen this handled is to have a own settings menu for a set of relative font sizes
  • I understand about the horizontal pinch for the timeline, but this doesn’t stand in the way of vertical pinch for font size, does it?
  • this natural touch scaling iPads would feel as good if it were acting on font size, as you seem to think first to implement, again a simple approach
  • there’s another related problem would you’d like to remedy, which is that at present there are large fixed spaces allocated for row labels, like the Tracks in Subway View.
  • a better solution would feel to be adaptive width for such labels on any screen, of course with minimum and maximum widths to keep things sensible, and possibly ways of handling overage like local font resizing to avoid the problems of growing with wraps.

I think you can see all of what I’m trying to get at is visibility for enough related data that Aeon becomes as effective as it really can be in visualizing stories – or projects etc. equally to remember you apparent market probes. I in fact found Aeon valuable enough purchase and invest time in it, beta included, because of that use having been added.

Jess, I hope these comments get to the team and @matt so as to let them think about it, as the issues feel to go past something addressable by support-suggested adjustments.

When we all think together, we get somewhere, places good to find; and it’s the fresh way too, feels… :slight_smile:

Regards,
Clive

p.s. I would change the tile if could – it was just a little enthusiastic of a moment of realizing why the iPad version felt frustrating. So really we’re talking about bringing it into the same visual experience that the laptop has, and something like that should have been the title, mea culpa :slight_smile:

#4

I‘m currently brainstorming on iPad, which I usually like most within the Mindmap view. But I have the same problem: The visible part of the mindmap is so small, you really don’t know where you are on the canvas.
Also, the workflow is very clumsy. In order to move objects I need to be in edit mode. But then I can’t enter anything in the inspector. Not even the name. Also, if I didn’t miss something, I can’t create new items by double tapping. I always have to go via „+“ which will put the item in the middle. So I have to constantly enter edit mode in order to move it to its destination. But then I have to constantly leave edit mode in order to enter information in the inspector.
I love the Mindmap on the desktop, but unfortunately it is pretty frustrating on the iPad.

#5

Thanks for both of these comments about the iPad design. We are a small team here, so do have daily discussions with each other and I have mentioned to Matt about the points you have raised. There are plans in the near future to do a UI/UX review, so I will link to this post so that your points can be discussed during that review.

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#6

Thanks, Jess – that sounds good.

#7

And would add, in the list, I hit the idea of vertical pinch/unpinch again, but I’m not sure that’s either practical or possible when there’s already the very useful horizontal pitch.

Something to work out, then, and some variation on an own font size menu may be the needed alternative. East access of such would be nice, then…possibly a held-down tap on the screen would bring up the menu at that point?

There are more freedoms than may seen, and a careful experience with the Concepts drawing app might well show farther than Aeon should go, but possibly also be enlightening? I don’t think we want two-hand operation as it’s demanding unless you get very practiced with it, but they do make good use of hold-down making things happen, as their select bubble does. Hope this suggestion doesn’t make things complicated - would then just ignore it :slight_smile:

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#8

I’ve also been using the iPad version and I noticed that the app doesn’t have a lot of support for using a keyboard and mouse compared to when I am using it on the Mac/Windows version.

I won’t repeat what has been said in this thread but I have noticed that on the Desktop right-clicking opens up a menu to quickly perform actions but that is lacking on the iPad. I can also use the shortcut to create children events on the desktop but on the iPad, I can’t seem to do that even with a keyboard and mouse.

I think in general, if a keyboard and mouse is being used, the app should function similar to its MacOS counterpart.

Added (7/24/2022)
I noticed the label column, not being frozen on iPadOS but it is on desktop. When using the app on a larger iPad, it really feels like I am using an enlarged iPhone app and it’s really not so optimized for someone who is using a keyboard and mouse with their iPad

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#9

Thanks for your comments on this. The balance between getting the right functionality for users between iPhone, iPad and Desktop is something we are currently looking at, so feedback is helpful.

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