I bought this program some time ago. I did ‘play’ with it a little bit when I bought it, but recently I’ve really started to put it through its paces. I didn’t realize just how nicely the program worked, or how easy it was to get it to do its job! My hat is off to you for the fine job you’ve done creating a program that does well what it is intended to do, without making users climb a mountainous learning curve and offering it for a price that doesn’t affect blood pressure. That being said, I have a few tweaks that might be useful. I’m not a programmer at all, so some of the things I suggest here may be impractical or even impossible. Just the same, I hope the suggestions are helpful:
1. Create a button that clears the work area of all images and dots. It would be the same thing as creating a new project under the “File” menu but wouldn’t force the use of the wizard.
2. Allow selection of multiple project sequences (via ctrl-click and shift-click) which would allow for these other suggestions:
• Allow for saving individual sequences in another project including non-sequential ones.
• Allow for playing groups of sequences: I’d like to play sequences 1, 2 and 4 of a 5- sequence project. I know that I can do this now; I’d just like to do it without producing another project.
• How ‘bout being able to copy, cut and paste the dots?
• Allow deletion of multiple sequences.
• Allow entire sequence to be dragged up and down the Sequence List.
3. Also for the Sequence List:
• Have the buttons on the Sequence List pointing ‘up’ and ‘down’ rather than left (<) and right (>).
• Allow the list to “collapse” by either clicking a button or double clicking the title bar.
• Supply a button that moves selected sequences to the top or bottom.
4. Allow saving or exporting projects to prior versions (from ver.3 to ver.2) – This would allow us to share .fmp files with friends and colleagues who haven’t upgraded yet.
5. Allow positioning/movement of dots with the “Arrow” keys (also allow user to control the form of measurement [pixels, millimeters, inches, points/picas]) and the distance of dot movement [3 pixels; .5 mm; .01 inches; .001 points]. You might include ctrl, shift and alt button options that would allow varying dot travel. Example: Let’s say I configured keyboard dot movement to be measured in pixels and to be moved 1 pixel for each key stroke. If I had the ‘shift’ key depressed, the dot might travel 10 pixels, if I depressed the ‘ctrl’ key, the dot would travel 1/2 of a pixel and if the ‘Alt’ key were depressed while hitting the ‘right arrow’ key, the dot might be moved 45° (1 pixel down and 1 to the right [South East direction]). Similarly, if the ‘Shift’ and ‘Alt’ keys were depressed while hitting the ‘right arrow’ key, the dot would be moved 10 pixels right and 10 pixels down.
6. Multiple undo’s would be helpful
7. Do you think there is a way we could share projects with each other via the forum? This way, we could demonstrate how we approach certain problems; show each other tricks we may learn or devise; even demonstrate to those new to the program how to tackle particular problems.
