active ORBX (v.4x) Central - A Critique

[GullWings]

 

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May I just wish to express my disappointment as to the "bring the ORBX Direct web site into Central" philosophy apparent in the design of the new ORBX Central portal application.

 

Comments/feedback...

1. the font is TOO big & bold, it takes up way too much screen real estate, and the design overall really lacks the elegance of FTX Central 3 interface (i.e. it's now a bit UGLY in fact)
2. the 'push' aspect of having to house all those pretty pictures locally for all products I am yet to decide to purchase (which by the way are better illustrated via a browser at ORBX Direct than this interface) is poor design
3. Having to re-enter my credit card details within the new ORBX Central, when these were already stored and re-verified upon each purchase anyway at ORBX Direct is poor design
4. By default it is setup to continue running in background (unless 'minimise to Task Bar upon Close' is UNCHECKED). What is the advantage of this, if any?
5. Despite following the required sequence so that the new ORBX Central would re-organise the product scenery structure from that which was present before, it additionally failed to pickup on the these previously saved settings...

• ORBX Scenery Insertion Point
• Vector Settings (selected custom Profile that had been saved and applied), and there may be others as I go through each installed Product's Control Panel configurations

I

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This 'update' reminded me of my experience with a similar approach in another vendor's software, namely the awful thing called the Flight1® Software Purchase Agent

 

My introductory thoughts on the new ORBX Central. I might have missed something extraordinary, but I fail to see how this is an advance in any significant fashion.

 

Please correct me on what I missed.

 

Operating system:  

Simulator:  

Screenshot:  

Issue:  

 

[Mitchell Williamson]

Thanks for your feedback! We'll be continuing to adjust and improve Orbx Central going forward, so feedback about your experience with Central helps guide us in the right direction.

 

21 hours ago, GullWings said:

the font is TOO big & bold, it takes up way too much screen real estate, and the design overall really lacks the elegance of FTX Central 3 interface (i.e. it's now a bit UGLY in fact)

 

This is one of the challenges when designing an application, as on some screens the text can appear small and on others it can appear large. We may add the ability to resize the text and other application components in a future update.

 

21 hours ago, GullWings said:

he 'push' aspect of having to house all those pretty pictures locally for all products I am yet to decide to purchase (which by the way are better illustrated via a browser at ORBX Direct than this interface) is poor design

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this, can you explain this further?

 

21 hours ago, GullWings said:

Having to re-enter my credit card details within the new ORBX Central, when these were already stored and re-verified upon each purchase anyway at ORBX Direct is poor design

 

The 'save card' feature on OrbxDirect is a feature of our transaction gateway Stripe and we do not manage it on our end. In Orbx Central, the card is still saved at Stripe but we obtain a token we can use to charge the card in the future. Once you've made a purchase on Orbx Central and saved your card, you'll be able to use it for all future purchases in Orbx Central.

 

21 hours ago, GullWings said:

By default it is setup to continue running in background (unless 'minimise to Task Bar upon Close' is UNCHECKED). What is the advantage of this, if any?

 

Downloads and installations will keep running in the background. Additionally, if a product update comes out while Central is running (and the simulator isn't running) Central can automatically begin and install the update.

 

21 hours ago, GullWings said:

Despite following the required sequence so that the new ORBX Central would re-organise the product scenery structure from that which was present before, it additionally failed to pickup on the these previously saved settings...

• ORBX Scenery Insertion Point
• Vector Settings (selected custom Profile that had been saved and applied), and there may be others as I go through each installed Product's Control Panel configurations

 

Orbx Central was built completely from the ground-up and does not use any of the FTX Central 3 settings. This is why insertion points do not carry across from FTX Central 3. It is a fair assumption that Orbx Central would carry across the insertion point settings though, and I've made a note internally to look into automatically importing the FTX Central 3 insertion point settings. 

 

As for Vector, its control panel is not a component of Orbx Central and instead is a separate standalone application. I'm not completely aware of how Vector saves and restores profiles.

 

As for the other product control panels, it should automatically recognize your current settings for most products.

[GullWings]

Mitchell et al,

 

I really do appreciate you prompt and exacting responses on my critique.

 

Having had some exposure to .NET programming, I can certainly appreciate your well made points on components of the interface not working with pre-existing code blocks (VECTOR) that work independently of the new ORBX Central wrapper. Fair enough. w.r.t. font size, perhaps you could use the Windows API to test for screen resolution/DPI to select the right font/size.

 

w.r.t. the point you queried me on, as simply stated, products NOT yet purchased are just better illustrated via a browser at ORBX Direct than via this interface. When I referred to the 'elegance' of FTX Central 3, these are the points I really liked...

1. nice wide D/L, Extract and Install progress bars that looked GOOD and gave feedback.

2. products as yet unpurchased stayed grey/dimmed as opposed to Not Installed/Installed ones that were nice and bright. Psychologically, for me, seeing the grey ones strongly told me how relatively few products I had at any given time compared to the whole ORBX inventory. That made me click on 'ORBX Direct' at top left and go see what I was missing out on! Then I would most of the time purchase it, if it suited my flying style, or just 'had to get it'

 

In ORBX Central, I think the owned products just do not 'stand out enough' in the whole list. But then sure, there is 'My Products', so I can't really complain, except BOTH conditions used to be all in the same place before. That's all and it's a simple point more to do with marketing strategy rather than interface design. Don't get me wrong, it's a good piece of software and it seems quite robust too. Certainly the Installer was a nice bit of work that took me back to good old custom 'Wizard' setup functionality so good work there for sure.

 

When it comes to the 'push' I spoke of, if you haven't seen that ALWFUL mess I mentioned, i.e. the Flight1® Purchase Agent, then I suggest you take a look.

 

In conclusion, think it diminishes and takes away from the job of the great look and feel of the ORBX Direct web site.

 

 Regards,

 

GW