I'm a new bee to web design - now that is said. Never the less, there is a couple of things I noticed during my sessions with beta spinner.
Things that could be lack of my knowledge to this program (3 days for a BETA program ain't much to help us all!!) or simply bugs in this beta version:

1. When using the zoom function the rulers doesn't follow the zoom values. So when you add a new guide line in zoom mode it appears in an unintended place.

2. It ort to be possible to justify/stretch the values inside the ruler bars to make it easier to measure positions (as e.g. in Adobes PageMaker)

3. Formatted text hangs to “disappear” in the working area – what about a refresh function?

4. Text and objects have a problem aligning to horizontal guide lines.

5. “Ghost coordinates” for positioning of objects are to small and therefore hard to see.

6. The Undo function is insufficient or doesn’t work properly.

7. It should be possible, right away, to create outlines on only 2 sides of a rectangle object in order to simulate a shadow underneath an object (e.g. a picture). As it is now, it seams that the only way to do this is to create another black rectangle and put it underneath the first object.
- A rather bulky way to come around this, when in fact, you already have some of this function present.

8. All though it’s a relatively easy program to interact with, you really have to improve help functions inside dialog boxes in a more direct way – e.g. with mouse over button text as they do in other new programs.
In that way you would encourage people to learn and try things out right away – instead of: “well never mind – I look into that tomorrow” and several days later you have them in your mailbox asking for support.

Despite my experience with these flaws and bugs, I think it’s a very powerful program witch I intend to purchase.
However I think that the layout needs a bit of a lift up to make it more delicate and up to date according to new XP and Mac standards (Remember you are dealing with designers!!).

Best regards, and thank you for this opportunity to learn this design tool in an easy way.

Morten Seedorff, Denmark



[This message was edited by Manne on February 13, 2003 at 09:22 PM.]

[This message was edited by Manne on February 13, 2003 at 10:06 PM.]

Hello Morten,

Thanks for the great feedback. I am not sure if most of your comments fall under Bug Reports or Feature Requests...

Point 1: we see what you mean and will look into it.

Point 2: not sure what you mean, could you elaborate please.

Point 3: again, not sure what you mean. Could you give us an example?

Point 4: We have not had problems with this. Could you give us an example of this also please?

Point 5: OK, we'll look into this.

Point 6: The undo function is based on what was being done at the time. Some process are easier to undo than others. However, we plan on revisiting this for a future release.

Point 7: Valid observation, and noted.

Point 8: Another valid observation.

We are gearing up for the release of Spinner V2, which means we are concerned at this time with tracking down any outstanding bugs. After Spinner V2 is released we will turn our attention to Engine V2. Once those products are out the door we will take your, and other customers' feedback into consideration for the next release.

Again, thanks for the feedback.


- Derry

Hello Dery

I've made some screenshots witch hopefully explains what I mean by points 1,2,3.
I mailed them to
info@VirtualMechanics.com

Regards, Morten

Hi Manne,

We got your screen shots - your points are well taken and we'll look into them. Thanks.

With the disappearing text, it may be that the bounding box around the text has become too small - try stretching it a bit to see if it reapers.


- Derry