G-Force is not very user friendly

[giddio]

First of all I would like to say that I like the visualizations that G-Force produce on my MCE 2005 system. But even though I like most of the visualizations, I prefer to display only a small subset of waveforms and colormaps when I'm throwing a party. Otherwise people will just sit and stare at the dancing patterns on my big screen TV. Yep, G-Force can have a hypnotic effect on people... And because of this I always use themes, I never ever show all the visualizations available. And this is when the problems start.

First of all. I've spent hours selecting the patterns and colors that I like and saved them to a theme. All themes were LOST in the latest upgrade! The upgrade wizard asked me if I wanted to OVERWRITE the existing files. I never thought that would also mean that it would delete all my themes, especially since the package does not come with a theme named the same as my last theme. Now I have to do it all over again.

Second, every time I start MCE 2005 I have to manually start the toolbar and select my theme from the theme combo box. My last selected theme is visible at start-up, but the settings are not loaded. I have to do this manually and it is very annoying.

Third, the same goes for the screen saver; it will not load my selected theme when it kicks in. I don't use the screen saver because of this.

Fourth, every time I make changes to my theme I have to save it under a new name. Come on, this is 2006, please provide a Save button. I think my last theme was named "Party 84" or something...

And last; even though I have disabled all images, videos and particles I still get the G-Force logo from time to time. I would like to have the product "commercial" free since I have already paid for it...

One final suggestion: please add a slider that will allow the users to set the intensity of the colormaps. I would be nice to be able to dim down the colors if you want to without having to create a whole new set of colormaps.

Just my 5 cents... Otherwise it's a great product

[andy55]

The upgrade wizard asked me if I wanted to OVERWRITE the existing files. I never thought that would also mean that it would delete all my themes, especially since the package does not come with a theme named the same as my last theme. Now I have to do it all over again.

This doesn't sound right--this definitely shouldn't be happening. This would only happen if you uninstalled G-Force. Perhaps you uninstalled it at some point?

Second, every time I start MCE 2005 I have to manually start the toolbar and select my theme from the theme combo box. My last selected theme is visible at start-up, but the settings are not loaded. I have to do this manually and it is very annoying.

Are you using G-Force 3.5.7? This was one of things that was fixed.

Third, the same goes for the screen saver; it will not load my selected theme when it kicks in. I don't use the screen saver because of this.

This is on the to-do list. Disclaimer: my to-do list is currently long. :^(

Fourth, every time I make changes to my theme I have to save it under a new name. Come on, this is 2006, please provide a Save button. I think my last theme was named "Party 84" or something...

Definitely a good point -- that's also on the to-do list, but I'll move it up to the next release.

And last; even though I have disabled all images, videos and particles I still get the G-Force logo from time to time. I would like to have the product "commercial" free since I have already paid for it...

Open up "G-Force/Scripts/Startup.txt" and delete the line: "Run( "logo.txt" );"

[giddio]

This doesn't sound right--this definitely shouldn't be happening. This would only happen if you uninstalled G-Force. Perhaps you uninstalled it at some point?

I am 100% sure that I did not uninstall. All I did was to select the overwrite option in the installation wizard. I upgraded from 3.5.6.

I tried to install it again, but it left my one test-theme alone this time though. I even tried to uninstall it, but my themes were still there. Very strange. All I know is that I did not delete nor uninstall the previous version.

I'll see what happens next time I upgrade. In any case, I'll be sure to backup my themes from now on... hehe

Are you using G-Force 3.5.7? This was one of things that was fixed.

Yes, G-Force displays 3.5.7 on the screen when it starts. It doesn't seem to be fixed. Maybe it's because the toolbar doesn't start when the visualization does? I have checked the option in the toolbar, but it just won't start unless I manually start the toolbar.

Also, if I manually start the toolbar before the media center the indicators on the toolbar are red. Is this normal or is a required service not running on my computer?

I use MCE 2005 with WMP 11 with all the latest patches and updates. Is version 11 fully supported?

[andy55]

Yes, G-Force displays 3.5.7 on the screen when it starts. It doesn't seem to be fixed. Maybe it's because the toolbar doesn't start when the visualization does? I have checked the option in the toolbar, but it just won't start unless I manually start the toolbar.

Also, if I manually start the toolbar before the media center the indicators on the toolbar are red. Is this normal or is a required service not running on my computer?

I use MCE 2005 with WMP 11 with all the latest patches and updates. Is version 11 fully supported?

Are you talking about the WaveShape, ColorMap, and FlowField that happen to be on when the toolbar starts or are you talking about the theme isn't set. Assuming it's the latter (which is what I thought you wer describing), that was defintely fixed in 3.5.7 (and I can't repro it here). Try to list an exact set of steps that demonstrates the problem. If I turn off half of the WS, CM, and FFs, save the theme, quit GF and quit the toolbar, then restart GF and then the toolbar, stepping thru the configs never causes one of the unchecked items to appear.

Andy

[giddio]

Are you talking about the WaveShape, ColorMap, and FlowField that happen to be on when the toolbar starts or are you talking about the theme isn't set.

I mean the indicators on the toolbar (the indicators are red and not green), not the entries in the waveshape lists etc. In fact, if I start the toolbar before MCE there are no entries in the waveshape, colormap or flowfield lists. But they appear as soon as I start the G-Force visualization in MCE. Then the indicators on the toolbar become green.

In order for me to load my theme I have to :
1) Start MCE and the visualization. The G-Force logo appears and the default theme is loaded and displayed. My theme is not used.
2) Manually start the toolbar. After a while G-Force will indeed use my theme

So it seems like the theme is correctly loaded when the toolbar starts, the problem is that the toolbar doesn't automatically start when I start the visualizations from MCE. I have checked the 'Start toolbar when G-Force starts' option in the Toolbar Preferences pane.

In the previous versions I had to manually select my theme from the Theme combo box in order for the theme to be loaded. This seems to be fixed now.

I've tried to uninstall and reinstall, but nothing helps.