We’re getting close to finalizing the new UI design for Sandcastle as part of our upgrade to Sandcastle. We’re looking for feedback on the new layout and flow.
Couple questions to guide your thinking:
Overall do you like the new design?
Is there anything specific that caught your attention?
Do you feel there are any features missing or that you can’t find?
How do you feel about the Gallery in the Left panel covering the code?
The current intention is to have the gallery open by default but have an easy, one-click, way to start an empty sandcastle
How do you feel about the new navigation?
What are the top 3 reasons for using the Cesium Sandcastle in your current workflow?
Wanting to check out multiple examples in quick succession might be annoying if the Gallery is hidden by the code window. Others may disagree with this use-case.
My other main use-cases are noted by David above:
looking for a reference of how to build something
get a prototype running
communicate a Cesium feature/issue to the team or on the forums.
Really great redesign indeed! Nice dark mode, focus on content, sharing is easy to access, category filter also is useful.
A few questions:
Is the code-view expandable via slider? Sometimes, long line breaks or word-wrap can make the code harder to read in small width editor views.
A frequent use from my side is that I often find myself using browser search via Ctrl+F into the existing sandcastle demos when looking for code snippets, to search by sandcastle title/name and open the one I’m looking for. Seems like the search box would also search into the code samples? Is the gallery view searchable ?
Also, great to see sharing more prominent, I use both deep-link sharing as well as url-param code payload.
Finally, regarding the current code editor, have you made the switch to a code-server vscode editor so most devs keep their shortcuts in mind? For example, Codesandbox made that change last year
Yes, the width of panels will be adjustable like it is now. The console height will also be adjustable under the viewer.
A frequent use from my side is that I often find myself using browser search via Ctrl+F into the existing sandcastle demos when looking for code snippets… Is the gallery view searchable?
Yes, the gallery will be searchable, both on the titles and the code in them. It should also still be filterable by tag/category. We’re still exploring this a little bit but we will strive to make sure the builtin examples are easy to find.
Also, great to see sharing more prominent, I use both deep-link sharing as well as url-param code payload
We’ve been looking at ways to improve the sharing experience. It’s still a bit of an open question what we may do to improve it. The current share links and the named links for gallery demos will still work. Any ideas on alternatives you’d want are welcome. Feel free to add them to this thread which is more targeted at functionality.
Finally, regarding the current code editor, have you made the switch to a code-server vscode editor so most devs keep their shortcuts in mind?
Yes, we have already swapped over to Monaco which is the editor VSCode uses. I can personally say having used it a bunch while developing that it’s so soo much nicer than the old editor. Please look forward to it
