Beta Stages (And how they relate UI requests)

I noticed the little blurb:

* The testing is to be done in several stages, with new features added at every stage.

I wanted to see if I could get some more information about the "stage" idea. Is work well underway with entirely new features for "Stage 2" OR is stage 2 more like a name given to a future set of bugfixes and revisions packaged nicely?

Moreover, what are the intended timelines between these "stages," are we talking days, weeks or months here?

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The reason I ask: There are a number of UI improvements mentioned in the past that I wanted to bring to light and "re-suggest" while in an early stage of development.

Here's a few examples I thought of while just tinkering around for a few minutes:

1) The search bar is a good start but it doesn't give partial results: In my honest opinion a more powerful system would include results that don't necessarily have an exact text match. I.e. if I search "til" I would like to receive entries that have the word "tile" AS WELL AS those that might be called "tiled". Granted, this might yield more false positives which might include something like an imaginary filter named: "lenTIL soup," but perhaps a optional search method could exclude results that do not start with the search terms.

2) No improvements in saving different maps in the UI. Saving the diffuse, normal alpha map (etc) still requires the tedious process of mousing through the menu to select the various maps (perhaps a Ctrl+n,d,a hotkey would be a good first step?) and save each individually. A batch process or "shopping cart" would be helpful (for doing multiple variants too) but a "save all maps as" option in the file menu would be ideal.

3) When "favoriting" a filter you can see a star when you are viewing the "favorites" category, but when you go to the filters original category it doesn't have a star?? Wouldn't it make more sense to NOT have the stars when viewing the favorites category (because they are all going to be starred anyhow) and SHOW the stars when in other categories. This would also facilitate the removal of the horribly annoying "You have added this to favorites!" or "This has already been added to favorites!" popup warning indicators. (Both of which at the very least should have a "don't remind me again" option.)

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Either way, congratulations again on the beta, it's absolutely fantastic so far!

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KGtheway2B wrote: I wanted to see if I could get some more information about the "stage" idea. Is work well underway with entirely new features for "Stage 2" OR is stage 2 more like a name given to a future set of bugfixes and revisions packaged nicely?

Each stage will be a batch of major new features. Some of the stages may include a single big feature.

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KGtheway2B wrote: what are the intended timelines between these "stages," are we talking days, weeks or months here?

We have no deadlines for stages. I'd like the interval between them to be one, maximum two months, but there are some features in the pipeline that may take longer than that.

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KGtheway2B wrote: There are a number of UI improvements mentioned in the past that I wanted to bring to light

Our strategy for 2.0 is "major features only". At the moment, we have exactly two upcoming UI enhancements planned for 2.0, and both are planned because they are necessary to support the new major features, so they have the lowest priority in the feature list.

take your time, vlad; bombers are going to keep us occupied for a while

Vlad the bug list only seems to show Apple Bugs.