Design Panel and String Variables
The biggest hog of screen space and effort tied to interactive mock-ups is the creation of multiple art boards to accommodate simple transformations of screen objects.
It would be great to be able to assign a variable tag to the values in the design panel and then be able to set the limits/increment values to them. This would also apply to strings.
Using my Clock example from another feature request:
I could assign the rotation variable to my hands set the limit to 10° then set another button to cycle that symbols rotation variable. Otherwise using the current art board system to illustrate that interaction I would have to create 36 art boards and copy and paste my hand symbol to each one select the symbol and increment the rotation value for each one.
In the case of the string variable:
- ( First of all it would be great if the string value had it's own field. It would make it so i could just select the text object from the layers panel and change the value without zooming in to click the text which can be hard with a lot of elements. But that's another feature request. )
- Tag the text string as a variable
- Enter the values and the order I want them to show (separated by commas, hyphens to indicate numerical range ?).
~ In my clock example:
> I create one text block for hours, enter the values of 1-12
> I create another text block for minutes, enter the values 00,10,20,30,40,50
Otherwise I'm creating an art board for each hour and for all 6 of the hour states. A total of 72 art board states. See the attached image for the Wire mess this puts you in.
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Scott C commented
You may ask: "Why I would need to specify to this level of detail?"
I respond with: Have you ever had to develop software with an overseas team where English isn't their first language? Where their culture doesn't match with yours, the product you're working on doesn't correlate at all to their lives and situations and you need to explain relatively common concepts on a regular basis?