Return the old "edit" button feature in the main menu

[Mechanizen]

Something that really throws me off in lazer is that to edit an already existing beatmap, you have to do Play>Solo>Select a beatmap>Right Click>Edit. Here you can visually see how tedious it is compared to stable where you just do Edit>Double click on beatmap and you are already in the editor.

That's really not smooth at all and it could even induce people into thinking that you cannot edit already existing beatmaps.
Like when i click on Edit, there is no option to edit an already existing beatmap because it is only available in Play>Solo. There is something sementically wrong there, if there is an Edit tab in the main then why do I have to go through Play>Solo to access that editor feature?

Also even if we got used to go through Play>Solo, we would still have to do the Right Click>Edit thing which in my opinion is quite a downgrade in terms of user experience compared to just double clicking.

So the request here is to return the "old edit button" on the main menu. Maybe add a tab in the Edit menu labeled "Edit a beatmap" and rename the already existing tab (currently named "beatmap editor") to "create a new beatmap" (which is essentially what it is).

For personnal context, as a mapper, not being able to just go from the main menu to Edit then just browse beatmaps and open some of them in the editor with double click makes me feel homeless. In stable you clearly have "play" and "edit", as if you had the "visitor entrance" and the "artist entrance" in a club. As a mapper, not having my "entrance" in Lazer feels very off.

[peppy]

We intend to implement a similar editor selection interface but I didn't want to use the main song select view for this because it feels weird.

[murryguy]

O.K.?

[joppyloppy]

I would also appreciate the 'Edit' button on the main menu sending me to a 'list of editable beatmaps', rather than sending me directly to the 'setup' screen for a new, non-existing beatmap.

[peppy]

@vatei this might be an area you can help with design proposal to get things moving.

a screen when arriving to the editor from the main menu that lets you see recently edited beatmaps, maps created by you and a button to start fresh.

[vatei]

Okay so a few points @tadatomix @Mechanizen

• Did you guys take a look at the "all beatmaps" tab? Might address the idea about having a place to see all edited beatmaps, they are even organized by collection.
• Cards are already split into single diff here. You can see in my screenshots that there is only one difficulty in the card
• Maybe there is another way to do it, but right now, if you drag and drop a song or use a template, it will always use the previously selected ruleset as the default beatmap. Like I said before, I had no intent to segregate diffs from other rulesets away, you can even see I added the ruleset icon inside the beatmap card. I should have put more examples but yeah.
• Last updated is meant to be last discussed/modded. Bad wording on my part, sorry about that, open to suggestions
• I like the proposed design, feels closer to the editor, I wanted to go more in line with v2 as the game is being updated with v2 designs. I'll try using the song select designs for the cards, but as you saw that forces you to have a vertical layout. I also updated by accident the cards designs (then went back to osu web's), maybe you would like them more?
  

[tadatomix]

I've made my concept with recent posts, by the way

[tadatomix]

@vatei

• "All maps" is quite better, yet so, my concern with cards is lack of the free space, if you get what do I mean. As you can see, on my screenshot I can have 8 maps, when you home screen fits only 3 maps. The problem with this is that you need to spam many times LMB to edit a map, you've had week ago, if you opened 3+ maps after that one. At this moment, even going to song select and RMBing at the diff of your preference, to edit, is less convoluted.
• Splitting cards by a single diff is trying to kill 2 birds with a single stone, yet you have -5 dioptries. I'm sorry, but that just making both things quite worse. Card's purpose was to group all of the maps inside the mapset in a single place. Making a single difficulty as a card is strange, for me
• This one, seems like, was addressed to Mechanizen, so I can't give a strong opinion here
• I gave a suggestion, to have a listing of recent mods, like I made on the screenshot on the post above
• Thank you for giving your opinion on my design. These cards looking a bit better, my only suggestion is invert the colors, so I think make the background in color of the star rate is better than having a small colored star rate pill

And a small mod for your design. As long as .wav really supported by lazer as the audio format, it's a raw audiofile that means that an average 3 minute song will be 50 megabytes. I don't think you should encourage people to use wavs for these cases, since .ogg pretty does it's work at giving the best possible audio quality for it's lossy 192kbps

[vatei]

I'll try something with the vertical layout.
Noted for .wav
Should I reuse the greenish design or keep going with what I have?

[tadatomix]

Should I reuse the greenish design or keep going with what I have?

If you want to. I used osu!editor setup screen palette, since I think it's more logical, in case with a screen, exclusively for osu!editor

[Mechanizen]

Since @vatei is exploring this issue with the idea of a "dashboard interface", I will write here some thoughts about it in the light of my initial post. This isn't really a criticism of the ongoing development, more like a general reflection on the direction we are taking.

My initial post stated:

Something that really throws me off in lazer is that to edit an already existing beatmap, you have to do **Play>Solo>Select a beatmap>Right Click>Edit**. Here you can visually see how tedious it is compared to stable where you just do **Edit>Double click on beatmap** and you are already in the editor.

My concern was about the accessibility of the editor in lazer and the fact that not having the old "Edit Beatmap" button was forcing the mapper to do more clicks to edit a beatmap.

The idea of implementing a "dashboard interface" when clicking on Editor in the main menu can be a good idea but there are high risks that it does not address the initial issue which was fast accessibility to the editor. In fact, adding an intermediate menu between the song selection carroussel and the main menu is only adding more clicks from the main menu to the editor.

To provide fast access to the editor, the idea of adding "recently edited beatmaps" sections to the dashboard is good. But in order to provide at least a similar experience as the legacy way of navigating to the editor, the "recently edited beatmaps" feature should:

1. Display enough maps to allow the mapper to reach far enough in their editor history
2. Be compact enough to ease the visual search of items
3. Necessitate minimal menuing to find a beatmap (no additionnal clicks to visually find an item, no extensive scrolling)

Having a proper fast access feature is essential but I don't think it will be enough to gain adhesion from the community. The current way of accessing the editor in lazer Play>Solo>Select a beatmap>Right Click>Edit is longer than the stable one but it's not too bad. People could get used to it even though it takes a bit more time to get to the editor.

If our dashboard is only about providing an history of recently edited beatmaps, I do not think it will be enough of a justification for mappers to start using it. This dashboard has to bring more value that just a seemingly "quick access". By clicking Editor in the main menu, the mapper should be able to access features that are not already easily accessible when clicking on the Song Selection button in the main menu.

Let alone, there are risks that the mapper cannot find what they are searching for on the dashboard. As the "recently edited beatmaps" feature only displays a small set of beatmaps, it is possible that what the mapper is searching for will not be displayed. In this case they will have to navigate back to the main menu and into song selection to find what they want, inducing frustration. If this happens too often, the users will simply stop using the dashboard and go to song select everytime.

This is why I proposed to add the "Go to song selection" button at the bottom right. This way the user has a panic escape button when they cannot find what they want, minimizing the frustration.

To add value to the dashboard, we should implement features that are missing from stable:

Display all maps created by the player

Currently in stable, all maps are mixed together in the carroussel and it is difficult to keep track of all the maps that were created by the mapper. To find them you have multiple options like searching for your name or sorting beatmaps by mapper. Although this way of researching for your own maps is not satisfactory:

• if your name or part of your name appears in the title of a song or in the title of a difficulty, irrelevant results will be displayed
• if the map you are searching for in a GD and the difficulty name does not contain your username, it will not be found

Currently, in stable or lazer, there is no satisfying way of displaying all "ongoing projects" as everything is mixed together with other maps in the song selection carroussel.

The spirit of the editor dashboard should be to provide a clear view of all medias (maps, sets, GDs, audio files, ...) belonging to the mapper.

Provide space for future editor features

Alongside finding a beatmap, the dashboard should also make space for additionnal features related to mapping. This way, the dashboard is not just an alternative version of the song selection menu.

Some features going in that direction have already been proposed and implemented:

• News feed to track activity on the mapper's submitted beatmaps
• Access to featured artist audios and templates

I haven't kept up with Lazer in a long time but I think there were also plans to introduce features like "saving patterns" / "saving map snippets". The dashboard should also have as a duty to host these in a library tab.

The dashboard could also provide a visual interface to see manage assets in a library fashion : audio effects for hitsounding, visual effects and sprites for storyboarding, backgrounds, unmapped mp3s, ...

I saw that there is also development in editor customization with custom snapping grids. The dashboard should also allow the mapper to manage its setting, make and manage custom grids.

The dashboard could also allow to make and manage difficulty presets for the user to quickly setup new beatmaps:

• Name the presets
• Create difficulty presets (HP, AR, CS, ...)
• Colors presets
• Grid presets
• Hitsound presets

In short

In essence, in order for the dashboard to be useful and accepted, it should provide more than just a quick access to beatmaps feature.

The fast access to "recently edited beatmaps should":

1. Display enough maps to allow the mapper to reach far enough in their editor history
2. Be compact enough to ease the visual search of items
3. Necessitate minimal menuing to find a beatmap (no additionnal clicks to visually find an item, no extensive scrolling)
4. Display only the player's unranked maps

The dashboard should provide features that are not accessible / not easily accessible in the song selection menu related to mapping specifically:

1. Notification feed for submitted maps
2. Easy access to featured artist templates and mp3
3. Other features related to asset management
4. Leftover space for future developments

The dashboard should eventually turn into an "editor homepage" and not just be a song selection V2.