I really had hoped the app would be called "interactive block diagrams".
Must admit I am not that big a fan of such diagrams, and your app just might explain why: apparently they just don't tell you that much, hence the need for more attached information that you saw. Not sure if your solution really alleviates the problem. I might prefer to see the information without having to click around.
Ie if I see a larger text with captions for the individual parts, it might be easier for me to zone in on the parts that interest me.
There should be some sort of unified modeling language for this sort of task...
yes, I think there's a need for this type of diagram. Reminds me of LabView from many years ago.
some quick feedback:
- Could do with some sort of feedback to indicate what can be clicked on and what can't. I jumped in (to the demo) early without reading your instructions, and had to click on everything to see what responded and what didn't. It looks like brown boxes with square corners are clickable. Completely missed the double click option.
- The scrolly bit on the dialog that pops up is horrible :) (Unresponsive, hard to hit, doesn't really look like a scrollbar etc)
- There's a bit of naming inconsistency going on between being in the top view, and in a sub view. From the top view, it looks like there's 3 main processes; File System on the left, Process Scheduler in the centre and Network on the right. When I enter Network, I'd expect to see the box it connects to called Process Scheduler, but instead I get Virtual File System. Where's the process Scheduler gone? Same with the sub view on the left.
- Interaction is also inconsistent. From the top view I double click a box to enter it, but the same action doesn't work on boxes within that view; instead I need to click Back (which I didn't notice for some time). When I'm looking at the Network Interface view, it looks like the Virtual File System is the same type of widget, but it isn't
- Oh, and you might want to get rid of the generic Rails 404 page :)