So after a few months of use and about 20 or so prototypes, I'm come up with the following list of suggestions for Axure.  I know some of them maybe be reaching a bit, but they're just suggestions.  I've sorted them in priority (at least to me) from top to bottom.

• Add “OnClick” interaction: Disable/Enable Widget (like Droplist or Checkbox).  Allows much simpler interaction than that of using Dynamic Panels to enable/disable widgets.
  
  
• Allow Folders (aka “Directories”) in the Sitemap so it follows normal server directory layout; allowing these directories to be implemented exactly as specified in the prototype
  
  
• Allow onMouseOver/onMouseOut cursor change/selections
  
  
• Add “Animations” and “moveable” pop-ups on page for true DHTML and AJAX mock-ups
  
  
• Allow “onClick” JavaScript alerts, confirms, etc, with customizable text and behavior:
  onClick "if check state of" then "show alert/confirm"
  
  I imagine specifiying the behavior of buttons on the alert could be a problem here.
  
  
• Allow background color transparency/opacity and “two color” fading for button fill
  
  
• Allow to separately specify a page’s HTML Title vs. the actual page “name” in the Sitemap
  
  
• BUG: When uploading a prototype to the web, the “X” button on the specification pop-ups does not appear.

I noted the last point in the recent thread about uploading prototypes to the web.

Much thanks,
Brian

Hi Brian,

Thanks for these. For the last one with the "X" button missing... we aren't seeing this same issue. Can you verify that the CloseButton.gif file is in the Resources folder of the prototype on the web server?

I would love to be able to assign Events to grouped items.  e.g. I frequently import plain button images, overlay text in Axure and then group them for easier movement...

• You can't put Events on a group at all, so I have to ungroup after aligning
• If I put the event on the button the text actually concels the clickable area
• If I put the event on both the button and text I'm bloating the specification with redundancy
  

one of these requests really strikes me...

If you had the option to make an object, ideally a dynamic panel, "moveable" by the user within the browser window or even an actual separate popup... There would be so much you could do and simulate!

I'm always creating either actual IE popups, (which look ugly), or phony DHTML looking popups by use of dynamic panels that are stagnant but people enivitably always try to move around.

victor:

Can you verify that the CloseButton.gif file is in the Resources folder of the prototype on the web server?

Hi Victor,

Yes, the "CloseButton.gif" is in the Resources folder.  And I've found the problem; it's in your CSS:

div.annwindowclose
{
 font-size: 0px;
 position: absolute;
 width: 13px;
 height: 13px;
 cursor: pointer;
 background-image: url(../Resources/closebutton.gif);
 background-repeat: no-repeat;
}

The actual file name is "CloseButton.gif", not "closebutton.gif"; i.e., CSS is case sensitive.  I changed the image's file name in the Resources folder, and the button started appearing just fine. You could alternatively change the CSS to "url(../Resources/CloseButton.gif);", but the file name is easier.

Thanks!
Brian

ebasford:

I would love to be able to assign Events to grouped items.  e.g. I frequently import plain button images, overlay text in Axure and then group them for easier movement...

• You can't put Events on a group at all, so I have to ungroup after aligning
• If I put the event on the button the text actually concels the clickable area
• If I put the event on both the button and text I'm bloating the specification with redundancy
  

One thing you can do in the meantime is put an image map region over the group and add the interaction to the image map.

fighthefire:

one of these requests really strikes me...

If you had the option to make an object, ideally a dynamic panel, "moveable" by the user within the browser window or even an actual separate popup... There would be so much you could do and simulate!

We are adding the ability to move dynamic panels through an interaction in the next release (like clcking this button moves the panel 20 pixels down), but not yet from a "dragging" event. Drag and drop is something we are looking into. Thanks... it does make a lot of sense for dhtml popups.

briwri:

The actual file name is "CloseButton.gif", not "closebutton.gif"; i.e., CSS is case sensitive.  I changed the image's file name in the Resources folder, and the button started appearing just fine. You could alternatively change the CSS to "url(../Resources/CloseButton.gif);", but the file name is easier.

Excellent... Thank you. We'll fix this in the next release.

BTW... there is a Resources folder a few folders deep in the install directory of Axure RP. If you make your change there, it will be correct the next time you generate a prototype.

Hi,

Axure is a great product. I would find it hard to live without it, but I want to pile on with a few more suggestions. Admittedly most of these are small issues but they've come up for me several times.

- In the Sitemap area, I want to just have a single click open the page I've selected. Numerous times I've duplicated a page and ended up editing the original page rather than the duplicate. It seems that a single click behavior would be more consistent with Windows Explorer (if you click on a folder within the folders panel area, the area on the right immediately updates to show you the contents of the folder you've selected) and Photoshop (whatever layer is selected in the layers palette is the layer you're actually editing).

- It would be nice to have a stable of clipart like arrows and dingbats as objects that I can just throw into a page design. As it is, if I want anything more than buttons or UI widgets, I have to jump over to another application to create it. 

- If a given page hasn't been changed, it would be nice if the html generator didn't create completely new files every time it runs because my ftp client thinks every file needs updating (when actually only a few pages have changed).

Thanks for listening,

Dave M.

I'd like to add one suggestion too:

I often need to generate my prototypes to different folders. To save time it would be nice to be able to save "favorite" locations instead of having to browse to them every time.

 Chees,

 Björn

 

Thanks Dave. These all make a lot of sense.

The issue with single selection vs. double click seems to comes up fairly frequently. I'm not convinced yet that single click is the answer because (at least for now) the masters and pages are in separate trees. Also, the pages take longer to load than a folder in Windows Explorer and that lag while organizing your sitemap could be frustrating. Maybe a sync between the sitemap and wireframe editor like a scroll to and select of the page or master in their respective panes when the editor gets focus?

bsimonson:

I often need to generate my prototypes to different folders. To save time it would be nice to be able to save "favorite" locations instead of having to browse to them every time.

Thanks Björn. This could also be useful if you are sharing a file with someone and each person needs to generate to a different folder.

Victor,

If it helps... One day my close buttons for the popup annotation windows stopped appearing.  I remembered this post, looked in my Resources folder, and sure enough... the filename had changed to "CloseButton.gif".  I renamed it to all lowercase and it works fine now.

Just thought I'd pass on that since this always used to work for me, for a long time... there must be some bug that actually renames that particular file to the upper case.

Jumping into the Suggestions conversation...

It would be nice to have more Flow Widgets that support Business Process Modeling Notation.

Most of the notation can be done with what is there now but swim lanes are a pain in the neck to draw and it might be nice to have a line type that indicates the default path in a flow - a line with a diagonal slash through it.