
Easily Create D3 Examples - kilbuz
http://blockbuilder.org/
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chrisacree
The video takes up most of the screen and can't be scrolled/closed. I can only
see two lines of the coding block.

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ditdatdave
The video disappears when you start editing code.

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mkoryak
which I never did because I don't like to use an editor where you can only see
3 lines of code.

A close button would go a long way here.

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enjalot
Creator of the project here, I was pleasantly surprised to find this on the
front page! I'm glad people are finding the tool, it's been useful to many
people I know.

I want to make it useful to more people, so please join us on chat:
[https://gitter.im/enjalot/building-
blocks](https://gitter.im/enjalot/building-blocks)

~~~
4wrbr
This is what your site looks like to me:

[https://www.jottit.com/4wrbr](https://www.jottit.com/4wrbr)

Now, what am I supposed to do with this again?

You have somehow made the scroll bar on the right useless - it only appears to
scroll one line at the bottom.

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ebrewste
I think it was developed on a 1200 or 1440 px tall screen. You can zoom out
(ctrl -) to make the video / plotting window smaller. It's a pretty bad UI
mistake, but the fix is easy, too.

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ebrewste
Or click on the yin-yang symbol in the upper right to go into side by side
mode. Not sure how yin-yang is side by side...

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RobinL
[http://tributary.io/](http://tributary.io/) has been around for ages and
works pretty well....

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enjalot
thanks! I'm shifting my focus to blockbuilder.org because it's compatible with
bl.ocks.org, the defacto standard for sharing d3 related code examples. I've
applied a lot of my learnings from tributary to this new project, and hope it
will exceed tributary's most advanced features eventually!

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RobinL
Well - that gives me the opportunity to say thank you for your work! It's
helped me on numerous occasions to test things out, and to demonstrate
concepts to others.

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jordache
was this shared to illustrate an example of bad UI?

I'm like the target audience for this.. highly movtivated to learn D3..
HOwever this UX doesn't even make my want to click play on the video.

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enjalot
Hi, I'm the creator of this. Would you mind giving me some more detailed
feedback at enjalot@gmail.com? I'm actively working on making the first run
experience better. I consider it "functionally complete" for my Kickstarter
audience, who weren't coming at it from a blank slate. Now I need to make it
easy for people to adopt who are new to the tool, and even new to d3!

One of the design principles I'm wrestling with is that I want the home page
to be where you go to create a new block, minimize the friction for all users.
The problem is that most people expect a home page to tell them what a project
is about. My existing solution is clearly failing to strike the balance, so
I'd like to find out how to do that.

thanks!

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jordache
Hi, I'm definitely in the blank slate group. Not to D3, but the blockbuilder
product. The main suggestion is for the UI to work across a sweet spot of
screen resolutions. The default top/bottom layout on my 13" MBA shows only 8
lines of source code. In the side/side view, the width of the source code
element allows very few characters before wrapping starts.

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an_ko
Neat, but this adds very little to my existing workflow. bl.ocks.org is just a
frontend to gist.github.com, so one can create a gist (working in your
preferred $EDITOR and $BROWSER), then changing the appropriate part of the URI
when sharing with others.

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enjalot
Yeah, the purpose of this tool is to cut out the command line, which is a sin
to many advanced developers but a blessing for many beginners. A big part of
my motivation is to be able to teach people d3 without having to teach them
about the entirety of the internet, client-server model, web servers. Just let
them start playing with d3, see the fun stuff for themselves and then be
motivated to learn all the other things once they're hooked.

I do hope it is a useful tool for many advanced developers who want to quickly
put an idea out there with minimal friction. I know my personal blocks output
has sky rocketed since I've launched it, and I'm no stranger to the command
line.

