PCM Hammer Suite development

[NSFW]

I'll admit that I didn't think very hard before putting it there.

On second thought... this new thing really belongs under the File menu.

[Gampy]

Not in my opinion, it does belong on the Tools menu, and everything that is currently there belongs on an Operations or something menu ...

It is a Tool.

[Tazzi]

Personally I put anything that communicates to the ECU under the heading of Actions.
Anything related to file manipulation is under File.

[Gampy]

Ok ... On second thought.

It is a tool for a file, so I guess it wouldn't be so wrong on the file menu after all ...

IMO,
1. Loose all the buttons ... Put all the actions on an Operations (or Actions) menu!
2. Leave the Tools menu for tools, things like a keybuster or a repair kernel, etc... etc...
3. Add a VCI menu with Select and Reset menus for the device ...
4. Add a Help menu, with Help, Credits and About menus.
. . Add a Upgrade button on the About form.

[antus]

I like the sound of that Gampy, thats what I would expect from a tool like this. Maybe VCI could be called something else though, as I think its not clear what a VCI is. Is a particular Vehical Communication Interface? All of them? Maybe interface, or device, or maybe that is also a tool.

[Gampy]

Vehicle Communications Interface (VCI) is a Standard's generic term for any Device/Tool/Cable/etc.../etc.../or whatever all the different Joe's call them!

I would NOT throw a temper tantrum if Interface or Device was used ... But I'm going to push hard for VCI.

It's Professional!

[Tazzi]

For the people in the know, VCI is pretty self explanatory. But the average joe which barely uses a computer, and is trying to do cheap DIY tuning... isn't going to have a clue.

I like the idea of that layout though, just replace VCI with Device or Interface and its sweet

[Gampy]

But the average joe which barely uses a computer, and is trying to do cheap DIY tuning... isn't going to have a clue.

That makes no sense to me, what would be the difference when they don't know!

Teach ignorance and thy student shall remain ignorant!

[Tazzi]

That makes no sense to me, what would be the difference when they don't know!

Teach ignorance and thy student shall remain ignorant!

Unfortunately not everyone is as well versed as you and I with terminologies. To have acronyms which are undocumented mean people will only figure out what it means by asking questions.
People asking questions to learn is good, but it doesnt mean its a productive use of time to answer the same question endless times.

Why answer the same question 1000 times, when it can be self explanatory?

Well documented software with well labelled options means people can figure it out on their own without having to ask questions.

[NSFW]

I suspect that most PCM Hammer users fall into one of two groups:
1) People who will use it rarely (once a year?) to get a job done, like preparing a junkyard PCM for first use.
2) People who will use it regularly to tune their car, or friends' cars, or customers' cars.

For group 1 the UI doesn't matter too much because they'll use it rarely. For group 2, I like the idea of having buttons for the frequent tasks, and everything else in the menus.

What do you all think of renaming the Tools menu to PCM, to indicate that this is the menu of things you can do to the PCM?

A Help menu is an interesting idea. It would be handy to have links to the wiki, the bin/XDF repos, the customary About dialog box, maybe other stuff too. I don't want to remove the Help tab though because I like the idea of having that basic information one click away. It's also available offline, updated dynamically, and aligned with the software version, which is kinda nice. But I'd be fine with renaming it to "FAQ" (and rewording it into Q&A format).

And +1 for self explanatory, widely understood terms. Teaching people what VCI means would just be a distraction for us and our users.