In the most recent Visual Studio and Visual Micro, I do not see any way to tell whether "Hidden Files" are currently Shown or Hidden.

I will add two screenshots showing that on my windows 10 machine there is no perceptible difference (to me or my wife) between the shown state and the hidden state.

Perhaps a future update could fix this? 

Maybe just add (Currently Visible) or (Currently Hidden) to the text?

There are design rules against putting a toggle in the same menu where everything else is an action trigger, so I personally think this belongs somewhere else anyway. 

Tim@Visual Micro wrote on Sep 15^th, 2023 at 6:09pm:


Hi Tim,

LOL I wasn't confused about whether or not I could see hidden files. I was toggling it to test the behavior of intellisense under the two states after upgrading to the Arduino v2 core and folder architecture. My post was simply to alert you to a bit of design smell. 

My current projects are of only moderate size (a few hundred files) and already I can go get a cup of coffee if I click on this toggle. For that reason alone, knowledge of the current state when presented with the option would seem to be important. However, if providing the current state of a menu item is expensive, perhaps the drop-down items should be moved out of the vMicro menu, too.

IMO this "show hidden files" setting should be buried in the global options/vm/general list, rather than presented as a hidden-state toggle on the primary vMicro menu. That's my $0.02 worth of opinion.

While I've got my UX hat on, may I suggest that the link to Global Options might be a good candidate to replace that toggle on the vMicro menu? Currently it's at vMicro/General/GlobalOptions, where the General menu is a popup that vanishes if the mouse strays by a single pixel.  I know there are other ways to get to Options.  This is only about improving the user experience of vMicro.

Thanks!!

-- Craig

Tim@Visual Micro wrote on Sep 16^th, 2023 at 7:24pm:


lol - who are you and what have you done with Tim?

I know you are a friggin genius and one of the things I love about you is that you are so responsive in the forum. Still, every so often you respond without really looking at the context of the thread, which makes your responses seem like one of those bots that gives useless answers on the Microsoft help sites. 

In this case you have just sent me the same exact screenshot that I sent you (twice) two messages lower.

I must have been too subtle in my language because clearly I have not gotten my point across, so I will be super-blunt: I am giving you my (expensive) expert opinion that this option does not belong on that particular menu. 

It's the only entry for which a single click toggles a significant behavior change, and there is no indication of its current state nor any indication that its state has changed when clicked. You have given it the behavior of a "stateless-refresh-type" button. This behavior on that menu violates about 30 UX design rules. 

You already mentioned that the VS reporting overhead for that menu is so burdensome that you don't want to show the state of the toggle, and that's another reason not to put it on the top-level vMicro menu that must be opened to get to other menus.

If there is a compelling reason to keep it there, it needs to communicate clearly to the user exactly what will happen if it is clicked. Right now clicking it performs an unspecified action that blocks the UI thread for a significant amount of time and changes the way intellisense performs.

Yes, I can use secret knowledge to discover whether "Show hidden files" is currently turned on or turned off, but that information is not reflected in the UX.

What we are actually doing is toggling "Show Hidden Files" ON or OFF.  That's what the label should say, and the correct behavior to model is that of a "checkbox-type button."

I understand you may disagree -- I am only giving you my opinion because I love Visual Micro so much and would be lost without it.