House designer request

I like the house designer, but I find it frustrating having to pull down the menu every time to put in a room.

Would it be possible to have the menu of tools pinned, like a toolbar, so that I can actually see all the available tools and pick the one I want right away? I think it would make a nice tool much faster and easier and more convenient to use.

I actually joined here because I wanted to make this request! Take that as a compliment for the tool....

Cheers -- Wrytch

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll think about this for the next time we add on to the house designer.

Anyone else have any ideas how it could be improved?

Well, as long as you are asking for more work!

One aspect of different rooms I wanted to consider is the windows. As far as I can see, two rooms have a wall with no window.... the costume room and the dining room. And one room -- the study -- has a window which MUST be left open to the outside, since there's a telescope looking through it. Representing this somehow on the designer might be handy.

I'm using little paper squares on which room layout is printed to fool around, and then using the designer to save ideas.

Not exactly asking for work or making any guarantees just yet . Just want to know if there's anything that'd make it more usable.

And yes, Uncle Dano, if you load a house you should get a little text field at the top of the designer with the permalink shown. You can then share that with whoever you want.

Here's mine: http://rsbb.ca/h740

Very nice, Shane. I have completed entering my POH design and the link is provided here:

http://rsbb.ca/h2389

In addition, if you would prefer to look at the same design on my RS Wiki page the link is here:

http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/User:Uncledano/House

As I alluded to, a good design is key when you are thinking of training construction. Renovations are extremely costly. It greatly helps if you have a design planned upfront before you begin working on your POH. I have made several renovations, and redesigns to come up with a POH design that works best for me. It is designed as a multipurpose house with quick access to the various teleports. Check it out and tell me what you think. I'd be happy to give POH tours at your convenience, complete with a house party!

EDIT: Updated new POH design link address.

Actually it worked quite well. The routine was:
1. Teleport in with a tele tab.
2. Worship the bones.
3. Use my own amulet of glory on my person to teleport to Edgeville.

I have such a huge supply of glories that I only had to recharge once a day.

Yes, I did consider that Lord Rickles. But the entrance portal is immediately adjacent to the altar. The portal rooms are located so that they are close to the altar (the yanille portal is right on the other side of the wall from the g altar, and you can click through the wall and run a short distance around to tele). But, also keep in mind I designed this house to be efficient for a variety of things. For example, the portal rooms and glory tele are near the studies. This makes it also convenient for those who are making teletabs or if you are scoping a shooting star, the teleports are close as well.

Granted, I have seen other POH designs that have the glory right next to the altar. However, the more I redesigned taking everything into consideration the more I felt that my current design was the best balance for all activities. Unless you are always opening up your POH for others to train prayer, and that is the main focus of your POH, then you are right in that there could be additional efficiencies by moving the altar closer to the teleports. But, if you are like me and utilize your POH for as many activities as possible, the current design has balanced the location of all the rooms with their respective positions in relation to each other.

I will plan on having a house party some evening so that people can take a self tour and really investigate the layout themselves. Thanks for your feedback though. It is greatly appreciated.

With the designer, I sometimes seem to have a situation in which I cannot rotate a room; I have to delete it, and enter it again.

I have saved a few designs. Can I delete previously saved designs?

EDIT 1: Bump. This is now critical. I am being told to delete designs before I can save again, and I can't see how it is done!

Help?


EDIT 2: Oops. I have figured it out. Click the broom icon in the pull down listed of saved houses. Duh. Sorry about multiple posts.

Thanks for the help, and the suggestions, Southrend!

I've now been using the designer for a while to produce my ideal house; and in the process I would like to add to the wish list for the designer -- which was why I posted in the first place. I have appreciated additions to the thread showing off some designs as well -- thanks for that. I've also been visiting a few houses in world 31 to get a feel for what works.

Here's my wish list for the designer!

(1) Buttons as a list down the side; not a pull down menu. Not only is this faster -- I have found when building rooms in the upper right of the grid, the pull down menu covers up squares I am using, and doesn't retreat until I have done an extra click on the menu title to explicitly retract it.

(2) Color coded squares. Say, green for garden/menagerie, white for interior, brownish for dungeon, and normal background for unused. This would really help the over view.

(3) Walls need to be made a bit darker, so that they show up more clearly and make the layout move visible. Alternatively, the lighter color for interior rooms might already solve this.

(4) Solve the bug (? I think) which means I sometimes cannot rotate a room. This seems to happen when I switch from one floor to another. Here's the shortest way I have found to reproduce the problem starting from clear. Place a chapel. Select upper floor. Select ground flaw. Rotate the chapel. The rotation does not work.

(5) Less important: but how about optional display of icons/text/both for rooms?

(6) Dungeon rooms would look better if you could display the room shape. Rooms all take up 8x8 runescape squares. Most rooms make all 64 cells part of the room. But a dungeon room does not. The treasure room is 6x6, plus 2 cells for the passage in. The corridor is 8x2 cells, with the rest solid rock. The junction is two intersecting corridors, with additional cells made available for a 4x4 space in the center. The dungeon stairs and pits are both a 6x6 chamber like the treasure room, but with four passage ways of 2 cells each, in every direction. The corridor should rotate properly; you could have two icons used for the corridor rooms, one for NS and one for EW. You don't select them as different rooms, however; the rotation action simply switches the icon between NS and EW.

(7) Finally... this is the hardest, but it would be very cool and not perhaps as hard as it seems at first. 3d views. Basically, all you need is to draw rooms in the right order, so that those to the front simply over draw those to the rear. Views could be of a single floor without the roof, or of the the above ground view with roof and two stories shown. View would be from one of four directions: NE, SE, NW or SW. Each floor would occupy a diamond shape; with the walls extending up in the shape of a parallelogram. Managing the treasure room would require four separate icons for use in the layout, with rotation switching between them.

Items 6 and especially 7 on my wish list would, I think, be more work than the others. I propose to explain items 6 and 7 better with some pictures, when I get around to it.

This designer is a really nice tool, and I'll continue to use it whether it gets upgraded or not. A good tool is worth maintaining and extending... if you do have the time I offer these suggestions as something you might like to consider!

Edit...

To illustrate what I mean by suggestions (6) and (7) I have taken the liberty of using Shane's house, for which he gave a link above. The link is http://rsbb.ca/h740

I like this design; and I think a few tweaks to coloring would really help show it up much better in the designer. Ditch the grid, ditch all walls with outside cells like a garden or menagerie, and color the interior cells to contrast with the exterior. I've also disposed of the text identifying the rooms. The icon is enough for a regular user; I'd like to see text as an option.

I've also shown how it could appear in a 3d viewing style. The views are obtained simply by overlaying icons starting from the rear of the scene. The dungeon can be managed also, but I am thinking of a better icon set for dungeon rooms.

Cheers -- Wrytch