Project Showroom 1.0.12 Now Available

Project Showroom is a technology preview for Autodesk's vision of a new web-based home decorating tool. It allows you to browse product selections from leading manufacturers, and get a feel for how those products will look in real-world settings. You can try your hand at home decorating at:

Autodesk Labs Project Showroom Kitchen and Bathroom Design Site

In preparation for Autodesk University, we released Project Showroom 1,0.11 on November 20. Visitors to the Autodesk Labs Discovery Space gave us positive feedback on our efforts. In a short time, we had come a long way since version 1.0.1. Now just in time for our holiday break, I placed release 1.0.12 on the Project Showroom servers. Based on some feedback we received at AU, this release includes improvements to the user interface:

• Spruced Up Toolbar
  Old:
  
  New:
  
  Our Product Designer, Mark Anderson, spruced up our toolbar. By the way, Mark just became a proud father. Congratulations Mark. Now he'll have more than Project Showroom to keep him up at night. In addition, the words appear as text instead of being part of the image in case we ever want to localize Project Showroom into other languages.

• Facebook Integration
  After you make your choices for a room that you like, you can get your friends' opinions on how you've done. You can do this by sharing your room on Facebook. At this point, the technology preview requires a few simple steps:

  1. Click on .
  2. Log into Facebook and grant permission for Project Showroom to share your items to your Facebook profile. You only have to do this once. Project Showroom displays a success message that automatically closes.
  3. Navigate to your Facebook Profile page.
  4. Promote the profile entry from a one line to a short story by clicking on Edit and selecting Short from the menu pull down. When you do this, the thumbnail of your room appears.

  It's easy and fun. There may even be fewer steps in the future. When you do this your Facebook friends get a message that includes a thumbnail of your room. When they click on the thumbnail, it takes them to Project Showroom where the see the room configured with your choices. Here's a crude video of an example:
  
  YouTube: Sharing personalized rooms configured with Project Showroom using Facebook
  non-YouTube: Download showroom_facebook.mp4 (3948.7K)

• Simpler Detailed Info Pop ups
  
  Our original pop up had hyperlinks all over the place. Some went to other parts of Project Showroom. Others went to the manufacturer's home page while still others went to specific product info. You told us that this was too much. We listened. Now the pop up has been simplified.

• Improved View Navigation
  Old:
  
  New:
  
  We made the view navigation easier to spot and consistent with how you browse for items to place in the scene.

• Custom Room Name
  
  You work had to make your choices and get your room to look just right. You save it so you can show it to your friends later. You come back to the site and load your saved room. Rather than show you the room's original name, we show you the name you have saved it as. It seems only fair. For example, I created a room and called it "blue wall, dark appliances." We also gave you the ability to Rename or Delete a room you have saved. By the way, you didn't the . Saved Rooms are now displayed with a icon to indicate this is a room you have saved.
  

• Content Categories
  Old:
  
  New:
  
  These used to be tabs. You preferred a list. Your wish is our command. Actually this allows you to get to all of the items more easily without having to switch between Products and Finishes.

• Enlarged Buttons
  Old:
  
  New:
  
  We made the previous and next view buttons a tad bigger.

• Separate Pages
  To provide more space where you can see content, we updated "More rooms" and "List contents" to be full HTML pages instead of pop-ups.

Advancing Project Showroom in response to your feedback is alive in the lab.