What I Wish The Puzzle Creator Could Do...
I know what you are thinking. Why not use Hammer if I have so many problems with the in-game editor? There is a reason the puzzle creator exists and that is to create test chambers fast and with ease without the need of Hammer's complexity and feeling overwhelmed by it. Here's a list of things I wish the puzzle creator could do:
- Manual placement of antlines. I shouldn't have to use lights or other test elements to manipulate the antlines.
- Pedestal button allowing 1 or 2 seconds. Right now, if we lower the number of seconds from 03 to 02, we go directly to infinity instead. Shouldn't happen.
- Adjust excursion funnel speed. In the single player story mode, you can see in the early excursion funnel puzzles that they are moving at different speeds.
- The aerial faith plate should be allowed to exist in two variations. Looking at the source files in "steamappscommonportal 2portal2_dlc2materialspuzzlemakerpalette", it is hinted at one time that this used to exist or will exist eventually.
- The aerial faith plate should have the ability to be enabled or not. In some Hammer maps I played, some people have found a way to stop the aerial faith plate from launching you through the air until you enable it with a button or something.
- Stairs, when not deployed, should be able to be portalable based on what surface they are placed on.
- Portalable piston platform. An early puzzle creator screenshot hinted at this.
- Portalable track platform.
- Have an option for the laser emitter and laser catcher to be set to low profile (top) or centered (bottom).
- Glass should have the ability to have a hole in it.
- Glass should have the ability to be broken or not. A repulsion gel puzzle required this in the single player story mode.
- Angled panels should have the option to set their deployed and undeployed angles. Apply this to glass panels as well.
- Allow angled and glass panels to be extendable in a similar fashion as fizzlers or grating.
- Grating should have the option to not be able to grab objects through them.
- Instead of working in huge blocks (red), work in 1/16 of them (green).
- Have an entity to be attached to a wall to automatically center and rotate portal placement, kind of like in some of the single player and coop story modes.
So, what are your gripes about the puzzle creator?
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I think the answer to your rant is in the description.... Puzzle maker. you aren't looking for a Puzzlemaker, you are looking for a map-maker, which is hammer. The puzzle maker was made by Valve for one reason, to make PUZZLES quickly and easily.
Many mappers I talk to use the PTI for puzzle testing, then actually create their maps in Hammer, which is the way it should be done.
I realize Hammer isn't incredibly easy at first.(especially compared to the PTI) but it is not a difficult tool to learn, and if you do learn it, you will have a lot more possibilities than just moving antlines around
Here are some Hammer tutorials.
A couple of the things you suggested were in discussion whilst the editor was still in the closed beta.
A lot of things are very specific and thus too much work to include and/or just not worth a space in the item palette. Having a hell of a lot of things in the editor would make it too complicated.
some other things you are suggesting are just technically hard to implement. The pti instances are very complicated to allow all the different combinations. If you want more than the pti has to offer try any of the editor mods. If that isn't enough you should learn hammer. Pti is a puzzle maker, hammer is a level maker, it allows much more. using instances allows you to skip some hard work.
Many mappers I talk to use the PTI for puzzle testing, then actually create their maps in Hammer, which is the way it should be done.
I realize Hammer isn't incredibly easy at first.(especially compared to the PTI) but it is not a difficult tool to learn, and if you do learn it, you will have a lot more possibilities than just moving antlines around
Here are some Hammer tutorials.
I understand there is a time and place for everything. I would use Hammer if I wanted to create more than just test chambers, like behind the scenes areas, create new game mechanics, etc.. Remember what I said earlier?
All most people want to do is create test chambers. I strictly want to create test chambers as well. I have no plans to create an elaborate story or create new test elements. The puzzle creator is right for me.
A lot of things are very specific and thus too much work to include and/or just not worth a space in the item palette. Having a hell of a lot of things in the editor would make it too complicated.
some other things you are suggesting are just technically hard to implement. The pti instances are very complicated to allow all the different combinations. If you want more than the pti has to offer try any of the editor mods. If that isn't enough you should learn hammer. Pti is a puzzle maker, hammer is a level maker, it allows much more. using instances allows you to skip some hard work.
I see a continuum: left is very basic and right is very complex. The editor in it's current condition is left-winged. The editor of my dreams is in the middle. Hammer is right-winged. I'm not looking for the editor to go very complex. I'm looking for the editor to get a bit more detailed than it is now but not by too much.
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Hammer isn't just for stories and scenery. I've seen a few great maps come out that are simply reguflar test chambers, but they have most of the things you speak of.
An easier way to learn hammer is through video tutorials. Imo, it is easier to be shown exactly what to do by a person than to Learn it through text. Once you get down the basics of hammer, you should go on the source mapping wiki, it has some valuable info.
Remember, no matter how bad your first map is, it is a learning experience. My first map was terrible, so I trashed it and moved on. If you feel like you are doing badly, don't give up! Just ask for help on this site, there is a whole community dedicated to hammer help. They will tell you what to do and what not to do, and give suggestions for your map to improve it.
So, yes. I encourage fiddling with hammer, it might be a key to success. Also, hammer is left and right winged,.
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You can 'deactivate' a faith plate by putting a light bridge on top of it and turning off the bridge when you want the player to be able to use the plate. As well, you could make some sort of logic array to get a shorter output; if you want a quick burst, for example, use a flip panel to block a laser, and a flag array to make it only go once. This is heavy on the entities though. Also, I can't see any practical difference between glass with a hole and grating; they only used in ingame to make it obvious what we were supposed to do
For something closer to the middle try the BEEMOD and FGEMOD, although it's physically impossible in the editor to implement many of the things you described (such as the smaller grid)--VALVe would have to do that. Sorry. 
*cough* Hammer *cough*
The whole purpose of the pti editor was to make it easy to design puzzles. As with hammer, there are limits to what the pti can do, but the biggest limit is your own creativity.
Believe it or not, this is one of the things in hammer I hate the most. It is extremely tedious and if there was one thing I would be adding to hammer for portal 2 it would actually be the ability to auto connect them. Fun fact: during the beta the game crashed if the editor couldn't find a way to connect the in- and output.
Where do you need two seconds for? Generally very short timers are very annoying. I think three seconds is also a minimum because less could mess up cubedroppers. (this happened a lot earlier)
Why do you want this? The only times the speed matters in the game itself is in parts with story elements. Tell you what; there are no story things in the PTI maps 
A faithplate is a faithplate; the PTI allows you to see the trajectory nicely; what more do you want?
Various pti things possible to get the same result.(like hinted before: a hard light bridge over it for example.
could be useful.
That wasn't a screenshot, that was a mash-up 
. Pistons are only a graphical thingy; with the normal angled panels you can get the same thing.
The game doesn't allow mobile portals and most moving platforms generally are glass in-game?
Why? generally only a graphical thingy ;P
Would this be a 1-voxel specific block? Would it be worth to sacrifice something else for this?
Replace glass by grating and you have the same result. besides; how much sense does a broken glass panel make in a clean test chamber?
Since the panels have 0,30,45,60 and 90 as possible angles the number of possible cominations from angles to other angles would be a pain, there would be over 20- animations; relays etc, that'd be a real pain. If it really would use 20 relays that would also mean you can do a hell of a lot less than now, because it's using up so much edicts.
Ever seen entire walls getting to a 30 degree angle in portal 2? That's a bit weird don't you think? It's designed to be a test element; not a fancy-looks-element
Why would this matter? Besides: glass does that, doesn't it?
The PTI is always designed with 128x128x128 blocks as voxels. This allows all test elements to nicely work. 8x8x8 will only make it a hell of a lot harder; you'll get misaligned test elements and weird walls etc. Besides; it would include re-writing all code.
Placement helpers should be in indeed, but doesn't bee has that?
I think it was HMW's extension where he called them portal magnets.
This was indirectly targeted at Valve. I put it here to maybe further understand why it is designed this way. So far from what I am learning through responses here is that most people replying have fiddled with Hammer first, even before PTI. Those people must not understand how complicatd Hammer is compared to the in-game editor because they have used it for so long. You have someone clearly not that dedicated to the utility since Portal 1 (me). It's not that I can't use the utility, it's just overwhelming to me and probably many other people. That is why the in-game editor is perfect. I don't have to worry about clipping blocks and trigger points or whatever those things are called to create puzzles because the in-game editor takes care of all that tedious work.
I think that what I am suggesting would still make it easy to create test chambers compared to Hammer. That is the point of this thread.
Automatic is fine, but not being able to edit it from there directy is frustrating.
Good designers won't do that crap and would find good use for one or two seconds.
Depends on the puzzle. If you have to wait 30 seconds for something to go where you want it, even when moving the funnel around, it would shorten the time. If you have to work on timing of something, good for that too.
Various pti things possible to get the same result.(like hinted before: a hard light bridge over it for example.
That wasn't a screenshot, that was a mash-up . Pistons are only a graphical thingy; with the normal angled panels you can get the same thing.
Merely aesthetic.
I understand that portals can't move with the surface they are on, but wouldn't it be nice to have the option to have the surface be portalable?
Merely aesthetic.
Replace glass by grating and you have the same result. besides; how much sense does a broken glass panel make in a clean test chamber?
Just a thought...
WHAT?! Whatever happened to dynamic calculations for geometry? Why not take a current animation and stop it midway to achieve the correct angle?
Merely aesthetic.
Non-physics objects pass through it like gel and lasers. What if you want that to pass through but not have the player be able to grab physics objects through it?
I am going into programming and maybe some parts may need to be re-written, not all. Plus have a basic mode (current editor) and advanced mode (what I want in the editor). Expert is Hammer. 
No, autoportals, logic gates, and triggers.
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