[Bf-committers] Pupmenu conventions. (Was: CVScommit:blender/source/blender/src edit.c)

[Robert Wenzlaff]

On Monday 06 October 2003 08:10 am, Stephen Swaney wrote:
> So basically, I agree with you about oranizing the menus like pulldowns,
> and the space and w pupmenus.  But leave the darn snap menu alone.
> Design principles are good, but don't follow them blindly.

That's the whole point.  You can have it BOTH ways.  You can re-orgainize the 
menu, and STILL use SHIFT-S-4.   The only thing we loose is the fact that the 
4th item is always invoked by a "4".  But because we gain visible feedback 
(there will be a bold "4" in the button text), IMHO, it's better than the old 
"counting from the top" system.   

I bet there's a number of long time users that didn't realize numbers worked 
in menus. I only became aware of that in the last month or so, and I've been 
around since 1.72.  Why?  There's no feedback for that feature. Even if I had 
read about it somewhere, it didn't stick, because I never used it.  And I 
never used it, because it didn't stick.  Seeing it in bold everytime a 
pupmenu comes up, will make it stick.  New users can become power users 
faster.

Since you stated that the advantage of the current system was that you didn't 
have to look at the menu, would you even notice if (hypotheically) 
Cursor->Grid were no longer the 4th from the top, if it were still invoked 
with a "4",  because it had been changed to "Cursor->Grid (*4*), where *x* 
indicates bold or underline.  (BTW, The Shift-S menu IS context sensitive.  
It changes, for example, in the IPO window.)

So a year from now, we can insert Gri*b*nets->Grid before Cursor->Grid (*4*) 
(because the magical properties of Gribnets dictates that it logically goes 
there), and the Gribnets becomes Shift-S-B (The number of  G's in that menu 
makes "*G*ribnets->Grid" a bad choice), while "Cursor->Grid (*4*)" STAYS 
SHIFT-S-4.  And both combos are clear to the users who still look at the menu 
because the hot keys are in highlighted text.  It's the best of all worlds.  
(And if it's feasable it might be "C*u*rsor->Grid (*4*)" and be invoked by 
either key.) 

( If you're English isn't so good, don't be flustered by "Gribnets"  It's  
word I made up to represent a feature not yet written.)

You will note that I tried to emulate part of this by placing Knife Subd. in 
the middle of the W menu, but making it event "11".  I didn't know, at the 
time, it was breaking convention, and I haven't bothered fixing it because 
it's going to the new "K" menu soon. 

I'm not saying that the snap-menu NEEDS changing just for the sake of change, 
but having conventions that force you to not change it, no matter how 
illogical it becomes in the future, is silly.  And at some point the logic 
becomes overwhelming and the combo gets broken anyway (Ton's exceptions). 
Then it's even harder to adjust to, because you've been using it for that 
much longer.

The convention was to be that the digits (1-9) be reserved for "famous" 
hot-key combos (since letters don't currently work in pupmenus, they are not 
part of any famous combos).
-- 
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  "Obscure, Profound it was, and Nebulous, 
  So that by fixing on it's depths my sight, 
  Nothing whatsoever I discerned therein."

	    -Dante, predicting the Windows 95 API.
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Robert Wenzlaff     rwenzlaff@soylent-green.com