[Bf-committers] Blender 2.5 Python API Introduction.

[Campbell Barton]

Hi Shul, (on IRC clarified that 'usability aspects of developing'
means context problems with operators not running).

There are 2 main problems
1) Running from the console/text editor wont work for many operators.
2) When an operator wont run there is no message to say why.

For 1, many operators were quickly ported over and only tested from
the user interface, some may be checking for the 3D view but not
actually need it (or similar checks POLL might to for context)

But since there will remain operators that do need to run in a certain
window type it would be good to have some way the console could
execute operators in a different space. Tricky to do well since the
operator may also expect the mouse to be in the view. (Maybe have the
console as a separate window and drag over the same you want to
execute in.... ugh!).

As for 2), Maybe we should have an OperatorType->poll_description. Can
say something like "Requires the 3D view to run" or "Needs an edit
mode mesh"
In C these messages could be re-used, just as the poll functions are.
These messages would be used in the python error message.

Another nice thing about this is greyed out buttons could give this
message in their tooltip's, something I found odd/confusing in complex
applications that there is no way of knowing why a buttons disabled.

It seems to me that this isn't something that has one fix, more a
matter  of testing the python integration and resolving limitations as
we go.

I expect this wont all happen in the next 3-5 months but hopefully the
most annoying problems will be resolved before a stable release.

- Campbell

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 4:43 PM, Shaul Kedem <shaul.kedem at gmail.com> wrote:
> Campbell,
>  What are we going to do with the usability aspects of developing
> scripts in 2.5? following our talk in IRC is there some kind of a
> proposition for a well defined workflow?
>
> Thanks,
> shul
>
> On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 10:38 AM, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The PDF is more an example of what we can get closer to the release,
>> since I like to keep these docs updated every week or two its a hassle
>> to build both and upload. Eventually I'll automate this process.
>>
>> Ill add build-info (date & revision) into the docs soon.
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 3:43 PM, I S <kisolre at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:53:31 +0200, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> Heres PDF generated from sphinx 6.4
>>>> http://www.blender.org/documentation/250PythonDoc/250PythonDoc.pdf
>>>
>>> Thanks :)
>>>
>>> A link to the PDF at http://www.blender.org/documentation/250PythonDoc/
>>> and maybe generation date in the name would be nice also :)
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> - Campbell
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-- 
- Campbell