[Bf-funboard] Menus and toolbox intentions

Ton Roosendaal bf-funboard@blender.org
Thu, 7 Aug 2003 14:18:39 +0200


Hi,

Well written, a good read. Thanks! :)
When i got 3ds demo'ed I immediately noticed the comprehensible layout  
of their hotbox version. It felt more comfortable to grasp...

The only thing that - I thought - is in Maya hotbox, is that you can  
create gesture shortcuts for it. This I could never reproduce with  
trying out Maya... did you ever try the Ken Perlin 'pie menu' for  
writing at pda?

http://mrl.nyu.edu/projects/quikwriting/

Would be cool if we can find usage for this as well...

-Ton-

On Thursday, Aug 7, 2003, at 10:26 Europe/Amsterdam, Matt Ebb wrote:

> I thought I'd send this in a separate email since it's about more  
> general
> ideas.
>
> From some of the responses I've read, I feel I haven't been clear  
> enough
> about my intentions for this project with the menu and toolbox. So  
> I'll lay
> it all out in the open for debate lest I confuse people or seem like I  
> have
> hidden agendas ;) Warning: large semi-rant approaching!
>
> Right now, Blender's menu and toolbox are quite disjointed. Neither of  
> them
> contain all the functions available, they are organised differently to  
> each
> other for no visible reason, they contain different sets of functions,  
> are
> not organised very logically, and so on. It seems that there's not  
> much of a
> guiding design to how they are, and if there is, at least I can't see  
> it :P
> So I'd like to make their roles clearer and more functional.
>
> In other software there are a few different philosophies about how they
> should operate. Usually, the main menu bar is used as a big organised
> structure of all the different features in the application. The Apple
> philosophy is that every feature in the app should be accessible from  
> the
> menu bar. I tend to agree with this idea for reasons I've mentioned  
> before:
> easier and more accessible for newbies to 'explore' the app and  
> discover and
> experiment with features, easy way to learn hotkeys, easy to find
> 'forgotten' features since you can use spatial menory and the structure
> helps to find what you're looking for - if you forget a hotkey, you're  
> in
> trouble, but if you forget a menu item, you can think "well, it's an  
> editing
> funtion so I'll check in 'edit'... *checks* ... oh there it is!".  
> Because of
> these things, one major aim of the main menu is to have an emphasis on
> logical organisation. It's more important that the structure of the  
> menus is
> clear and well organised, then it is to be efficient (there are  
> alternatives
> such as hotkeys for efficiency).
>
> Now a lot of software nowadays has a toolbox type thing in addition to  
> the
> main menu, for accessing features. While Maya's radial hotbox layout  
> is a
> good idea, I think the implementation is a big mistake. Maya's hotbox
> (screenshot:  http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/misc/maya_hotbox.png) is
> basically just the main menu arranged in a circle. Since the idea of  
> having
> a hotbox that appears right where your mouse is, is to have super fast
> efficient access to features that doesn't get in the way of working,  
> simply
> repeating the menu again seems to me like a *huge* waste of potential  
> and
> speed. Rather than having better access to the features that the user  
> needs
> to access quickly, time and time again, with Maya's hotbox, the user  
> only
> saves about half a second (the time it would take to move the mouse  
> away
> from the workspace to the top menu bar), since the user has to  
> navigate the
> same structure as the top menu anyway. I'd even be willing to bet that  
> on
> MacOS, there is no advantage to the hotbox over the top menu bar,  
> because of
> fitt's law (http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html)  
> and
> that the menu bar may even be faster. I don't understand the choice to  
> just
> replicate all the options of the main menu in the hotbox - the more  
> options
> that are in the hotbox, the more crowded (and difficult to find items)  
> it
> becomes. Who needs fast split-second access to menus like 'Help'??
>
> Another approach, which I'm much more of a fan of, is what 3DS Max  
> uses (Ton
> mentioned this before). Max uses a 4-paned contextual menu for its  
> toolbox,
> which gives relevant options what whatever kind of mode you're working  
> in at
> the time. Screenshots here:
> http://www.discreet.com/images/products/3dsmax/3dsmax5_beta/hi-res/ 
> PolyModeling-Frog.jpg
> http://www.discreet.com/images/products/3dsmax/3dsmax5_beta/hi-res/ 
> PoseAnimation-Abix.jpg
> I personally think this is a much better approach, since it really  
> takes
> advantage of the fast access with the toolbox, and gives you direct  
> access
> to the tools themselves - no need to navigate through layers upon  
> layers of
> menu structure.
>
> So, for Blender, I propose this:
> * Use the top main menu as a well organised and structured list of all  
> of
> Blender's features that will feasibly work in a menu
> * Change the toolbox into a combination of Max's and Maya's:
>   - Display context-sensitive features that can be accessed directly  
> with
> one mouse click
>   - Also have one or more *additional* buttons/options that will  
> replicate
> (perhaps in a manner similar to Gimp's right-click menu? I don't know)  
> the
> main menus as well
>   - Use radial (pie menu) layout as much as possible (articles at
> www.piemenus.com)
>
>
> So... any opinions? :)
>
> Matt
>
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Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton@blender.org  
http://www.blender.org