[Bf-funboard] Contextual Menus

Mark Luffel bf-funboard@blender.org
Wed, 9 Jul 2003 13:17:43 -0400


There was mention on this list of right-click contextual menus in the 
style of Wings3D and 3ds Max. Switching the function of the mouse 
buttons is not a good idea, but contextual menus are great at making 
visible actions that the user can take. In fact, the methods for doing 
this are already in place. The Space menu (the one brought up by the 
space bar, whatever its name) doesn't actually call the functions on 
the list, but sends a key command to the active screen area.
To demonstrate: split a blender into a 3D Viewport and an IPO Curve 
Editor. Press the space bar in the 3d area, move to the first Object 
section, then to "Make Track" (CTRL-T). A popup confirms make track. 
Press CTRL-T now to see that the action after selecting an item is the 
same. Now move to the IPO Curve Editor and select the same "Make Track" 
command from the space menu. Instead of getting a "Make Track?" 
confirm, it prompts you for type of IPO interpolation. Now type CTRL-T 
to see the same prompt (This is probably documented as simply "T", but 
blender ignores additional unambiguous modifiers).
All that is required for contextual menus is to display a different 
space menu depending on the active screen area. I don't know the code 
well enough to do this, nor all the key commands that pertain to a 
given area, but I would be willing to help track things down if a more 
experienced coder would be willing to help.

This may have already been implemented in the experimental branch. 
Also, as to interface consistency and improvement (from a practical, 
non-skinner perspective) what are people working on/considering?
--MarkLuffel