[Bf-funboard] Large Blender UI improvement proposal

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

Thanks! That's the kind of work I like to see more often. :)

My comments:

-> naming conventions
I stick with the opinion that this will need more study and  
intelligence. Dropping 'ipo' and 'grabber' are the least of the naming  
problems in Blender. Such names just add to the brand and personality.  
All major 3d programs have naming weirdness, and none of these will  
ever copy the conventions from others. I've got the Maya-3DS  
translation sheet here, you'll be amazed to see how much differs.
I rather see efforts concentrated on consistancy in wording in general.

-> mouse remap
This is something I thought of as well... but better to make it  
optional. Need still to decide on how to present such options, two  
fixed presets? Let everyone assemble mapping with complete freedom?


-> headers
Doing vertical headers is not a proper solution for non-icon buttons  
(numbers, names, layers, pulldown menus). One idea I had was playing  
with an L-shape, where the horizontal part has the horizontal buttons,  
and the vertical part the icons.
The other idea (from UI doc) is to have a floating 'toolbar', which can  
have user-configurable all tools/options as also laid out in pulldown  
menu system. For the buttonswindow we could use it as well.
Third idea was to double headers.... two bars vertically.

-> realtime buttons
No work on this happened yet... so it looks quite horrible now. Your  
proposal looks quite better! I even hoped to be able to put sets of  
sensors and actuators in movable Panels... will require quite some  
coding still.

-> keys
We could even kill the old Key system... and make RVK standard. The old  
system was not too useful, apart from some odd & very simple situations.
We still need a better & more clear method to indicate which Mesh (key)  
is being in EditMode though (or how to select for editing).

-> text editor
Nothing changed here, just the menus were added!

-Ton-

On Tuesday, Nov 4, 2003, at 18:45 Europe/Amsterdam, William Reynish  
wrote:

> I have collected a number of proposals for improving
> Blenders interface further. We have come a long way
> with the current version og Blender 2.30, but there
> are still plenty of things that can be done to improve
> the interface. Ton once said that he prefered
> proposals in html format with mockups, instead of lots
> of loose posts on the Blender funboard. Well, here it
> is:
>
> http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/
>
> please read it carefully before commenting, and
> remember that this is meant as a help to the
> programmers, not as an attack on Blender.
>
> -William Reynish (Monkeyboi)
>
> Yahoo! Mail (http://dk.mail.yahoo.com) - Gratis: 6 MB lagerplads,  
> spamfilter og virusscan
> _______________________________________________
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>
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton@blender.org  
http://www.blender.org