[Bf-funboard] Re: Layer Manager Redux

[Karim Nassar]

Taking into account ideas presented here, and some more things I thought 
about, I've put together a new set of mockups for the Layer Manager.

So, first thing I did was try to come up with a set of indicators for 
the different states of Layers that can be clearly distinguished on the 
tiny (8x8!) shortcut buttons, and that can be stacked without 
sacrificing their clarity. The states I thought to indicate are:

Visible
Locked
Contains Data
Active Layer
No Render
Contains Sub-layers

No small feat to get 6 indicators on an 8x8 button!

Likewise, I thought it would be useful to designate a mouse control to 
each toggle, so that states can be toggled interactively on the shortcut 
buttons.

So, I've come up with this:

State         --  Indicator      -- Control (or toggle)
-------------------------------------------------------
Active Layer  -- Button is Pink  -- Left Click
Visible       -- Button Down     -- Left Click
Contains Data -- Shaded Triangle -- Ctrl-Left Click (select contents)
No Render     -- Red Slash       -- Alt-Right Click
Lock Layer    -- Lock Icon       -- Ctrl-Right Click
Has Sub-layers-- Black Caret     -- Alt-Left Click (show sub-layer btns)

Here is a mock-up showing these indicators in action: 
http://www.karimnassar.com/phoenix/images/layer_minibuttons.jpg

I chose pink for the "active color" to match Blender's object selection 
color.

Now... Having done this, I started to develop some ideas for the Layer 
Manager. I thought that a good place for the Manager would be on the "M" 
hotkey, replacing the "Move to Layer" control. Of course, that control 
would be subsumed into the Layer Manager.

I've taken some liberties with standard widgets, in order to convey some 
ideas, so obviously, it probably ought not be implemented as is, but 
again, this is intended to spark discussion:

http://www.karimnassar.com/phoenix/images/layer_manager.jpg

We have, in the main Manager window, a list of Layers, with collapsible 
sub-layers. A scroll-bar allows viewing the full list.

The Buttons at the top allow adding & deleting of new layers.

Each layer entity has the following attributes, from left-to-right:

* Expand Sub-Layers Arrow
* Handle (grey box) to allow dragging of layers to change order
* Layer Number & Name Box (text field)
* Detail Button (arrow) expands Layer details
* Content Indicator & Move to button: Click a button to move selected 
objects to new layer. Selected object indicated by the Pink triangle.

In the Layer Detail Window (one for each layer) We have the following 
controls, again from L-R:

* Keyboard Shortcut control: Determines what action the keyboard 
shortcut for that layer will toggle.
* "Shortcut Btn" button: Indicates whether the layer appears on the 
Shortcut Mini-buttons in the 3-d view
* RGB-Alpha Controls: Set wireframe color (and alpha! :)) for objects on 
this layer.
* Display Control: Choose how objects on this layer will display: 
choosing "Global" causes the layer to display according to global file 
setting
* "Save From" button: Saves layer contents into a new blender file.
* "Load Into" button: Loads data from another Blender file into current 
layer.

That's It for now! Comments?

--Karim