[Bf-funboard] Toolbox design

Luke Wenke bf-funboard@blender.org
Fri, 3 Oct 2003 01:55:17 +1000


> Autocomplete semi-commandline
>
> Like mentioned before in some post of mine, there could be a textfield
> somewhere on the toolbox menu. Starting with the first key entered,
> possible completions would be shown in a list next to the field.
> Like "Add" "Append" "Apply Size/Rot" for "A".
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I think it is much easier for either the person to click on the item, or use
the hotkey (which would be listed next to the item name) As far as changing
OSA goes, it is probably quicker to go to the display buttons. (that
involves 2 clicks.... or 3, if OSA wasn't currently enabled).

BTW, this lists some of the hotkeys, organised into modes:
http://www.eskimo.com/~johnnyb/computers/blender/Blender_Hotkeys.html

This seems to be a more complete list of hotkeys, but the modes they're for
are mixed up:
http://members.chello.nl/j.kassenaar/blender/hotkeys/kall.htm

I think the popup menu should be basically the same as it is now, with a
menu on the left, and menu items and corresponding hotkeys (if available) on
the right. And then if a person holds their mouse over an item for a while
it could give an indepth description of how to thing and what it does. e.g.
for "Track Active Object    Ctrl-T" the tool-tip could say "Makes the
non-active selected object rotate towards the active object) This would be
for people who want to quickly learn about all the things that blender can
do without having to go out and doing a lot of research.
The popup menu should only show the items that are relevant to the mode
you're in. (This includes menu items that are relevant in all modes, such as
save, open, etc - the hotkeys to change the buttons like material, texture,
display, etc, could be on the menu too, assuming there is a buttons window
available) If no object is selected (or there aren't two objects selected
where one is active for ctrl-t, etc) the menu items could still appear in
the spacebar menu, but the usual error message could appear. (As I've said
earlier, I think there should be helpful error messages for ctrl-t, ctrl-p,
etc, when at least 1 active and 1 non-active selected item aren't present).

BTW, I think the tool-tips for the buttons (display, texture, material, etc)
should say the hotkey for them.

- Luke.