shift-F4 and Append ideas Re: [Bf-funboard] good append

[ph]

Hi Luke

  I tell you how I found out about appending multiple items at once:

  You claimed this feature should should be included (at that time, I was as
unknowing as you were, regarding this feature) and I instantly tested the
obvious possibilities. It cannot be that much unintuitive then, can it? Took
me 30 seconds to find it out (include firing up blender and making a
testblend, so I had something to append from)

>And that is what I think a
>major factor in RSI would be - doing the same series of movements over and
>over again (to append each individual item).

  Thats right. But it's not needed here. And if it's done because someone
doesn't know his tools, then it's their decision. Blender is not a toy,
neither is a PC. Both are complex and therefore need used documentation and
training.

  In Linux, you select with held LMB (like windows) and insert with MMB.
That's it. No keystrokes at all ( : Just because they are not needed.

  By the way that's a quite good example of my attitude. YES, it was
annoying when I didn't know how to even copy text between applications under
Linux (bad, bad Linux, to hell with it). Now suppose both, the Windows and
the Linux way would work. I would have used Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V and I would
have been happy. Using awkward crap (at least for copying text it's
awkward). And I would have never used the fast approach.

  But Linux prevented me from not learning. It prevented me from preferring
the known over the better. And when I asked Alexander Ewering about that, I
just had to smile. For me, it's an enjoyable solution, because it's smart.

  Typing a new directory into the filepath in the Blender file browser is a
similar brilliant solution. Not as intuitive as the context menu or the 'new
folder' button, but fast, efficient and a nice style.

  With a low attitude, you can of course say, it's already fine to be able
to use an application at all. Not regarding workstyle, speed, efficiency or
something like that. And most of those people will continue to work slow and
do everything with context menus or such things and their known paths. And
it won't help much to also include the efficient way, because most people
will stop searching as soon as they find a seemingly OK-solution.

  Blender had a rather strict approach called LEARN or LEAVE. That was
harsh, but those who swallowed the seemingly bitter pill got a nice contrast
approach of working.

  People want to be in control, I know. They want to already know things
rather than learning them. As Goethe said: Everybody wants to be someone,
nobody wants to become someone. While things are not that extreme, they are
still a major problem.

  Making things intuitive means (in many cases) to match things with Windows
or Mac behaviour. The amount of stuff one has to learn is then reduced
because people already know it. Even at the price of being less efficient.

  Take your keyboard in front of you, for example. This keyboard layout has
actually been designed to   s l o w   you down! Because mechanical
typewriters were not fast enough for trained human fingers. But they kept
it. To make new machines intuitive for people that are experienced in the
old layout. The whole world suffers from that.

An application influences the user. And this influence can be improving or
restricting. Tough choice. And quite a responsibility.

Peter Haehnlein