[Bf-funboard] Manager update 2

[Thorsten Wilms]

On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 09:52:00AM +0100, Shodan wrote:
> 
> Thorsten: why did you this blend? Object Manager+Timeline. (Flash influence)

Because every object appears in the hierarchy, and everything can be managed 
in groups. This is useful for visibility management and a Timeline.
I don't want to have to hierachies, where one can do it.


> I don't understand why you can't keep something simple.   
> Anyway thank you for your sharing but there...  

The concept is only as complicated as it needs to be to offer certain 
possibilities. Remember that you can hide the timeline. And what I 
already explained on the forum:

It's only as complicated as the user wants to have it. Lots of possibilities 
that are there if you want/need them, but must not hinder simple usage. 
- If you just add objects to the scene, they will show up as entries in the 
hierarchy. Giving you access to per object visibility, rendering, editability 
(for now on: VRE). 
- You can create groups to organize the entries. Now the proposed logic allows 
to handle VRE on two levels: single objects or groups. If you don't care about 
object VRE, then this groups are much like the current Layers. 
 - Query groups allow you to change the VRE of all objects of a kind at once. 
For example: Hiding or showing all armatures. But if you're not interested in 
that, they will not get in your way. 
 

> First do a simple Object manager (at least like Wing3D). It is a wasted space, 
> too confuse at the first sight and difference
> between objects and layers isn't obvious yet, with few obj is ok but in a full scene...

Why? Where is space wasted?
How is it confusing? Managing objects within groups and having options for 
visibility, rendering and editability can hardly be simplified from my 
mockup. Do you think there should be no grouping? Or that visibility and the 
other things should not be handled on groups level (in addition to per object 
level)? I would consider that very limiting for no good reason.

About the difference between objects and layers being not obvious ...
sure it's not obvious, because layers don't even exist in my proposal!
There are objects (or more precisely entries for objects) and groups 
in the hierarchy. Groups can contain object-entries or other groups.
Object-entries can not contain anything. Groups are containers, while 
object-entries represent 3d objects. It's not much different from 
some applications that have layers, and allow these to be organized 
in folders. Only that my groups have their own VRE options.


And Shodan, your always free to come up with an alternative (simpler) 
proposal/mockup yourself. Yust complaining about my stuff being too 
complicated or confusing is not very convincing, when I have the feeling 
you don't pay much attention to what I wrote or have some reading 
comprehension problems. The system would be much easier to understand 
based on an actual implementation, where you could click on stuff and see 
what happens. Then there's the aspect of the system working on several 
levels, like explained above. Meaning simple things are simple, but you 
can use it in more advanced ways, requiring some deeper understanding of the 
underlying concept.


For reference:
http://wrstud.urz.uni-wuppertal.de/~ka0394/en/blender_ui/layers/index.html


---
Thorsten