[Bf-funboard] Gearshift Menus (formerly: Converting toggle buttons to pie menus)

Wed Apr 23 20:54:55 CEST 2014

Thanks for your response! I feel like we're not quite on the same page on a
few of these points, so I'll try and clarify my thoughts:

1. With a gearshift menu, you are not so much entering an absolute
direction, but a sequence of directions; therefor, Up-Right is distinct
from Right-Up. That, in theory, gives you more options for less input
fidelity

2. If a gearshift/daisy wheel menu were opened by holding the key and
releasing to select, then the button in the neutral/center position could
effectively be selected by tapping the key. I'm sure there are good
arguments for tap-to-open tap-to-select, but hold-to-open would allow pie
menus to retain their *current* functionality

3. I don't think tactile feedback is super important with sufficiently low
fidelity of input. In a daisy wheel, maybe I'm wrong, but I expect a user
would need to rely (at least a little, especially after working long
hours) on visual input to accurately select between N and NE, where I think
muscle memory would be sufficient to choose between Up and Up-Right. A
car's gearshift requires some lateral precision, but a gearshift menu could
be designed to avoid that.

Hope that made my points clear! I don't know what's best, but I'm looking
forward to seeing development!

On Wednesday, April 23, 2014, Sean Olson <seanolson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I'm one of the author's of the pie menu addon, and psi-fi is working on the
> implementation in finalized blender.  I don't mind your gearshift idea, and
> it would be possible in the addon to create such a menu.   It might be a
> good idea in menus that have lots of items.  (more than 8).  The reason
> that the daisy wheel is used is because it corresponds directly to the 4
> cardinal directions and the in-betweens.   N, S, E, W, NE, SE, SW, NW.  You
> then can press, hold, and swipe a direction with your mouse.  You don't
> have to read the menu entries at all and you don't have to have any actual
> accuracy.  You don't need to "click" on any particular button - the whole
> screen in your given direction is technically the button.   This makes the
> "daisy" configuration tremendously fast.
>
> I drive a manual stick in America too, and of course you don't use your
> eyes on that either, but the big difference is this: Tactile Feedback.  You
> can feel the gears in place, the position of the stick.   We don't have
> access to this on a screen, so the fallback is to use your eyes to see the
> position.   Of course using your eyes is fine, but it requires more
> precision than to just swipe a direction.
>
> As far as tap vs hold - it's been brought up multiple times in the pie
> menus addon thread.  At first it sounds like a good idea, but how do you
> determine when to do tap functionality and when to do hold?   How many
> miliseconds?  If somebody gets really fast with the pie menu are they going
> to hit the tap functionality by accident?  I'm pretty sure this has been
> discussed here in more detail in this monster thread:
>
> http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?267414-Pie-Menus-(2-66)-Update-01-28-13
>  There might actually be some technical issues in implementing such a
> feature in the addon(Patrick Moore coded that part), but it could fly in
> final version.
>
> -Sean
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 11:54 PM, Jude Jackson <syzygy6 at gmail.com<javascript:;>>
> wrote:
>
> > Well in that case, I'd be interested in a discussion around the idea of
> the
> > gearshift menu itself. Right now, it's sort of assumed that every option
> in
> > the pie menu proposal will be a direction in a big daisy of choices, but
> > that doesn't seem very conducive to an efficient workflow. Personally,
> > maybe since I'm one of the rare Americans who drives a manual
> transmission,
> > my gearshift idea seems intuitive, but I don't know what its limits are.
> It
> > might work well with 2-8 options, but beyond that it might be too clunky
> > (of course, it's not like a big daisywheel stands much better).
> >
> > Anyway, a couple other keys that could be expanded:
> >
> > *A* - Macro selections (select all, select none, select all of X type,
> > deselect X type)
> > *C, B* - Condense into a single key, add circle select, box select, lasso
> > select, &c.
> > *H* - Hide, hide group, hide everything else
> > *O* - Choose proportional editing falloff (or disable)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 5:07 AM, Bol Bib <bollebib at hotmail.com<javascript:;>>
> wrote:
> >
> > > I think they're still implementing the pie menus
> > >
> > > They have been in the release notes off and on for a few times now
> > >
> > > they need to be worked on some more,I guess.
> > >
> > > > Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 20:42:44 -0400
> > > > From: syzygy6 at gmail.com <javascript:;>
> > > > To: bf-funboard at blender.org <javascript:;>
> > > > Subject: [Bf-funboard] Converting toggle buttons to pie menus
> > > >
> > > > There was some talk for a while about introducing pie menus to
> Blender,
> > > > which to my knowledge never really got off the ground. I'm just going
> > to
> > > > throw this out, since it's a way that pie menus could be implemented
> to
> > > add
> > > > functionality without changing any current use.
> > > >
> > > > Just for example, we have tab to switch the 3D viewport between the
> > > current
> > > > and the last-used mode. That's fine, but if you hold tab all it does
> is
> > > > rapidly flash between the Object and Edit modes as fast as your
> > computer
> > > > can accept input. My proposal is to add to that: If you tap tab, it
> > would
> > > > still switch to the last-used mode, but if you *hold* tab, it could
> > pull
> > > up
> > > > a pie menu giving you access to all of the available modes. Simply
> move
> > > > your selection to the preferred mode and release tab to select (note:
> > the
> > > > last used mode would always be in the center, so tapping tab would
> have
> > > the
> > > > same function).
> > > >
> > > > http://i.imgur.com/Rd7W0AZ.png
> > > >
> > > > I haven't tried prototyping this so I don't know how it would feel
> best
> > > to
> > > > use, though I imagine that for menus that would be frequently used,
> and
> > > > require more than four options, a gear-shifting menu would work
> better
> > > than
> > > > a big multi-pronged daisy menu; it's easier to make simple
> directional
> > > > gestures with the mouse than to move it in a very precise direction.
> > This
> > > > same type of system could be added to other keys, providing more
> > > > functionality on fewer keys without being more difficult to use.
> Well,
> > in
> > > > theory anyway, I haven't tested it so I wouldn't know.
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