<div dir="ltr">Thanks <span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">PLyczkowski and Brecht,</span><div><font face="arial, sans-serif">And Thanks PL</font>ycskowski for the complement on NS2. I'm primarily anim, but I can keep my ear out with Cory, our art director.<font face="arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">For UI,</span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">I've been trying to be very active in the discussion, and I've been honing what I hope is a persuasive and compassionate argument for UI refinement that can both leave the program intact for existing users as well as improve learnability and customization. I have come to discuss it here as well, due to someone linking this as another way to bring about some change. </span></div>
</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.blendernation.com/2013/10/06/developer-meeting-notes-october-6-2013/">http://www.blendernation.com/2013/10/06/developer-meeting-notes-october-6-2013/</a><br></div><div>Here is the latest revision of my argument in the comments. </div>
<div>It has been refined after some discussion with a Blender Institute representative. His concerns were that a lot of the UI discussion was directed at making Blender a clone of other programs. Upon reflection, I don't believe the hotkeys are necessary, and it is kind of disrespectful to ask Blender to just adopt other program keys, when we all struggled to learn Maya, Max and ZBrushes funky keys. I have instead shifted my focus upon a feature I described here before, a prominent task oriented UI loading menu option. Below that, I then describe concerns that I believe should be kept in mind while designing features, or redesigning, in Blender that would probably also address Blender's learning curve for new users. </div>
<div><br></div><div>I don't wish to belabor this too much, but the UI element alone would be a hundred times better than Maya's beloved shelves system, and it would allow studios like Unknown Worlds, perhaps Wolfire Games and other indie studios to pool resources and design friendlier environments for new hires, speed particular tasks or maybe even innovate new features. It takes pressure off the core group about conforming to other programs, too. </div>
<div><br></div><div>As for the second point, I consider usability really a concern that we all should have as we age. The perspectives I put forth are perhaps extreme, but should be considered while designing a program. They are also representative of the many shades of difficulties that exist across the user base of any program. I think we all can identify people in our lives that aren't senile but have difficulty keeping on track, and are especially burdened by disorganization that requires searching. We probably all know people that don't have trouble reading but navigate almost primarily by landmarks. These sort of problems are what I consider the bigger issue to Blender's usability.</div>
<div><br></div><div>These two items would make great strides towards addressing core difficulties of learning Blender. </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 6:34 AM, Brecht Van Lommel <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:brechtvanlommel@pandora.be" target="_blank">brechtvanlommel@pandora.be</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>Hi,</div><div class="im"><div><br></div>On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 10:40 AM, Paweł Łyczkowski <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pawellyczkowski@gmail.com" target="_blank">pawellyczkowski@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">@Colin @Aubrey<br>
<br>
Hey<br>
<br>
An UI refresh is planned for the 2.7x series, and the commutity has been
very active recently in proposing what the refresh could consist of
(you can see the biggest thread about it here -
<a href="http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?298932-Blender-UI-Mockups-and-Ideas-Requested" target="_blank">http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?298932-Blender-UI-Mockups-and-Ideas-Requested</a>).<br>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>To be clear, there is a lot of activity around this topic from users, but as far as I know, no developers have announced any big plans to refresh the UI.</div><div><br></div><div>
Ton mentioned something about refreshing the default settings in the roadmap, but that's not the same thing.</div>
<div><a href="http://code.blender.org/index.php/2013/06/blender-roadmap-2-7-2-8-and-beyond/" target="_blank">http://code.blender.org/index.php/2013/06/blender-roadmap-2-7-2-8-and-beyond/</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>
Maybe with all the activity there is a good change that developers will get interested in working on this topic, but I wouldn't say that it is actually planned yet.</div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<div><br></div><div>Brecht.</div><div> </div></font></span></div></div></div>
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