[Bf-committers] Wkey - 4

Martin Poirier bf-committers@blender.org
Thu, 9 Oct 2003 07:17:40 -0700 (PDT)


Just an additional note, but Wkey - 4 was Rem Doubles
for a really long time, the first one to break this
was Goofster when he added the Merge too (its presence
in the Wkey menu is redundant IMHO, since it's already
assigned to Alt-M).

Martin


--- Robert Wenzlaff <rwenzlaff@soylent-green.com>
wrote:
> On Thursday 09 October 2003 07:30 am, Ton Roosendaal
> wrote:
> > Hi Robert,
> >
> > If you like proposals to be accepted, it's
> important to read carefully
> > what people write, digest that information, and
> propose something that
> > fits better. Giving opinions confuses... and makes
> the threads hard to
> > read.
> > I don't have much time for mail these days, so I
> also made the error of
> > too quickly scanning mails, probably irritating
> you as well. :)
> 
> I'm sorry if  I seem irritated, but I think we're
> going around in circles 
> because you are missing the cruicial point of the
> proposal.  
> 
> > Important is to realize that 'hotchars' then are
> *not* allowed to be a
> > number. The new 'hotchar' is added functionality,
> and doesn't have to
> > mess with old conventions at all. SHIFT+S-4 will
> remain the 4th item.
> 
> No.  The problem is the 4th item might change and
> then the behavior of 
> memorized combo like SHIFT-S-4 changes.  Look what
> happened to the "W" menu 
> when I put "Knife" in with the other subdivides. 
> "W-4" changed from "Merge" 
> to "Knife", leading to a lot of complaints and this
> debate.   Currently, you 
> have to choose between logical grouping of items, or
> not breaking key combos.  
> This proposal makes position and combo independant
> choices.
> 
> > 1) Pupmenu definitions will get an optional hotkey
> to activate this.
> > This will be called a 'hotchar', which only
> resides within the context
> > of the menu itself.
> 
> This is fine.  
> 
> > 2) The hotchars are not allowed to be a number, to
> achieve
> > compatibility with the previous system, and to
> communicate to a user
> > there's an additional method for choosing a menu
> item.
> >
> > 3) If a hotchar is available in a Pupmenu, it will
> be an additional
> > choice for a user, the old convention to use
> number hotkeys will remain
> > unchanged.
> 
> These two show the point you seem to be missing. 
> The hotchars and numeric 
> position _should not_ exist together.  Having both
> does not solve the 
> expandability problem.  You still can not insert a
> new menu item in the 
> middle of a list without breaking key combos. 
> Additions have to be made to 
> the end, no matter how they are related.
> 
> In the case of a well used key combo, the hotchar
> should explicitly be chosen 
> to be the old number so the menu can be reorgainized
> and the combo doesn't 
> break.  Hotchars should be numbers in ONLY these
> case. 
>  
> > 3) In the code we will usa a "%k" to indicate a
> hotchar, a menu string
> > would look something like:
> >
> > "SPECIALS %t|Subdivide %kS %x1|Smooth Subdivide
> %ko %x2|Fractal
> > Subdivide %kF %x3|Knife Subdivide %kK %x11|Merge
> %kM %x4...."
> 
> Your changing of the %k behavior is a fine, welcome
> addition.  
> But you just broke the "W-4" combo (well, ok, I did
> it first).  That's what 
> started this debate.   Knife belongs with  the other
> subdivides, but can't go 
> there without breaking key combos.
> 
> Under my proposal as written (maybe not well
> written), that would be:
> 
> "SPECIALS %t|Subdivide (1) %kS1  %x1|Smooth
> Subdivide (2) %o2 %x2|Fractal 
> Subdivide (3) %kF3 %x3|Knife Subdivide %kK
> %x11|Merge (4) %kM4 %x4...."
> 
> In this case, "Subdivide would be invoked by as "S"
> or a "1", "Smooth" by "o" 
> or "2",  "fractal" by "f" or "3", "Knife by only
> "k", "Merge" by "M" or "4".  
> The combo "W-4" is still mapped to the "Merge"
> function.
> 
> I assumed that all options other than "Knife" are
> "well used" and have combos 
> that need to be preserved.  This would have to get
> determined on a case by 
> case basis, but the default should be to add numeric
> hotchars to all existing 
> items before inserting new features with only
> alphabetic hotchars.   This 
> way, no key combos are broken.  
> 
> I also assumed that an item could have 2 hotchars,
> since it's just a LUT of 
> key to event, but if we determine it is better to
> have only 1 hotchar per 
> item, only the number would be kept in these cases,
> so the key combo is 
> preserved. 
> 
> Yes, it breaks the "4th is 4" behavior.   But the
> whole point of keeping the 
> numbers at all is to preserve user memorized
> behavior, so it really doesn't 
> matter where they are on the list.  The people who
> are complaining about 
> broken combos aren't counting down the list, they're
> just hitting keys from 
> memory.    Don't sacrifice the behavior of the _app_
> to preserve the behavior 
> of the menu.
> 
> I don't think loosing the "4th is 4" behavior will
> cause an appreciable amount 
> of confusion.  When users see an underlined "4" in
> the 5th item, they know 
> what's going to happen if they hit "4", they won't
> bother to check our math.  
> Following the convention I laid out assures we won't
> get completely scattered 
> numbers, they will be in order, but will have items
> with no number between 
> them.
> 
> The _only_ time the strict "4th is 4" behavior would
> remain, is the case of a 
> string that provides no hotchars for _any_ item.   
> It is just a fallback to 
> allow us to impliment the code without having to
> track down every instance of 
> pupmenu() in one sitting (there's ~146 of them).  If
> no hotchars were found, 
> the LUT would be filled so ONEKEY maps to ITEM1,
> etc.  This means, that if 
> you add an item with a hotchar to a non-updated
> menu, you need to add 
> hotchars to _all_ items in that menu.
> 
> I hope this is clearer.
> -- 
> ***************************************************
> Robert Wenzlaff         rwenzlaff@soylent-green.com 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers@blender.org
>
http://www.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com