[Bf-committers] OOPs Wishlist

[bf-committers@blender.org]

On 15 Apr 2004 at 8:29, Rob Haarsma wrote:
> I would've never written this mail, but since you're asking so 
> explicitly.... ;-)
> 
> Automatic positioning oops:
> http://www.tncci.com/blender/oops2.jpg
> 
> Way back, when Blender's code got released I did some experiments
> with positioning of datablocks in the OOPS window. Like Ton said it is
> very difficult to simply visualise the structure of your scene, because
> some datablocks (especially Empties and Ipo's) can be connected in
> many ways. I had some stuff going, but abandoned the work because
> it grew too hackish and didn't know the code very well back then. But
> there are two or three things that have crept crawling through my brain
> since then.
> 
> First; when you click a object in the 3d window, it would be nice if all
> datablocks connected to this object got automatically aligned
> (something like this: http://www.tncci.com/blender/oops.jpg)
> so you can directly switch/click to all data involved. This leads to two;
> clicking, or ctlr-clicking a datablock would not only select or activate
> the object in the 3d window, but would also switch the lower button
> window to the appropriate menu (lampdata, material, texture etc.)
> And clicking on camera blocks could change the 3d view accordingly,
> as clicking on objects could make the object appear centered in 3d.

I could see how some people might like this. However I could also see 
how it might annoy other people. I think a feature like this would 
need a way to turn off and on.
> 
> And third, it would be extremely convenient if you could select your
> own list of datablocks, sorted on name, type of object, connection(s),
> datalinks and whatnot. You can compare it with a detailed (windows)
> explorer listing of files, where you can quickly sort the list on alphabet,
> size, type and date of creation. On a wider scale I also tinkered with
> the idea that when the user selects (parts of) a bone structure in 3d,
> the oops window could schematically position the selected datablocks
> as a tree, according to the parenting hierarchy of the object.

I have an idea which seems to fit with the most requested feature for 
oops. Sorting and searching. I think first I will work on a way to 
specify a sort pattern for an oops schematic. The idea I had was to 
store a filter or sort criteria in the SpaceOops struct somewhere. I 
am still investigating whether that would work or not. Then I could 
use that information to see what the current filter/sort type was for 
a particular oops space and dislplay the schematic accordingly. The 
easiest way I can see is to structure the schematic using an oops or 
set of oops as your base and repositioning the oops accordingly. We 
might also want the filter/sort criteria to hide other oops.
> 
> I'm sure there were more ideas, but seeing what coding efforts it would
> take, I just left it as it is.. ;-)
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Rob.
>