[Bf-committers] UI issues, both ideas and review of t3

[Matt Ebb]

Hi there,

Thanks for the review! There are some very interesting and  
constructive ideas in here, which is great. I haven't time to worry  
about other things right now, so I'll only reply to the parts about  
the things in tuhopuu3 that I'm preparing patches for. I should note  
that while not all of the panels work is mine, I will take  
responsibility for it myself to make any corrections before patching.

On 26/09/2005, at 00:47 AM, GSR wrote:


> 6. Some theme updates:
>
> I have seen people asking about non rounded corners. It is not hard to
> implement IMO, just check theme and adjust round bit field. I think
> minimal could at least be this way.
>

I don't understand - the minimal theme doesn't use rounded corners.


> 7. Packed slider:
>
> ...
>
> And more important, the look for themes like rounded. For minimal
> there are two options already, solid bicolour style (changes text
> colour on overlap) or simple lines below and or above the text. The
> others could be arrows, gauge... dunno. That is the meaty issue of
> this.
>

This is quite a reasonable idea, but there are a couple of issues.  
How would this deal with user input? It's important that the text/ 
numbers can be single clicked on to edit the values directly. So  
perhaps it could work if a click over the text area edited the value,  
but a drag anywhere on the slider dragged the level up or down  
(similar to number buttons). One thing that's in tuhopuu that I do  
like is that you can click on any point on the slider to have it fill  
up that mark immediately. Perhaps this could be done with an Alt  
click or something.

I think it's worth a try!


> 9. Multiple buttons for same key:
>
> Take F10, it selects render buttons, but shares a group with two other
> things. Pressing multiple times could cycle thru them if you are
> already in the group.
>
> I think Desoto mentioned this.
>

Actually it was me, and it's on the todo list after the rest of this  
stuff :)


> 14. T3 lamp buttons:
>
> Specular, diffuse and layer change position, based in which kind of
> lamp you have. They could stay fixed.
>

Yeah, the current organisation is keeping the 'energy related'  
setting together, though it could be more convenient to move the  
Quadratic stuff to the bottom of that column, I doubt that many  
people use it anyway.


> 15. T3 material buttons:
>
> Why seems to start with over 4 panels of width?  ... I will
> assume it is just an issue of the .B.blend, as wiki says 4.
>

Yes, that's it.


> Why is shadeless not in shading but in panel that is docked to the
> preview? It should be Solid (extrange name, as making things with
> Alpha will clearly show it seems to be a "shell"... )
>

I think Solid is pretty self explanatory. In any case adjusting alpha  
in the default state (with no Z trans) does give a solid appearance.


> Shaderless and
> Halo. This way Shaderless would hide all the shaders that do nothing
> when it is on (and yes, I know it would require some special coding to
> match internal logic, I am pointing the behaviour user would expect
> about "shading").
>
> Wireframe could be in Shading group of settings instead of General.
>
> Why is ambient slider also hidden even if you want to check the
> preview? And again, makes no sense in shadeless or halo.

Unfortunately a result of lack of space. The idea below sounds good,  
I'll give it a try.


> In Map to channels the Colour and the colour area seem to be
> disconnected from the rest of channels buttons.

Yes, this is a mistake. The colour swatch should be connected to all  
of Color/Mir Col/Spec Col buttons, since that's what it affects.


> Sliders and toggle buttons seems to be placed separately. Colour is
> near colour, but bump is not, while it could be. Also Displacement and
> Warp sliders could be near the buttons that enable those mappings.

That would be a nice subtlety, yes.

> Transparency, nice thing that ztransp disables IOR controls. OTOH, it
> should be only raytracing the one that enables, right?

That was how it was originally set up with the disabled buttons, to  
disable settings by default until toggles (eg. Ray Trans) were  
pressed to enable them. This was not so good since it forced a  
certain workflow (click toggle -> adjust setting), so the concept was  
reversed to be that settings would generally be enabled, until a  
toggle that prevents it (like Z trans) was pressed that disabled it.  
The disabling would give nice feedback that way.

> Frensel buttons should be linked to what they relate, or some kind of
> cue of what they are for, as sometimes the relation is in columns
> (this) and sometimes in continous lines (shader sliders).

Hopefully with the idea posted above, I can move the shader sliders  
to a columned version too. Otherwise if there are still issues the  
sliders in mirror trans can be grouped together.


> 16. T3 texture buttons:
>
> A bit pity that the control for brightness contrast is docked by
> default. Would it be possible to make it fourth entry and ramp/colour
> the third? That way it will dock with Image and Movie when using
> Image, and be visible otherwise (in Image and Movie case, they should
> by default take front place). My idea is that people should not have
> to play with panels, but good default instead.

Since the texture buttons usually only have two panels, we could just  
make the Colors panel open by default at the end. The Movie panel  
could dock behind Image Settings.


> 17. T3 radio buttons:
>
> Again another case of things in columns but not grouped, so you wonder
> where the relation to Elements and Patches labels ends. They could be
> four panels, separating Elements and Patches to their own panel, with
> Collect meshes and Free radio data in Calculation panel, probably
> renaming it to Operations, and display in the blank area of Radio
> Render panel.
>
> So you have first Operations (or Commands, current Calculation plus
> two button replacing display buttons), then General and Preview
> (single tab, current Radio Render plus preview controls), with
> Elements as third and Patches panel as fourth.
>
> Why do general setting appear before collecting meshes btw? To allow
> changes for pre render radiosity? Would not then the rest of controls
> also be required?

Yes, this is a mistake. I think William thought the elMax, elMin, etc  
didn't apply  for render time radiosity since they weren't in the  
radio render panel, but I checked with Ton and this is not the case.

> 18. T3 world buttons:

The version in T3 CVS has been sadly neglected and is exactly the  
same as BF right now.. I'll work on getting something up ASAP, taking  
these comments into consideration too, it should be pretty similar to  
material buttons.

> ...hhhm...errr I think I will do a part 2 email with object, editing
> and scene buttons, as this one has become huge already and is
> late.

Please do, the more fresh sets of eyes looking at this and giving  
constructive review, the better. I'll see if I can update T3 soon to  
bring it back in sync.

Cheers,

Matt