[Bf-committers] Actuall usability of some tools and new features

[Damir Prebeg]

I know that our programmers are making great efforts to make our beloved Blender better but I think that some UI changes and additions are not necessary a step forward.

1. Translate and Scale buttons under Object Tools panel are impractical and almost unusable.
Example: When I click on Move button, selected object will start to move instantly. Unless I hold the Shift key, by the time my cursor reaches middle of the screen, moved object will go outside of 3D view (btw, same happens with Duplicate button).
Those buttons are having some purpose only if I manually type the value for translation or scale. I see now the second purpose for them: to show via tooltip what's the keyboard shortcut for move and scale function.

2. Ok, I'm not happy but I can live with a decision to abandon horizontal layout. But current vertical solution requires way to much of scrolling because I don't have big monitor so that's a big problem for me (I'm still among 30% of people that is still using 1024x768 resolution). Excluding active programmers, we are all beginners with 2.50 and for a
beginner it's hard to know in witch window some option is located when
he must scroll down to see all options. This problem will make blender
learning curve even steeper. Or not, if someone donate us all 30'' monitors.

3. Well, we can't go without any scrolling, that's for sure but I don't completely understand scroll bar functionality. In some windows scroll bar is visible and it will scroll even if nothing is there (dope sheet for instance). In some windows click and drag of that gray dot on scroll bar ends will resize window content, but in some other will not.

4. For me, In render buttons window/area (and not only there), It's hard to distinguish what's just an panel title, and what's an option. And I think I'm not the only one because I have seen some requests in the past to make panels more distinguishable.

5. Almost last but not least, I'm not sure that replacement of the main menu (space key) with search is so bright idea. Let's imagine that Bill has suddenly decided to remove start menu button and usual Win key function replace with Run dialog...
In that same search menu, let someone try to scroll to see all commands while slightly moving the mouse cursor. That's a quite impossible task.

Well, as I've said, that's not all but this mail is already too long and I hope that someone will have patience to read my bad English.


Damir