[Bf-committers] User Interface Tasklist Proposal

[Campbell Barton]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 1:51 AM, Jorge Rodriguez <jorge at lunarworkshop.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 1, 2012 at 3:12 AM, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> * would not be accepted into blender (probably you we'rent to know but
>> pre-select highlighting wouldnt be accepted, Ton doesn't like it)
>>
>
> Really? How strange. What's the objection? He doesn't want it even as an
> option?

rather not argue on someone elses behalf, we should have this stuff
documented somewhere - common requests we wont accept - along with
custom wire color, FSA values above 1, these are re-occurring topics.

> * are very very easy, or simply tweaking a default (right click menu
>> for text is an example of this, of course users dont care if features
>> are hard to code or not, BUT it does make it harder to review your
>> proposal since we cant really count these additions as significant
>> contributions - projects for you to sink your teeth into)
>>
>
> I spoke with some other developers who expressed to me that a lot of small
> items is better than one large items, better possibility of it being
> finished. So I just threw everything related to usability (not necessarily
> UI) onto the list. From what I've seen there's been a few similar
> polish-related GSoC projects accepted in recent years, so I was hoping it
> wouldn't be a problem. Would you prefer if there was one or two big ticket
> items on there? Such as...

Perhaps others would disagree here, but I really think this gsoc
projects should try to focus on a few main areas,
unless your already familier with many different areas of our code -
learning how the code works in each new area can take a fair bit of
time so think with the 10 weeks given its not best use of time.

With the UI you will already need to deal with
python/rna/event-system/window-manager/opengl - which are spread out
through our codebase so think you will have enough on your hands
getting up to speed with this.

Including many of small items are fine - but IMHO not small/unrelated
items - also makes your final work harder to review if it touches many
different areas.

Even if you dont have big-ticket tasks, would like to see clear
direction - "Improve usability" - is fine but give ~3-6 key areas you
will work on to do so.

> * reduce vertical scrolling for toolbar, operator view.
>> * cleanup view3D header & menus eg:
>> http://www.blendernation.com/2011/10/29/cleaning-up-the-blender-ui/
>> * improve the layout engine for more efficient use of whitespace (or
>> at least make configurable).
>> * improve toolbar (add/remove user tools would be nice to have)
>>
>
> These look really interesting, I would love to add them. Can I ask you to
> expand on these? How exactly more efficient whitespace, you mean reducing
> it? How would you want to reduce vertical scrolling? Some of them could be
> controversial, I tried to stick to uncontroversial things. The Reynish
> presentation for example I would love to work on. Should I do a Gimp mockup
> of a new toolbar? If these things require debate, how should I go about
> handling them in my proposal?

This moves into the murky area of stuff nobody agrees on :S

Apart of the project might be to address these issues without
proposing exactly how, probably for this project to succeed at all
your mentor will need to be someone who has some authority to make UI
decisions and exact solutions can be worked out with your mentor.

Simple example could be, to make spacing configurable (theme-able?)
... an experiment I did a while back.
http://www.graphicall.org/ftp/ideasman42/blender_style_big.png
http://www.graphicall.org/ftp/ideasman42/blender_style_small.png

Problem is I'm not apart of blender UI dev team really, so cant give
you definitive answers.

Though its a real shame to have someone motivated to work on our UI
but unable to because we cant get our act together and appoint a UI
team.

>
> I'll move all of the not directly related to UI stuff into a nice-to-have
> section.
>
> --
> Jorge "Vino" Rodriguez
> jorge at lunarworkshop.com
> twitter: VinoBS
> 919.757.3066
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-- 
- Campbell