[Bf-committers] Two details that got away from Blender design concepts

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi Daniel,

I've got usability issues on my desk the next period - will add both on my todo!

BTW: just don't flood me now with usability topics! I prefer to do bugfixing and solve old issues still :) After mid december I think I'll have much more time for it. I would also like to spend time on re-instating the module owner/member teams, and check with them on how to handle such topics efficiently.

Laters,

-Ton-

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands

On 30 Oct, 2012, at 20:02, Daniel Salazar - 3Developer.com wrote:

> I've been pointed out by Pablo that the same layer behavior is present
> on the renderlayer masks. Here I can repeat the exact same points.
> Maybe this was a choice made to prevent users from clearing the mask
> selection in a time the undo system didn't work too well? Now if you
> make a mistake (forget to press shift) you can simply undo
> 
> Daniel Salazar
> patazstudio.com
> 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 12:50 PM, Daniel Salazar - 3Developer.com
> <zanqdo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> This are two simple details that are in blender for some time. I
>> woudn't pester about this if they weren't getting in the way all the
>> time. I'd like to have another discussion about them and hopefully get
>> to a solution.
>> 
>> 1) Node editor release confirm
>> 
>> The tweak (right mouse drag) behavior in the node editor is the only
>> place in any other editable part in blender where "Release Confirms"
>> is forced to the user, like it or not. It forces the user to re-think
>> the tweak behavior every time he/she switches to another editor. This
>> is wrong because tweak is something we should do naturally and
>> effortlessly.
>> 
>> More importantly we have an editing preference for those who like this
>> behavior but it's ignored in the node editor:
>> 
>> http://www.zanqdo.com/tmp/ReleaseConfirm.png
>> 
>> This hack also fails interestingly on the Detach node operator
>> (Alt+Tweak) where it reverts to obeying the preference after the tweak
>> so you do have to click to confirm!
>> 
>> Please let it respect the preference again so everyone can have it as we prefer
>> 
>> 
>> 2) Dupli Visibility
>> 
>> Dupligroup layer visibility toggles work different than any other
>> layer toggle in Blender.
>> 
>> Normally clicking on a slot disables the rest, while shift-clicking on
>> a layer adds to the selection. This is in line with everything else in
>> blender. But Dupligroup visibility is different. You click on a layer
>> and you toggle it while shift clicking does exactly the same.
>> 
>> This change was made (to my understanding) because of an assumption
>> that you usually just want to disable 1 or 2 hidden layers. This might
>> be the case for some people but that's just a personal preference. In
>> my case for example, for better clarity and cleanness I prefer to only
>> enable the layers that have dupli-visible geometry while keeping all
>> the rest nicely disabled like this.
>> 
>> http://www.zanqdo.com/tmp/Dupli_Visibility.png
>> 
>> So there you go, the assumption is now invalidated and we still have a
>> counter intuitive widget that forces the user to click *18 times* in
>> order to disable the hidden layers. With the standard system this
>> would only take 2 shift clicks.
>> 
>> On the other hand, for those who still prefer to only disable the
>> hidden layers it would also take only 1 or 2 shift-clicks! I can not
>> think of a real reason why the standard behavior is ignored here just
>> to save a single key press to some users
>> 
>> thx
>> 
>> Daniel Salazar
>> patazstudio.com
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