[Bf-committers] Addressing Vertical Tab Concerns - Followup

Vilem Novak pildanovak at post.cz
Mon Feb 10 17:56:33 CET 2014


<span style='font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;'>you wrote:</span>

<span style='font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;'>>I could only find this page, about horizontal tabs:</span><br>

><a href='http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Development/Proposals/UI/December_2010_-_Vilem_Novak'>http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Development/Proposals/UI/December_2010_-_Vilem_Novak</a>

I understand you can't read everything, but this proves you didn't read the proposal. There is a section about tool access in this proposal, with several other ideas. I really should have done a video. Maybe then I can explain the simple math of multiplying the number of tabs that will potentially fit with the number of tools each tab can access, and compare it to the number of tools that are in blender and should be available through a subspace called toolbar. 

A simple calculation:

O<span style='font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;'>n full HD screen, with timeline visible at bottom, and last operator area on a reasonable size:</span>

10 tabs * 20 buttons= 200. It's not bad, it's much better than it was! And really thanks for that.

20 menus with up to 32-40 options = 640-800 -that would be a bit better in my opinion.

<pre><span style='font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;'>both of these solutions require a 2 click access to any of the available tools and approximately same travel path of mouse. With menus, you save the extra space on the left. Regarding muscle memory, they are approximately the same, but tabs have uneven size. If you happen to resize your window, you start scrolling with tabs much sooner(again), which is much heavier than clicking regarding time if you measure it. It's a very rough estimate. </span><br>


<pre>a fast script loop over all operators in blender counts 1563 operators, of course, a fraction only are tools, but some operators are in the ui more times(with different options on call).


So, really, I think tabs are a good improvement, as I allready wrote, and big thanks for those, I just think they are not the best solution. 

<br>

>The fact nothing happened with the idea is just because it's not an idea everyone immediately thought o>f "brilliant, let's do it, it solves all issues". I think we can do better. :)

I sincerely hope so, for many years allready :)

Vilem




---------- Původní zpráva ----------
Od: Vilem Novak <pildanovak at post.cz>
Datum: 10. 2. 2014
Předmět: Addressing Vertical Tab Concerns - Followup

"Ok, 
there was a bit of misunderstanding from my side. 
this is from email in this list from JW with a topic called Addressing 
Vertical Tab Concerns:

>I have updated my original wiki proposal with a section on *Addressing Tab
>Concerns: *
<a href='http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/Tab-Interface#UI_Proposal:_Tabbed_Interface_for_Screen_Layouts_and_Toolbar'>>http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/Tab-Interface#UI_Proposal:_Tabbed_Interface_for_Screen_Layouts_and_Toolbar</a>

>If you have any other concerns I'll be happy to do my best to answer them
>and add them to the wiki.

I understood it that way that the place to discuss this is actually on the 
wiki. So I wrote my part there. I didn't enter the other discussions.

Regarding 'giving it a rest' - that is what I did 3-4 years ago. That's 
approximately the last time I spent loads of my time thinking and writing 
down ideas in proposals for the UI. When I realised nobody is actually 
reading this stuff, I really gave it a break, not wanting to waste more of 
my time. I now use this "developer time" to develop addons for blender, 
currently without any connection with the foundation. That's also why I 
didn't search for any other place where the discussion is actually happening
and didn't know about it, I mostly only read mailing lists.
I didn't suggest BF should have more money  or people for this, there are 
allready people perfectly capable of doing such work, but new features often
seem to be of higher priority. 
I considered this as an opportunity to step a bit into the discussion after 
a long time,and of course if there would be actually any reaction, I would 
react and continue drafting things , that's what I consider helping 
regarding design of UI. 
Regards 
Vilem
"


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