[Bf-committers] I am attempting to improve Blender's Outliner and I could use some help.

[john bartle]

OS: Windows 7
 IDE: Visual Studio 2008 Express
 Software Engineering experience: A mixture of novice, intermediate, and advanced




 Hello, and good day to anyone who reads this. I was directed here from BlenderArtists.org, and so this is a copy of a post that I wrote in that forum.



 I am attempting to learn and manipulate the Blender codebase in order to gain some experience in programming, and just for fun. I have decided to attempt to improve the Outliner and start learning the codebase from there. 

 I have a design model planned which includes a few things like:

Implementing Python script grouping/ordering/filtering - which will be stackable/layerable. Variables within the script can, optionally, be exposed as a property within a n-panel panel.Redoing and improving grouping/ordering – namely, any item can be filtered in accordance with ANY propertyConveniently displaying ANY property for any grouped items - By items I mean objects, materials, modifiers, constraints, etc... 

---------------------MY PROBLEM

 I have decided that the python filters and their respective variables need to be placed within the side panel/n-panel. So far this is where I have begun and am currently stuck.

 My current problem is that I have coded (copied, pasted and then modified) everything that I know of for a side panel/n-panel for the outliner, but the side panel is not showing up.My code executes, but the side panel doesn't show up.

 So far I am just trying to imitate what other coders have done, namely by copying and pasting their code. .
I suppose there could easily be more code involved to create an n-panel area but I just don't know what. Can anyone help? If you could, at least, tell me what other areas of code I should be using as an example to implement a n-panel that would be wonderful.


Below is a .patch file(WIP) with what I have coded so far. 

 NOTE: The “.patch” extension has been changed to “.blend” in order to upload it as an attachment.

outliner_redone_.blend


 Thanks for any help.