[Bf-committers] Cursors, Patches, and Process

[Harley Acheson]

Hello,

I have been working on something silly that might have some useful bits,
but I’m worried that it might have grown beyond the ability to evaluate it
well. So I’m wondering if I should break it up into smaller non-breaking
incremental changes that can be evaluated and (hopefully) approved
separately.

My *experiments with the cursors <https://developer.blender.org/D5197>*
started with something I haven’t even done yet, which is the idea of having
alternatives to choose from while painting / sculpting. But in moving
toward that my “work in progress” has grown to something huge.  Every
single blender cursor has been redrawn, large versions added for all of
them. The way that the best cursor type per operating system is selected
has been changed. New cursors added. And then the entire set of cursors
has a nicer antialiased replacements for Windows users.

But that would mean, for example, that a Windows user would not see any of
the built-in blender cursors in order to give any feedback on those. Even
Mac users would see more OS-supplied cursors so would not see all blender
cursors and would (obviously) see no Windows cursors.

So I ‘m wondering if I should break this project into pieces. All the
windows cursors can be added at once, just some files added and changes to
GHOST_WindowWin32.cpp. With that and just a few lines changed in
wm_cursors.c it would fix a bug where our cursors are invisible in Windows
when HDR and WCG are turned on:

https://developer.blender.org/T62417

Afterward I could add a separate patch that only edits the images of the
built-in cursors and maybe adds a few more. Then some changes to how the
best cursor per-OS is selected, some small changes to GHOST_WindowCocoa.mm
so Macs will use some more OS-supplied cursors. Then lots of small changes
to allow use of the new cursors in different tools, etc. All atomic changes
that break nothing but add only smaller improvements.

Is that kind of approach more reasonable, or do I keep bumbling forward
with a patch that was 132K the last time I checked? LOL

Cheers, Harley