[Bf-funboard] Layers, combined buttons/shortcuts, solo and mute

Thorsten Wilms bf-funboard@blender.org
Tue, 9 Dec 2003 18:38:13 +0100


On Tue, Dec 09, 2003 at 05:59:50PM +0100, William Reynish wrote:
> 
> Erm.. I think this topic is very hard to figure out
> what is best to do. Blenders 20 buttons are very fast
> but limiting. But then, if we had hotkeys like M for
> move to layer (ofcourse the move to layer popup would
> have to be redesigned to fit a new way of doing
> layers.) it shouldn't be any slower. 

It's not only the 20 shortcuts, but the combination 
always easy accesible buttons and shortcuts.
I memorize layers by the buttons position and therefore 
operate them by mouse. But on longer working periods I  
start to toggle layers with numberbuttons more and more.

Something a little problematic about the buttons and shortcuts 
is that I need to hold shift more often than not. It happens 
that I switch to a single layer, but most of the time several  
will be visible. But this behaviour is consistent with object 
selection in Blender so changing it would be problematic.

Maybe something we can learn from audio sequencers:
Every track has mute and solo buttons. If no solo is active, 
you hear everything not muted. But switching on solo on any 
track will mute all others. And you can set several tracks 
to solo. After disabling all solo, all returns to old state, 
so that original mute settings don't go lost. Simple and 
flexible.
If we go with a more photoshop like solution, there would 
certainly be the space to implement this.


---
Thorsten