merge/weld and osa Re: [Bf-funboard] Reorganising the EditButtons

[Luke Wenke]

> Can we please take a break from the discussion about what to call what???
> There is a lot more important stuff going on.  I'm not saying we
> can't talk about it, it doesn't make sense to have an argument about it
> right now.
Then I hope there is a time when it is on the agenda. And hopefully not all
of the stuff that was said would be forgotten. (So far there was
antialiasing, merge, upper/lower field first, etc)

> Weld is better because X uses it, I like merge, I like stuff these
> stupid things together!!! ;)
> The names are trivial fixes in the code that are just window dressing.
BTW, in P48 of the Blender 2.0 manual, it says:
"you will have to go and weld them manually. To weld two vertices
together.....click the "Remove Doubles" button in the EditButtons window".
It would be simpler to say:
"To weld two vertices together.....click the "weld" button in the
EditButtons window".
Or
"To merge two vertices together.....click the "merge" button in the
EditButtons window".
(Merge is the favorite at the moment with 3 votes)

> I think we can all agree that they should be descriptive and make sense to
> new users as well as old, if a lot of programs are using a given name
> thats probably a good one to use.  Maybe someone should make a table
> of all of the button/action names in the top X 3d apps and go from there.
I think a better way would be to look at the button names/tooltips in
Blender, then see if any are unclear. If so, then alternatives could be
looked at - the names from other programs could be taken into account. I
guess I could do up a table of the names in Blender....

> Right now thought the labels on the buttons don't really matter.
> Wait until the interface is done.  Who knows maybe the new interface will
> completely do away wit the stuff these stupid things together button. ;)
I don't see how that could happen.... unless the button leads to a pop-up
menu - but then one of the options in the pop-up menu would be "remove
doubles", etc.

> I think it makes sense to keep things the same for now and get the layout/
> process of pressing a button etc.. working first.  It will also make
> learning the new interface for old users easier to deal with.
Virtually all the names would be the same - just things like "Rem Doubles"
would be missing. And there would be a couple new names. The readme could
explain the changes. On blender.org they also usually show the readme which
lists the changes.

> Finally, it will make the people working on the books life easier as
> Ton mentioned.
If the people read the readme they can see that Merge = Remove Doubles. The
tooltip could say something like "Merge the selected vertices together that
are within the given threshold". Currently the tooltip says "Remove
Doubles". Those that don't have access to a book (maybe a majority) mightn't
understand what that is supposed to do, and so ignore it. And those that do
have a book would take a while to find out where the book explains what the
tooltip means. Tooltips should be pretty self explanatory.
For those making a transition, there could be a picture that people can see
at blender.org during Blender 2.30 (etc)'s release which has arrows pointing
to name changes and the word at the other end of the arrow could say what
the old name was. There would only be a couple name changes.
If there are name changes that are pretty much agreed upon, I think they
might as well happen.

> Lets keep the focus on the task at hand.
Ok, but there should be a time when it is appropriate to discuss name
changes otherwise the problem will just keep being brushed aside and blender
will be harder to use for beginners (who may in fact be experienced 3d
modellers) than it could have been.

- Luke,