[Bf-funboard] buttons window icons

[Luke Wenke]

Hi,
Apparently there was a large amount of discussion in the past about the
buttons window icons. Well I think the conclusion needs to be rethought.

Currently in 2.29:
(1) Logic
(1) Script
(5) [Shading] Lamp, Material, Texture, Radiosity, World
(1) Object
(1) Editing
(3) [Scene] Render, Anim/playback, Sound block
= 12 button window categories.

Initial proposal
All the icons shown at once - but only 11 are needed. The "lamp" and
"editing" can toggle automatically depending on if a lamp is the active
object or not, since if a lamp is active, the "editing" buttons aren't
available. And if a lamp isn't the active object, the "lamp" buttons aren't
available. (so it makes sense not to bother showing those icons) And the
buttons could switch from editing to lamp and vice versa, depending on if
the lamp is the active object or not. (Currently the switch is between
material and lamp)

The icons could be organized into 4 logical groups:
A) Object
A) Editing/Lamp
B) Material
B) Texture
B) Radiosity
B) World
C) Logic
C) Script
C) Sound block
D) Anim/playback
D) Render

Here is a mock-up:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wenke/blender/coloured-buttons2.gif
I've coloured the icon backgrounds according to the logical group I just
mentioned. (Alternating between gold and grey) Ignore the actual icons
though since I couldn't be bothered putting the icons in the proposed order
in the picture. But I made sure there were 11 icons there.

Now at the moment, if you go into 2.29 and go to the shading group, there
are the 6 category icons, and 5 icons in that category, giving a total of 11
icons - the same number as mine - except mine displays all of the icons on
the screen at once. And in 2.29 more room is taken up because there is a gap
between the two groups of icons. (Maybe there could be little gaps in my
idea, but they wouldn't need to be very large)

Of course, that only happens in 2.29 when you are in the shading group. The
other groups are smaller.

Probably the main disadvantage of the icons in 2.29 is that you need to do 2
clicks in order to choose many of the icons... but in my idea there is
always only 1 click. It is conceiveable that you could do it in 1 click in
2.29 though, but pressing down the mouse button on the first icon and
holding down the mouse button while dragging it over to the other icon and
releasing the mouse button there. Firstly, that isn't a standard convention
in GUI's... usually you'd click the mouse button to activate it or release
the mouse button to activate it... (in Blender it is done as soon as you
click - on standard Windows buttons, it happens when you release) - usually
when you click, drag, release, you are moving or copying some item... but
the metaphor of dragging something wouldn't be used in that case in 2.29.

BTW, in my mock-up I also show how the icons can be turned into tabs.
Tuupopu(?) 2.28 has a similar look. It makes it immediately obvious which
icon leads to the current set of buttons in the buttons window, which would
allow you to subconsciously learn the icon functions faster.

In conclusion, I think the window icons should be changed back to
single-click ones (not necessarily identical to the ones in 2.28 - they
could have spacing, less buttons [only 11 like I explained], and/or colour
grouping, etc).

If anyone agrees with me at all, maybe they could say so to this mailing
list and maybe the icon organisation in 2.29 will be changed.

- Luke.