shift-F4 and Append ideas Re: [Bf-funboard] good append

Luke Wenke bf-funboard@blender.org
Tue, 13 Jan 2004 19:29:11 +1000


> Peter Haehnlein wrote:
>   ......I am more concerned about things that Blender does NOT have. If
Blender
> already provides something and I just have to learn how, I am fine.

Using that approach, new features would just keep on being tacked onto
Blender without polishing up what is already there. I feel that the learning
curve of blender can be reduced (by making things more logical and
intuitive) while not reducing the long-term productivity of experienced
users...

>.........The append function may not be the most obvious, but that's what
help
> systems and docs are for.

If the append function was made more obvious, while making things as
productive, then people could also turn to the new docs if they can't work
it out. I don't think blender's help system (the tooltips) help people learn
the append features I was talking about.

> And I feel grateful for every mouse move and
> keystroke that I can save (I have already some trouble with my wrists).
That
> means, I prefer rightclick over a shift left click.

In blender my left hand is mostly over the home row (asdf) so it is quite
easy for me to press left-shift and use my right hand to click the
left-mouse button. You'd only need to hold down shift once while selecting
all the items to append (which would be next to each other). On the other
hand, hotkeys such as append (shift-F1) are quite difficult for me.
Shift-left-click is also totally consistent with how multiple layers are
selected... if you right-click there then you get a menu popping up...
(which is what usually happens in the Windows OS...)
Since certain parts of blender work in that way (left-click to select,
right-click for pop-up menus) and so do OS's such as Windows, William
Reynish talks about applying this to the 3D window:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/mouse_buttons.htm
Another related problem with this left-click right-click append thing is if
you right-click one item to append. The item you had left-clicked at some
point would be listed in the textbox - and the right-clicked item is
appended. (Even if the left-clicked item is different). But if you unselect
that single high-lighted item so no items are high-lighted then the item in
the text box is appended.
If you press shift-F4 to select something in your current document, things
work in a similar way to append... except that if nothing is selected (using
the RMB), the item listed in textbox isn't selected when you exit that
window - so it works a bit differently to append. My suggestion is that all
of the selected items appear in that textfield, separated by commas. And
perhaps if no items are selected, then nothing is shown in the textfield and
the "Load Library" button could be disabled. The right mouse button could be
used (or reserved) for pop-up menus in the append and shift-F4 windows.

>   And you can select multiple objects that are close together by holding
RMB
> and dragging over them (again, proper prefixes keep the objects together
in
> the list). So it's already quite sophisticated.

Thanks. I didn't know about that feature.

Well this is my suggestion for mouse buttons in append and shift-F4:

LMB - select item (deselect others)
LMB drag - select more items (since the LMB was involved, all other items
were initially deselected, so the result will be a series of consecutive
items)
shift-LMB - select/deselect item (perhaps forcing you to have at least one
selected)
shift-LMB drag - select/deselect more items
RMB - popup menu (reserved until one is needed)

- Luke.