[Bf-funboard] Blender new keymap progress

[Nathan Vegdahl]

Thanks for the feedback, Bol. :-)

> homerow for operations is akward but it will get better I think.

Of course many of these changes will feel awkward coming from the old
keymap (muscle memory and all).  I hope people will take some time to
actually model something with the new keymap before giving too strong
of opinions, for exactly this reason.  Give yourself a chance to get
used to it and develop a bit of muscle memory for it.

I'm sure the keymap can be better, and I absolutely intend to still
update it based on feedback.  But it's a little tricky to know what is
_actually_ awkward without letting yourself get used to it first.

> where is tweak+drag?
> Just selecting and dragging points without needing to to press a
> shortcut to grab is a must. I use it 85% of the time,really.

Good point.  I'll figure out a way to put that in.  I'm thinking that
RMB-drag would be good for that.

> where is circle select?
> I don't use it often,but not having it at all...? i dunno...

I think I'll wait and see if many people actually miss it in practice.
 If they do, I'll find somewhere for it.  In any case, I think leaving
it as a modal tool is best, because of brush-size adjustment.

> Put a mode button in the 3Dview  header where one can select
> the active select mode.
> if you want
> box select
> circle select
> tweak select
> or any other as your default drag function then you select the
> one you need
>
> If you click shift+RMB (or alt +LMB or something like that)
> button you could get a quick select menu for those modes.
> So you wouldn't need to go to header.

I appreciate the idea, but I think it would not work out well in
practice.  Many people alternate rapidly between several selection
tools in their workflow, and having to switch via a menu (even one
brought up by a hotkey) is too slow for such things, I think, and
forces them to keep in their head what selection mode they have
active.

> pressing space to change edit modes is fine but now
> leaving and entering edit mode is a tad bit slower
> could it be done that If you double tap space it just
> enters edit mode from object and vice versa?
> Maybe triple tap could be pose mode?

I understand that mode switching is a little slower with the new
keymap.  However, mode switching is not done so frequently that this
is a significant slow-down to workflow (and I say this as a rigger,
which may well be among the most mode-switching-heavy tasks in
Blender).

Regarding double-tapping and tripple-tapping, you can enter modes with
just two keystrokes by pressing space and then a number key.  Space->1
for object mode, space->2 for edit mode, and so on.  This is almost
just as fast, and avoids the confusion that comes when trying to apply
a toggle approach to something with more than two options.

> and/Or make it possible to use shift+space and
> CTRL+space (or any combination of those) for
> pose and weight mode (for example) . I used
> ctrl+tab A LOT. If you extend it with shift as well
> you can have 4 different shortcuts for modes. this
> is preferable to always needing to select in a menu.

I don't think this is any faster than space->#, and it occupies
hotkeys that could be useful for other things down the road.  It also
seems more complicated and hard to remember, IMO.  Space-># is quite
simple, easy on the hands, and pretty fast.

> alt+z to change between shade modes is awkard as well. I
> NEVER use wireframe mode. By eliminating alt Z it's again
> that much more akward to get what I want. Wireframe,
> Solid and texture should be readily accessible at any time.
>
> So I'd propose to move the shade modes to 'v' (now that rip
> is on 'r') v toggles between solid and wireframe , Alt+v (or
> shift+v) still does Texture and CTRL+V provides a menu.
> This way you don't force a way on the user who uses texture
> a lot. Maybe you can provide one of the modifier keys for
> another shader as well. (bounding box? rendered?)

Hmm... I'll have to think about this.  This is another one of those
cases where a toggle approach just may not make sense anymore.  You
may never use wireframe, but wireframe and solid are nearly the only
shading modes I ever use (aside from render with Cycles).  My strong
suspicion is that a lot of people will have their own "most commonly
used" shading modes, depending on the sorts of tasks they do.  So
there may be no good way to handle this with toggle shortcuts.

In any case, I like the idea of moving viewport shading to the v key,
but that key is also prime real-estate being so close to the home row.
 Admittedly, viewport shading is certainly changed a fair bit in a lot
of tasks, but I'm not sure if it's done so much that it should push
other tools out of that space.

For now I'll leave things as-is, but with the idea that it will be
changed later once we figure this out.

> be careful of putting Q as specials menu. It was assigned to an
> addon from me,some people who have this addon as well might not get
> where the specials menu has gone to. I don't mind it being on Q,though.
> Just a warning.

I will not be accommodating addons (even my own) when designing this
keymap.  That is a losing battle and would be extremely restrictive
given all the addons out there.  Addon writers (again, including
myself) will have plenty of time to adjust and modify their addons.
This keymap is progressing slowly, and is a long, long ways off from
being default in Blender.

It may be worth starting a separate topic on how to best accommodate
addons with hotkeys, though.  Consider someone using the Maya keymap
in Blender, for example.  The q key is already taken there.  We may
need a more flexible and adaptable way to allow addons to grab
hotkeys.  That is orthogonal to the topic of this new keymap, however.

> moving the shader options away from z and al+z
>
> frees those up for the history  and repeat last which makes MUCH more sense,imo. (more then shift +R and F3)

Excellent point.  However, U could also be a good candidate (U for
"undo").  But it is good to keep related things on single hotkeys, so
perhaps z would indeed be better.

> and I just discovered.
> NO shortcut for tool and properties panels?
> Surely this is an oversight?

Indeed, I haven't gotten to that.  That affects almost all of the
window types in Blender, so I wasn't thinking of it as being related
to modeling per-se.  But, of course, those are important hotkeys.
Thanks for the catch!

> loopcut can still be CTRL+R

I don't think that's a good idea.  Loop cut is a really primary
modeling tool at this point, and it needs to be on a non-modifier
hotkey.  Besides which, ctrl-r is a bit awkward to reach one-handed in
my experience, and could cause hand-strain in the long-term.

Anyway, thanks for your feedback!

--Nathan


On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 7:23 PM, Bol Bib <bollebib at hotmail.com> wrote:
> forgot to say
>
>
> moving the shader options away from z and al+z
>
> frees those up for the history  and repeat last which makes MUCH more sense,imo. (more then shift +R and F3)
>
>
>
>
>
> and I just discovered.
> NO shortcut for tool and properties panels?
> Surely this is an oversight?
>
>
> loopcut can still be CTRL+R,no?
>
>
>
>> From: bollebib at hotmail.com
>> To: bf-funboard at blender.org
>> Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 04:15:51 +0100
>> Subject: Re: [Bf-funboard] Blender new keymap progress
>>
>> quickly tested it and there are some things and I like ,but also some thing I find very disturbing.
>>
>> 1,2,3 for vertex etc is great
>> homerow  for operations is akward but it will get better I think.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> where is tweak+drag?
>> Just selecting and dragging points without needing to to press a shortcut to grab is a must. I use it 85% of the time,really.
>>
>> where is circle select?
>> I don't use it often,but not having it at all...? i dunno...
>>
>>
>> I did at one time make a suggestion
>>
>> Put a mode button in the 3Dview  header where one can select the active select mode.
>> if you want
>> box select
>> circle select
>> tweak select
>> or any other as your default drag function then you select the one you need
>>
>> If you click shift+RMB (or alt +LMB or something like that) button you could get a quick select menu for those modes. So you wouldn't need to go to header.
>>
>>
>> Is this at all not possible in some way? I feel awefully limited in my choices of selection right now.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> pressing space to change edit modes is fine but now  leaving and entering edit mode is a tad bit slower
>> could it be done that If you double tap space it just enters edit mode from object and vice versa?
>> Maybe triple tap could be pose mode?
>>
>> and/Or make it possible to use shift+space and CTRL+space (or any combination of those) for pose and weight mode (for example) . I used ctrl+tab A LOT. If you extend it with shift as well you can have 4 different shortcuts for modes. this is preferable to always needing to select in a menu.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> alt+z to change between shade modes is awkard as well. I NEVER use wireframe mode. By eliminating alt Z it's again that much more akward to get what I want. Wireframe,Solid and texture should be readily accessible at any time.
>>
>> So I'd propose to move the shade modes to 'v' (now that rip is on 'r')
>>  v toggles between solid and wireframe , Alt+v (or shift+v) still does Texture and CTRL+V provides a menu. This way you don't force a way on the user who uses texture a lot. Maybe you can provide one of the modifier keys for another shader as well. (bounding box? rendered?)
>>
>> And I also should't get 'rendered' in the menu if cycles isn't active. Makes no sense.
>>
>>
>> be careful of putting Q as specials menu. It was assigned to an
>> addon from me,some people who have this addon as well might not get
>> where the specials menu has gone to. I don't mind it being on Q,though.
>> Just a warning.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> So these are my initial thoughts.
>> I shan't use it for the time being as the loss of tweak+drag is far too great.
>>
>>
>> thank you for reading
>>
>>
>> > Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2012 23:47:49 +0100
>> > From: pawellyczkowski at gmail.com
>> > To: bf-funboard at blender.org
>> > Subject: Re: [Bf-funboard] Blender new keymap progress
>> >
>> > Great work! Here is my feedback. When I omit things it means they are
>> > good IMO.
>> >
>> > Viewport draw mode - I always switch from textured to wire and back to
>> > textured, or from solid to wire and back to solid, so the best for me
>> > would be if the wire mode would be a toggle.
>> >
>> > Mode switch - Nice! Would be even if there was an option of holding down
>> > space bar - if the user held down space bar, releasing the space bar
>> > would choose the mode currently selected. This could be implemented in
>> > other menus as well I suppose.
>> >
>> > Selection - If LMB dragging in empty space deselects all, I would also
>> > recommend that LMB clicking in empty space would also deselect all.
>> > Adding/removing loop selection does not work. (Build 52333).
>> >
>> > Vertex/edge/face menu - I especially like that one.
>> >
>> > Translate/rotate/scale/create edge/face - hard to press c while holding
>> > fingers on s d f, I would probably change it to a s d, and make
>> > edge/face on f. What about a? -> With LMB click on empty space, and
>> > ctrl-a to select everything, a for select/deselect all would be unnecessary.
>> >
>> > "combines face/edge creation with the vertex connect tool" - That would
>> > be awesome.
>> >
>> > Merge menu - I use this one a lot, and alt-m is unusable. I currently
>> > have it on alt-e, but anything around wsad is better than m.
>> >
>> > Regards
>> > Paweł Łyczkowski
>> > plyczkowski.com
>> >
>> > W dniu 18-11-2012 21:55, Nathan Vegdahl pisze:
>> > > Hey guys,
>> > > I've started work on the new blender keymap again (was really busy for a while).
>> > >
>> > > I recently made this commit (the log includes a listing of the hoykeys):
>> > > http://projects.blender.org/scm/viewvc.php?view=rev&root=bf-extensions&revision=3980
>> > >
>> > > In short, mesh edit mode is now ready for testing by modelers, and I
>> > > encourage anyone experienced in modeling to give it a try and then
>> > > give some (constructive!) feedback.  In particular, if there are tools
>> > > that you use frequently that you think should be assigned to a primary
>> > > hotkey, or if (after giving yourself a chance to get used to things)
>> > > some of the choices feel awkward.  You will need a recent svn build of
>> > > Blender to test, of course, as I just now committed this.
>> > >
>> > > There are still some things that I would like to change, but which
>> > > will require diving into Blender's source code.  I'll get to them
>> > > eventually.  Specifically:
>> > > - I would like to make an operator that combines face/edge creation
>> > > with the vertex connect tool.  i.e. if 2 or more verts are selected,
>> > > and they're all part of the same face, use connect--otherwise use
>> > > face/edge creation.  Then we won't need separate hotkeys for the two
>> > > tools, and I think it will also help prevent certain common user
>> > > errors resulting in strange meshes.
>> > > - Currently edge-loop and edge-ring select don't have add or remove
>> > > selection modes, only replace and extend.  I'll need to add those to
>> > > make them consistent with the other selection tools.
>> > >
>> > > (And remember that space-bar is the mode-switch key now, not tab.)
>> > >
>> > > --Nathan
>> > > _______________________________________________
>> > > Bf-funboard mailing list
>> > > Bf-funboard at blender.org
>> > > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-funboard
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
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