[Bf-interface] Add a "Simple Mode" to Dope Sheet view, allowing easy manipulation of keyframes

[Campbell Barton]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2015 at 9:20 AM, Philippe Cote <pcote at mac.com> wrote:
> Hello Blender Team,
>
> I'm new here so I don't know your rules. However, I wanted to give you
> input. Please help me on that. I just tried Blender for the first time and
> as a professional User Interface Designer, I would like to advice you guys
> on the Dope Sheet's UI.
>
>
> Here goes:
>
> The Dope Sheet window is a very nice way to get an overview of the
> animation. However, editing, in its current 2.76 version, is really
> cumbersome.
>
> Mouse's paradigm usually involve that clicking an item selects it and
> clicking an empty space around it deselects the item. Selecting multiple
> items is usually done by click-dragging the mouse around the desired items
> or shift-clicking / shift click-dragging over individual items. Moving items
> is done by click-dragging the selected item. Duplicating is done by holding
> Alt while click-dragging selected items.
>
> However, the Dope Sheet respects -none- of those principle, making it almost
> impossible to immediately understand until the user try hard to grasp the
> unusual concept. Thus, by definition, the Dope Sheet window isn't
> "user-friendly".
>
> Would it be possible to apply those basic concepts to the Dope Sheet window?
> This would greatly help newcomers stick to Blender.
>
> Let me know if you have questions.
>
> Thank you very much,
> Philippe Côté

Hi Philippe,
It sounds like you are asking why Blender isn't following conventions
of other software.

This has been discussed a lot and there is some interest to define an
alternate key-map, you may be interested to check on the design task:
https://developer.blender.org/T37420

Though I'm not sure why you single out the dope-sheet,
Blender defines some of its own conventions too, and making the
dope-sheet ignore those means Blender isn't self-consistent.

-- 
- Campbell