[Bf-interface] Blender UI Meeting Notes - 2017-11-08

[Julian Eisel]

Hi all,

Here are the notes from today's (again lengthy) 16:00 UTC UI-meeting
in irc.freenode.net #blender-ui.

The meeting was mostly an open conversation between Jonathan and
myself with a bit of input from others. So if there are any
objections, let us know :)


== Blender 2.8: Ongoing Projects ==

* Like planned in last UI meeting, Julian Eisel created a doc on main
UI related 2.8 targets.
* He'll send it to UI team and project admins for review, and publish
once it's ready.

* There were quite some UI discussions during/after BConf. Jonathan
Williamson reported about them, we quickly checked on main points.

* Asset Manager: The Amber asset engine will be awesome, but still
needs lots of UI design work.
* Current main question is how it can be integrated nicely for work
with the 3D View.
* Julian suggests to use a modern, user-centered design process for
Amber. Roughly that would mean: Analize user needs -> define system
requirements -> define concrete use-cases -> create designs (starting
rough with pen & paper!) -> implement prototypes -> evaluate -> back
to creating designs until evaluation says it's done

* Right now, main issue for collection and view-layer design is
communicating how they relate to each other.
* Promising mockup by Pablo Vazquez: https://pablovazquez.art/ui/viewport/

* Jonathan and Pablo tested the existing top-bar branch after BConf.
Feedback was positive!
* Its design details will continue to be discussed in design tasks on
developer.blender.org

* Tool system: Main issue is how operator redo settings and
tool-settings can co-exist.
* For the rest of the tool system, we can start thinking about more
visual aspects.

* Manipulators: Plan is still to work on a few final manipulator
designs and implement them.

== General UI Development Process ==

* It's obvious that our UI development has some serious issues.
* Other open source projects face the same issues. We should learn
from each other!
* There are many ideas to improve things, but 2.8 needs too much
attention to explore them right now.
* Given this pressure from 2.8, suggestion was to wait until things
have settled, and then seriously think about these issues in detail.

== Further Mettings ==

* We stick to the bi-weekly UI meeting schedule for now.
* Next UI meeting: 22th November, 16 UTC (17 CET)


Thanks,
- Julian -