[Bf-taskforce25] User Preferences Mockup and Suggestion

[Brecht Van Lommel]

Hi,

I think the main advantage of your approach is that it is predictable,
but I don't think the only option is to replace a semi-random window.

For example, the user preferences could replace the buttons window. In
most cases you will have this already open an it will be the right size
because the contents would also be panels. If no suitable window is
found you could have one sliding out, pushing the other windows a bit to
the side (alternatively it could always do this).

It's not perfect, but overlapping windows can also give issues. In the
mockup the user preferences window overlaps the 3d view. There's only a
bit of overlap in your mockup but depending on screen resolution,
subdivided window setup and the size of the user preferences window it
may become impossible or inconvenient to do manipulations in the 3d
view.

So in such cases, if you are configuring hotkeys, themes, drawing or
view navigation methods for the 3D view, you end up in a situation where
the overlap can becoming annoying. Maybe it only really matters for
hotkey and theme configuration because those take time to configure?

Personally I don't have a strong opinion on this though, I was mostly
trying to communicate what I remembered from the Wintercamp discussion.

Brecht.