[Bf-taskforce25] User Preferences Mockup and Suggestion

[Brian Staub]

heya, William.

thanks.  turns out there's more viable options than i originally thought.  you've proven your design skills, sir,
and are more in the loop than me so i have no rejections to the non-modal window idea.  sounds quite practical.

cheerios

brian

 


From: William Reynish <william at reynish.com>
To: The Blender 2.5 TaskForce <bf-taskforce25 at blender.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2009 3:52:46 AM
Subject: Re: [Bf-taskforce25] User Preferences Mockup and Suggestion


Hi Brian, 

First, here's a cheers to someone willing to take the time and make a mockup explaining an idea. We need more of this in the community - people who actually care to consider how features might be implemented instead of just requesting stuff.

On the idea itself: 

Changing the way the preferences work is a good idea. Currently they are very obscure, having to drag down the menu bar.

However, I'm not entirely convinced that using OS X sheets is a good fit for this. OS X-style sheets are good for one-off tasks, such as saving, or asking if the user wants to quit. These things block the user from accessing the current document, which is okay in these situations. 

For preferences however, sheets are not really optimal. No OS X applications even use sheets for this! Applications on OS X instead open a window that is non-modal, and allows users to change settings on the fly. The users can jump back and forth between preferences and the main content freely, and never has to 'Accept' or 'OK' his changes - they are simply taken into account immediately. 

So the OS X-style preference windows (not sheets!) is what we ended up with at WinterCamp. Another option, like you suggest is simply to integrate preferences into the properties window, which is not a bad idea:

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn291/bobStaub/buttonsWindowMockup_withUserPrefs00.png

Only issue with that is that preferences are really on a different level than other properties. They relate to the application, and not the content, and preferably don't get saved with documents at all. They are, as the same says, user preferences, where the user might prefer certain settings that fit well with his/her workstation or workflow.

So, ultimately, I'd prefer to keep it separate from properties, in its own non-modal window. The windows contents can be a regular screen type that can also be opened inside the main window if desired.

Cheers,

-William


On 1 Apr, 2009, at 6:47 PM, Brian Staub wrote:

Hello, Devs.

I've created a Mockup of how i think the User Preferences Pane would work well (i'm not a coder, so this is just conceptual artwork)

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn291/bobStaub/preferencesPanelMockup00.jpg

the idea is that when you click on the User Preferences Icon at top left (or wherever), the Preference Pane does a "Shelf" Pull Down animation like with some Mac OS X panes and the user gets access to settings organized by tabs.  Other Panels/Windows are still responsive (as to not interfere with non-modality) and the Preference Pane stays open until user hits Escape (or whatever assigned hotkey), presses the 'X', or presses the Preferences Button again which is highlited when active.

...and there's a full screen shot, too.

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn291/bobStaub/preferencesMockupFlat00.jpg


on another note, has it been decided what the max resolution will be for icons?  since Jendrzych has a handle on the low res icons, I thought i might try my hand at a higher res set.

here's an icon i helped Jendrzych with
http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn291/bobStaub/shrinkwrapModifier7_00.png

and for my own set at a higher res for the Shrinkwrap, i came up with this quickly

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn291/bobStaub/shrinkwrap32px_00.png

thanks for your time.  cheers

brian

_______________________________________________
Bf-taskforce25 mailing list
Bf-taskforce25 at blender.org
http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-taskforce25


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-taskforce25/attachments/20090402/ac95bf88/attachment.htm