[Bf-taskforce25] Modifier Layout Proposal

[Nathan Vegdahl]

There's definitely some cool stuff in this mockup, but I have some
concerns with it as well.
My biggest concern is its heavy reliance on icons without
corresponding text.  For me this is two-fold:

1. It is not obvious at-a-glance which modifier is which.  In practice
people will only use a few of the modifiers most of the time, so when
they need to find one that they don't use as often (and thus don't
know the icon) they are forced to hover their mouse over each icon in
turn and wait for the tooltip in order to find what they're looking
for.  This is even worse for new users who don't have any of the icons
memorized.

2. In the stack, custom names are not visible.  I use custom names on
modifiers and constraints all the time to help organize and document
things, and IMO it is critical to be able to see them at-a-glance in
the stack.

But having said that, I do think that having compact stack, and
selecting items in the stack to see their settings, is an excellent
idea.  But I'd rather have a vertical stack with text as well as
icons.  And I think in practice you would need extremely large stacks
for that to become a space issue.

--Nathan V

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 5:00 AM, Eclectiel L<eclect25 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Here is a mockup for Modifiers workflow that may also be valid for
> Constraints.
>
> Tried to make a drag-and-drop workflow, eliminate some redundancies, and
> seize
> as much vertical space as possible for crowded modifiers:
> http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4234/modifiersconstraintswor.png
>
>
> Eclectiel.
>
> ________________________________
> From: Wahooney <wahooney at wahooney.net>
> To: The Blender 2.5 TaskForce <bf-taskforce25 at blender.org>
> Sent: Monday, May 25, 2009 4:20:11 PM
> Subject: [Bf-taskforce25] Modifier Layout Proposal
>
> Some ideas were kicked about on IRC about a few changes that could be made
> to the way the modifier panel works.
>
> = Keep modifier settings in the modifier panel =
>
> Thomas added the beginnings of the cloth settings tonight, and although it's
> looking cool so far it pointed out a fundamental flaw. You are adding the
> modifier in one panel in Blender and you're changing it's settings in
> another?! That is quite counter intuitive to a new user and most probably a
> break in workflow for experienced users (I'm somewhere in between those
> extremes and it's grinding my goat already ;) )
>
> = Compact the modifier stack =
>
> The modifier stack can be reduced in total size by quite a bit actually. If
> the stack were represented as a list it can take up far less space and it
> can allow for a helpful mechanic: The user selects a modifier from the list
> and only those settings are shown, saving space and reducing some clutter,
> but we can also leverage the current advantage of having multiple modifiers'
> settings visible by allowing the user to select multiple modifiers from the
> list. The visible modifier's settings can be drawn in the order that they
> appear in the stack and that selection can even be locked by the user and
> saved into the *NA (DNA,RNA I'm not sure which :P), so a user can set up
> their environment to modify a particular object in the way that they need
> for the given object, ie. A setup with consecutive SimpleMods and SubSurfs,
> chances are if a user were going to animate that object the SubSurfs
> probably won't be touched and their settings should probably be hidden.
>
> Note: I know that a stack item can be collapsed into a smaller size, but
> sometimes that's not small enough ;)
>
> The list that holds the items can also perhaps have drag 'n drop reordering
> (allowing the reordering buttons in the current modifier system to take the
> boot) and display the Show/Hide buttons for Render/Viewport/Editing/Cage
> that currently reside in the modifier settings.
>
> That's all from me for now.
>
> Keith.
>
>
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