[tuhopuu-devel] menus notes

[Matt Ebb]

Ok, I've committed a huge chunk (what I've done up to now) of these menu
changes.
Here are some notes:

* I've tested every option, and it all works fine, but some of the code
probably is pretty nasty. Because some of the hotkey actions in blender are
not nicely encapsulated in functions, or do silly things like checking for
modifier keys within the functions themselves, I've had to do a few yucky
things like copying/pasting code from elsewhere, artificially 'pressing'
modifier keys and so on. If anyone gets a chance to look through the hordes
of lines in headerbuttons.c, it'd be great to hear any suggestions or ways
to improve it from someone who's not as (very) inexperienced as I am.

* Some of the functions I've been calling have the confirmation (
okee(blah) ) built into them, rather than where the hotkeys are, mainly in
space.c. This makes things annoying since for many options in the menus
there shouldn't be a confirmation (such as extrude, for example). It may be
rather complicated to try and move these confirmations out of the functions,
so I haven't dared to attempt it yet. However it is something that really
should be done before these menus are called 'finished'.

* I'd love to hear any suggestions/corrections/etc for the labelling,
structure, and so on. I've put a lot of thought into the structure, and made
a number of revisions, and have been testing it myself quite extensively in
my own work, but I don't consider this 'finished', and should be hammered on
and tested by other users. I'd imagine there's probably a spelling error or
two in there as well...

I'll try and prepare a document with the rationale and breakdowns of how the
general structure and how the items are ordered, as a guideline for future
additions to them.

* There are some little issues with the buttons/menus UI code (which aren't
my fault ;) which would be great to fix, but seem to be out of my depth:

 - mousing over the buttons in the window header, then out into the viewport
leaves the buttons highlighted ('active'). This has been the case in
versions until now, however it's not so noticeable since the buttons have
been so small and covered in icons. It's much more noticeable on the 'mode'
selector.

 - Within menus, the buttons that trigger sub-menus will only unfold the
second-level menus when clicked on the right half of them. Clicking on the
left side of the menu entry will sometimes cause the sub-menu to flicker out
and disappear. I think this may be to do with the 'safety' zone that
surrounds a block (a border of space that the mouse can run into, without
making the block disappear) being too small over the side of the parent
menu. Not sure how to fix it.

 - It would be lovely if the sub-menus could unfold when the mouse is
dragged over them. Other top-level menu items can be activated on a mouse
release so you can click+hold on the menu title, drag the mouse down,
release on an option to activate it, which is nice and smooth, fast and
gestural. However to get the sub-menu to unfold it actually requires a
click, which disrupts the whole movement and slows things down immensely.


cheers

Matt