Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
I would like to thank everybody who contributed to the discussion, there's clearly visible interest in improving the UI, and I consider good proposals for the UI a valuable work for the community. I apologize for not having really time until today to make myself a big picture, read all the mails in the thread and look into the proposals. Mindrones, thanks for taking up the task of ordering the ideas on the wiki, so much, and big thanks to Jorge Rodriguez! I've also made a proposal some time ago, which is located here: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Development/Proposals/UI/December_2010_-_Vilem_Novak It proposes some solutions for tabs, scrollability, last operator area, sroll areas and a bit more. But I saw some very similar ideas are allready on the wikipage you started, which made me really happy. I really like the problem - possible solutions approach. Regarding UI decisions - I think there should be a board of advanced users who use blender everyday for production, who could be contacted by devs for specific questions on which solution of the problems to choose. Why advanced users? Optimal workflow is much more important than first impression and is what makes a long time effect on the size of real user community. If you have a good first impression but in a few weeks you discover how many things are hard to reach, it's much worse than overcoming initial confusion with the help of good tutorials and then feel the bliss of having your work done effectively and fast. Also, the need to compress things together surprises me, as if somebody still would think all the blender data can fit in the screen. - Of course it can, but then everything can look like the super awesome layers button. (I hope the sarkasm is clear here). This button, Toggles instead of checkboxes, columns, compressed buttons with 2 letters on them - that is still old blender style. And as history showed, squishing something together just doesn't solve the problem... So thanks, Vilem Novak ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Yet, I'm Told Matt Ebb wanted the check-boxes to be preferred. And with good reason, IMO. Check boxes' visual appearance directly communicates that they are a boolean true/false thing. Toggles do not do this nearly as effectively, and can be confused with normal buttons. But if I can take a moment to be a bit meta: if anyone is under the illusion that we can design a problem-free UI, they really ought to exit this discussion immediately. There is no such thing as an ideal solution for Blender's UI (or any other complex problem, for that matter). There will always be _valid_ complaints about any proposal that anyone makes. This is not a matter of eliminating problems. This is a matter of choosing _which_ set of problems we're going to adopt and accept in Blender's UI. It's like UV unwrapping: we can minimize distortion to a certain extent, but ultimately it's a matter of choosing which distortions we consider least harmful. I think framing this discussion in those terms might help things be more productive. An easy pattern to fall into otherwise is one where someone makes a proposal, and someone else points out a problem with it, and instead of that leading to a discussion of, Well, do we consider that problem less bad than the problems that other possibilities have? it leads to deadlock. (There's also the matter of subjectivity, different use-cases, etc., of course...) There's always room for improvement, of course. But let's please move forward with the realization that you can't make a distortion-free unwrap even of a simple sphere. Even with infinite resources. It's all about trade-offs. Personally, I think Matt and William did a good job in striking a reasonable balance of decent trade-offs. I suggest that we stick to their choices except in cases where there is a clearly better trade-off to make. --Nathan On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 3:46 PM, Campbell Barton ideasma...@gmail.com wrote: Many valid interesting points made in the last few replies but could we steer this back onto improving our existing UI? (not the dreaded `defaults` discussion) There are enough simple problems we should deal with, Example of one - Andrew Hale made this example recently, http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=24723 This brings up the point that check-box buttons (on the right) dont get grouped nicely, Yet, I'm Told Matt Ebb wanted the check-boxes to be preferred. Anyone interested to knock up a drawing of how the layout of the left could work with check-boxes better? - (C'mon guys!, less talk, more action, or I go back and hide in the python api :D ) On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Mike Erwin significant@gmail.com wrote: There are many ways to make blender less aggravating for new users, but as has been said, anything this powerful will have some kind of learning curve. It's a hassle, it's to be expected, and it's worth it! If you read a few paragraphs, I promise to make a point or three. Photoshop for example -- when I started with version 4, it was a bit overwhelming. Over the years and versions I picked up skills like painting, layers color channels just by using the software. The biggest jumps came when I picked up a book to get a new perspective on issues (the power of selection masking for example). And how to use the pen tool, which for some reason I never could figure out on my own. Same goes for driving a car! It has only a few controls of course, but even so there is no expectation that you'll be an expert driver the first time out. By the time you get behind the wheel, you've probably observed hundreds of hours by being driven around during childhood. And there is probably someone beside you saying that's the accelerator, that's the brake, don't touch those. When the windshield wipers are swinging back and forth when you meant to use the turn signal, you could say f*** this, I'll just walk from now on! Or you could say oops, wrong lever, remember that for next time, and keep driving. To reward your patience, you get a free open-source car with a lifetime supply of free gas. Same for any musical instrument. The first time you pick it up, it's going to sound pretty bad. If you never play again because music is hard, well... ok. This metaphor is a bit loose, since blender has competitors. It's like blender = guitar and [other 3D software] = piano. They both make music if you know how to move your fingers the right way! And they both take practice to get to that point. If you already know the piano, and expect those skills to transfer to the guitar, get ready for a shock. But if you don't know either, might as well go for the one that's portable and let's face it, way more cool. Ok, now it's blender's turn -- without the silly metaphors. Blender 2.1 was my first encounter. I played around with it a little while, found the interface confusing (and kind of ugly compared to the rest of MacOS), and quickly went back to PiXELS
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Hi Nathan, while I agree with what you're saying here, I think the main concern here is that since the 2.5 refactor the interface hasn't progressed in parallel with the rest of the features. Talking about improving the deps graph to support larger scenes and updates is all good and shiny but the UI foundation to support all of this is not there yet, and little to no interest is shown in this area which make things a bit scary. The work done by William and Matt in the UI area is outstanding, but if even they acknowledge the need for more polish there must be a reason ;) It would be good to start looking into a few of the issues that people are noticing and work on them without trying to change the nature of Blender but rather improve upon and evolve. My 2c. -Gian On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 10:45 AM, Nathan Vegdahl ces...@cessen.com wrote: Yet, I'm Told Matt Ebb wanted the check-boxes to be preferred. And with good reason, IMO. Check boxes' visual appearance directly communicates that they are a boolean true/false thing. Toggles do not do this nearly as effectively, and can be confused with normal buttons. But if I can take a moment to be a bit meta: if anyone is under the illusion that we can design a problem-free UI, they really ought to exit this discussion immediately. There is no such thing as an ideal solution for Blender's UI (or any other complex problem, for that matter). There will always be _valid_ complaints about any proposal that anyone makes. This is not a matter of eliminating problems. This is a matter of choosing _which_ set of problems we're going to adopt and accept in Blender's UI. It's like UV unwrapping: we can minimize distortion to a certain extent, but ultimately it's a matter of choosing which distortions we consider least harmful. I think framing this discussion in those terms might help things be more productive. An easy pattern to fall into otherwise is one where someone makes a proposal, and someone else points out a problem with it, and instead of that leading to a discussion of, Well, do we consider that problem less bad than the problems that other possibilities have? it leads to deadlock. (There's also the matter of subjectivity, different use-cases, etc., of course...) There's always room for improvement, of course. But let's please move forward with the realization that you can't make a distortion-free unwrap even of a simple sphere. Even with infinite resources. It's all about trade-offs. Personally, I think Matt and William did a good job in striking a reasonable balance of decent trade-offs. I suggest that we stick to their choices except in cases where there is a clearly better trade-off to make. --Nathan On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 3:46 PM, Campbell Barton ideasma...@gmail.com wrote: Many valid interesting points made in the last few replies but could we steer this back onto improving our existing UI? (not the dreaded `defaults` discussion) There are enough simple problems we should deal with, Example of one - Andrew Hale made this example recently, http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=24723 This brings up the point that check-box buttons (on the right) dont get grouped nicely, Yet, I'm Told Matt Ebb wanted the check-boxes to be preferred. Anyone interested to knock up a drawing of how the layout of the left could work with check-boxes better? - (C'mon guys!, less talk, more action, or I go back and hide in the python api :D ) On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Mike Erwin significant@gmail.com wrote: There are many ways to make blender less aggravating for new users, but as has been said, anything this powerful will have some kind of learning curve. It's a hassle, it's to be expected, and it's worth it! If you read a few paragraphs, I promise to make a point or three. Photoshop for example -- when I started with version 4, it was a bit overwhelming. Over the years and versions I picked up skills like painting, layers color channels just by using the software. The biggest jumps came when I picked up a book to get a new perspective on issues (the power of selection masking for example). And how to use the pen tool, which for some reason I never could figure out on my own. Same goes for driving a car! It has only a few controls of course, but even so there is no expectation that you'll be an expert driver the first time out. By the time you get behind the wheel, you've probably observed hundreds of hours by being driven around during childhood. And there is probably someone beside you saying that's the accelerator, that's the brake, don't touch those. When the windshield wipers are swinging back and forth when you meant to use the turn signal, you could say f*** this, I'll just walk from now on! Or you could say oops, wrong lever, remember that for next time, and keep driving. To reward your patience, you get
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 11:45 AM, Nathan Vegdahl ces...@cessen.com wrote: Yet, I'm Told Matt Ebb wanted the check-boxes to be preferred. And with good reason, IMO. Check boxes' visual appearance directly communicates that they are a boolean true/false thing. Toggles do not do this nearly as effectively, and can be confused with normal buttons. But if I can take a moment to be a bit meta: if anyone is under the illusion that we can design a problem-free UI, they really ought to exit this discussion immediately. There is no such thing as an ideal solution for Blender's UI (or any other complex problem, for that matter). There will always be _valid_ complaints about any proposal that anyone makes. This is not a matter of eliminating problems. This is a matter of choosing _which_ set of problems we're going to adopt and accept in Blender's UI. It's like UV unwrapping: we can minimize distortion to a certain extent, but ultimately it's a matter of choosing which distortions we consider least harmful. I think framing this discussion in those terms might help things be more productive. An easy pattern to fall into otherwise is one where someone makes a proposal, and someone else points out a problem with it, and instead of that leading to a discussion of, Well, do we consider that problem less bad than the problems that other possibilities have? it leads to deadlock. (There's also the matter of subjectivity, different use-cases, etc., of course...) There's always room for improvement, of course. But let's please move forward with the realization that you can't make a distortion-free unwrap even of a simple sphere. Even with infinite resources. It's all about trade-offs. Personally, I think Matt and William did a good job in striking a reasonable balance of decent trade-offs. I suggest that we stick to their choices except in cases where there is a clearly better trade-off to make. --Nathan I think what you are saying is true and in the end we may need a final deciding person; perhaps Ton? We also have a number of problems that are quite easy to see that the current way is wrong. For example when you switch to a material and the whole panel is blank because it needs to be scrolled down. Or the fact that loading a series of pictures is different in the VSE than in the node editor; they should be the same. I don't care which we pick but they should be the same (I like the VSE way personally). Or in the VSE or the node editor when you add a strip or node it plops down where the mouse is, great if you are short cutting it but who wants a node under the add button? Lets get these big obvious problems fixed and then fight about the finer points! -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 11:45 AM, Nathan Vegdahl ces...@cessen.com wrote: Yet, I'm Told Matt Ebb wanted the check-boxes to be preferred. And with good reason, IMO. Check boxes' visual appearance directly communicates that they are a boolean true/false thing. Toggles do not do this nearly as effectively, and can be confused with normal buttons. But if I can take a moment to be a bit meta: if anyone is under the illusion that we can design a problem-free UI, they really ought to exit this discussion immediately. There is no such thing as an ideal solution for Blender's UI (or any other complex problem, for that matter). There will always be _valid_ complaints about any proposal that anyone makes. This is not a matter of eliminating problems. This is a matter of choosing _which_ set of problems we're going to adopt and accept in Blender's UI. It's like UV unwrapping: we can minimize distortion to a certain extent, but ultimately it's a matter of choosing which distortions we consider least harmful. I think framing this discussion in those terms might help things be more productive. An easy pattern to fall into otherwise is one where someone makes a proposal, and someone else points out a problem with it, and instead of that leading to a discussion of, Well, do we consider that problem less bad than the problems that other possibilities have? it leads to deadlock. (There's also the matter of subjectivity, different use-cases, etc., of course...) There's always room for improvement, of course. But let's please move forward with the realization that you can't make a distortion-free unwrap even of a simple sphere. Even with infinite resources. It's all about trade-offs. Personally, I think Matt and William did a good job in striking a reasonable balance of decent trade-offs. I suggest that we stick to their choices except in cases where there is a clearly better trade-off to make. --Nathan I think what you are saying is true and in the end we may need a final deciding person; perhaps Ton? We also have a number of problems that are quite easy to see that the current way is wrong. For example when you switch to a material and the whole panel is blank because it needs to be scrolled down. Or the fact that loading a series of pictures is different in the VSE than in the node editor; they should be the same. I don't care which we pick but they should be the same (I like the VSE way personally). Or in the VSE or the node editor when you add a strip or node it plops down where the mouse is, great if you are short cutting it but who wants a node under the add button? Lets get these big obvious problems fixed and then fight about the finer points! -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
just fix whats there, dont reinvent the wheel again, sure there are complaints, but really the learning curve is much better this go around. blender is so much more customizable than anything else out there, I say keep on going gents, you have it right, just fix the small stuff. (agree with the mat pane needing to scroll up can be confusing the first time or two) also agree with check boxes:) Quoting Nathan Vegdahl ces...@cessen.com: Yet, I'm Told Matt Ebb wanted the check-boxes to be preferred. And with good reason, IMO. Check boxes' visual appearance directly communicates that they are a boolean true/false thing. Toggles do not do this nearly as effectively, and can be confused with normal buttons. But if I can take a moment to be a bit meta: if anyone is under the illusion that we can design a problem-free UI, they really ought to exit this discussion immediately. There is no such thing as an ideal solution for Blender's UI (or any other complex problem, for that matter). There will always be _valid_ complaints about any proposal that anyone makes. This is not a matter of eliminating problems. This is a matter of choosing _which_ set of problems we're going to adopt and accept in Blender's UI. It's like UV unwrapping: we can minimize distortion to a certain extent, but ultimately it's a matter of choosing which distortions we consider least harmful. I think framing this discussion in those terms might help things be more productive. An easy pattern to fall into otherwise is one where someone makes a proposal, and someone else points out a problem with it, and instead of that leading to a discussion of, Well, do we consider that problem less bad than the problems that other possibilities have? it leads to deadlock. (There's also the matter of subjectivity, different use-cases, etc., of course...) There's always room for improvement, of course. But let's please move forward with the realization that you can't make a distortion-free unwrap even of a simple sphere. Even with infinite resources. It's all about trade-offs. Personally, I think Matt and William did a good job in striking a reasonable balance of decent trade-offs. I suggest that we stick to their choices except in cases where there is a clearly better trade-off to make. --Nathan ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
I'm glad to see this UI discussion getting organized on the wiki. I'd like to add that I think with respect to UI changes, a picture says ten-thousand words. Creating a wiki page which clearly documents the current state, the motivation for a change, and a visual change proposal is a really good way to get buy-in and something implemented. Often the implemention of UI changes is actually much simpler than the actual buy-in or approval process. I'd really like to see Blender Foundation get more actively involved in structuring and approving UI change proposals to streamline this more. Here is an example of a visual change proposal (really a bug fix), I made a while back related to outliner selected/active highlighting. Visually illustrating the problem clearly made it easy to get agreement and get it quickly fixed. Putting a little effort into this kind of organized set of micro-screenshots can really help streamline the UI proposal/change process. http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Jeske/Active_Selected_Visuals_Cleanup_Proposal_Completed http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Jeske/Active_Selected_Visual_Cleanup_Proposal On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 10:26 AM, Jorge Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.comwrote: Thanks to those who have provided feedback so far. Please sign your posts on the discussion page or it will quickly become illegible. I hope to see more discussion about the new user experience. http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Vino/New_User_Experience ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Thanks to those who have provided feedback so far. Please sign your posts on the discussion page or it will quickly become illegible. I hope to see more discussion about the new user experience. -- Jorge Vino Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com twitter: VinoBS 919.757.3066 ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
That page looks like it deals with a lot of specifics. Having not seen enough big-picture discussion, especially concerning the experience of a new user, I've gone ahead and drafted up some ideas on that subject here: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Vino/New_User_Experience Some of it was copied from this discussion, but much of it is new. I would love to hear people's thoughts or feedback. I would really like to see more people make mockups of what they think the initial screen should look like once users load Blender for the first time. If there is any consensus I would like to use that material to draft a proposal page to make a revamp of Blender's UI specifically geared toward simplifying the default settings for new user adoption. To answer the question: Yes, I am willing to do the work of implementing any such proposal were it to get approved by the devs. -- Jorge Vino Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com twitter: VinoBS 919.757.3066 ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
See the discussion page at the link .../New_User_ Peter 2012/1/23 Jorge Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com That page looks like it deals with a lot of specifics. Having not seen enough big-picture discussion, especially concerning the experience of a new user, I've gone ahead and drafted up some ideas on that subject here: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Vino/New_User_Experience Some of it was copied from this discussion, but much of it is new. I would love to hear people's thoughts or feedback. I would really like to see more people make mockups of what they think the initial screen should look like once users load Blender for the first time. If there is any consensus I would like to use that material to draft a proposal page to make a revamp of Blender's UI specifically geared toward simplifying the default settings for new user adoption. To answer the question: Yes, I am willing to do the work of implementing any such proposal were it to get approved by the devs. -- Jorge Vino Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com twitter: VinoBS 919.757.3066 ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Here we go: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/Usability_Project This is the result of formalizing contents of my own mail http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2012-January/035215.html (still have to add most of my screenshots, will do next week) Try to do the same with your ideas instead of putting them here. Upload images on the wiki as I did and link them in the usability page. Please keep stuff short, to the point and schematic: * rants are for personal pages * long discussions are for the talk page I'll edit discussions to shorten them, and to summarize stuff, so don't waste time on long threads there anyway :) After some time we can judge if problems and solutions listed there make sense in a more general sense than just fixing an icon here and there, and it will be a document to discuss here and in some future sunday meeting. Let's see what happens :) Regards, Luca ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
I think this wiki page is a great idea. But I looked trough the wiki today and found numerous UI proposals already there. Maybe it's a good idea to collect them in a single place, maybe this new wikipage. Here are the pages i found, there may be more: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Requests (This page contains all kinds of requests not only UI. But If you look in the sidebar you can see a bunch of relevant subpages.) http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Development/Todo/UserInterface (this page has some really nice mockups.) http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Development/Todo/Simple_Todos http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Development/Proposals/UI (This page contains a broken link to a UI design document (this link http://jlp.nerim.net/dev/event%20system/blender-UI-proposal-V0_3.pdf), which is unfortunate because if I remember correctly it was quite an interesting document.) http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Development/Proposals/2.50_and_beyond_goals (Under the Interface heading are a few goals regarding this topic.) http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Development/Proposals/RemoveFeatures (This page doesn't really have new ideas but removing annoyances can also have a great influence on the workflow and the UI) Cheers, Wolter On 21-1-2012 19:47, mindrones wrote: Here we go: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/Usability_Project This is the result of formalizing contents of my own mail http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2012-January/035215.html (still have to add most of my screenshots, will do next week) Try to do the same with your ideas instead of putting them here. Upload images on the wiki as I did and link them in the usability page. Please keep stuff short, to the point and schematic: * rants are for personal pages * long discussions are for the talk page I'll edit discussions to shorten them, and to summarize stuff, so don't waste time on long threads there anyway :) After some time we can judge if problems and solutions listed there make sense in a more general sense than just fixing an icon here and there, and it will be a document to discuss here and in some future sunday meeting. Let's see what happens :) Regards, Luca ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
While it is great to be discussing Blender's UI, I would hope that it may be acceptable to put Mr. Roosendaal's recent comment on a request at the top of the page: Instead of explaining why you need it, or calling it better or more useful, just write down a neutral and very precise specification of how it looks. As we can see from this brief thread, words like obvious, good, better, etc. are without context and of relatively worthless value with regards to Blender's UI discussion. With respect, TJS ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
I tend to agree, but removing too much information on startup is not good either. Also let's face it, the default cube is somehow a symbol for blender and honestly it's harmless. Now we are all in some way accustomed to the convention of some 3d program but do you remember the first time you opened it? Certainly max or maya weren't less scary than blender when you first opened them. I agree that there's a bit of clutter especially in the properties area, but nothing so serious (cough cough max). Probably the best solution is to add a link to an introduction to the interface, something like 5 mins where it explains the few conventions Blender has, in the splash screen. It could be tied to whatever interaction model (maya or blender) is chosen on first start. This is my analysis done at the time if you're interested http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17486466/BlenderUI.pdf .Gian On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 7:51 AM, Jorge Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.comwrote: On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 9:23 PM, Knapp magick.c...@gmail.com wrote: I know I did the first time I tried blender. The next time I found a video by gray-beard called something like learning the user interface and then all was good. I'd like Blender to be learnable without people having to go watch tutorials. The process of flipping to and from tutorial videos all the time is awfully disruptive. There's no reason it can't be more transparent. Yes it is really odd at first but I think it has persisted so long because it is a much better system. Sure, I believe you. I'm sure it is. I'm glad Blender is ahead of the curve in introducing new paradigms like this. I hear a lot of users say they enjoy Blender's right click select and that's great. Problem is, it frustrates the hell out of most users who have no idea why the left click doesn't select. It may be a better system but it's not one that any new users will be familiar with. Therefore, the default should be left click select. -- Jorge Vino Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com twitter: VinoBS 919.757.3066 ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
IMOHO, the single biggest problem for first time users is that they don't get it at all. So from this perspective I think we should make the opening screen as simple as possible. What we have now can be left as the default but then we can add a new one called something like beginner. It would open with everything gone but for the edit screen with a default monkey or cube (I would pick the monkey because it is the blender icon and is good adverting and a more exciting first render plus you have somewhere to go with it like painting it or animating it.) For first time users blender would open with a screen that has a good picture like now but also some basic directions like right click to select and R for rotate, S for scale and G for grab f12 to render and E to extrude. Escape to drop what you are doing. Or something like this, KISS. This would be the beginner mode. Normal users could turn off this mode in the preferences and have our current normal Blender settings. I think this would go a long way towards keeping first time users. I would also not be against have a 3 point lighting on the monkey and a ground plane so that the first render looks really good. I think this would really help sell Blender to new young users. Keys: 1 Easy to use. 2 Makes a really cool first picture. For normal users I would also turn on by default rotate around selected and new object enter edit mode. How often do you add an object and not edit it? Only problem I can see is that newbies would then keep adding in edit mode and that will lead to questions about how to split meshes out of one object. -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Hi, I'll collect stuff and prepare the page as soon as possible for me. Meanwhile it'd be good if people collect their ideas and mockups and screenshots in their wiki page, only discussing here based on what they post there, to help starting the process. I'd like to mention the Wikipedia Usability Initiative http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Usability_Initiative They started it to enhance the wikipedia experience: the project was public, well formalized and the discussion was wiki-based too (have a look at this: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposals). The project ended the end of the last year, and served to develop the current wikipedia skin (called Vector, which is much better than the old Monobook). It would be fantastic if we were able to organize things as well as they did :) If there's a consensus in seriously starting such a project, I can write appropriate templates to keep things well organized and automated. Regards, Luca ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:07 PM, mindrones mindro...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I'll collect stuff and prepare the page as soon as possible for me. Meanwhile it'd be good if people collect their ideas and mockups and screenshots in their wiki page, only discussing here based on what they post there, to help starting the process. I'd like to mention the Wikipedia Usability Initiative http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Usability_Initiative They started it to enhance the wikipedia experience: the project was public, well formalized and the discussion was wiki-based too (have a look at this: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposals). The project ended the end of the last year, and served to develop the current wikipedia skin (called Vector, which is much better than the old Monobook). It would be fantastic if we were able to organize things as well as they did :) If there's a consensus in seriously starting such a project, I can write appropriate templates to keep things well organized and automated. Regards, Luca I feel that the 2.5 GUI is the biggest hole in blender. I loved the work flow and error free and problem free flow of 2.4. 2.5 has not made it yet to this level. (on the other side the new 2.6 power can't be beat!) I can't wait to get started on this. I am BTW a user/artist (with programming background but no time) so I try to help by finding problems and suggesting new ideas. -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
I agree that the UI needs work, but let's not go overboard. For the most part it works well, it just needs some (or more in some areas, ok) polish. On Friday 20 January 2012, Jorge Rodriguez wrote: I'd like Blender to be learnable without people having to go watch tutorials. Not possible (IMO). Blender, like any other 3D software, is far too complex to be picked up on the fly. I can't understand why reading docs or watching tutorials is so awful. If somebody opens Blender and feels lost (as did I many years ago), what's so hard about clicking on the help menu, choosing the first entry and starting to read? While the manual also needs work, the introductory chapters should be enough to get anybody started. If not, the community provides free help. That's how open source projects work. If somebody can't do that, I don't think he/she has enough drive to learn a 3D software anyway. As a user, I'm very grateful for Blender and also for the documentation we do have. People really should use it. To conclude, here's a post from a new Blender user who had a totally different experience than what is always assumed a new user would have. Maybe it helps to put things into perspective: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?217431-Mind-Blown-Babbling-Rant Regards, Sanne ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 6:54 PM, Sanne sa...@lavabit.com wrote: I agree that the UI needs work, but let's not go overboard. For the most part it works well, it just needs some (or more in some areas, ok) polish. On Friday 20 January 2012, Jorge Rodriguez wrote: I'd like Blender to be learnable without people having to go watch tutorials. Not possible (IMO). Blender, like any other 3D software, is far too complex to be picked up on the fly. I think you are correct, if we are talking about to a pro level but I don't think it is impossible to make it so that you can play with the basic monkey and learn a bit before going deeper. Giving the first time user a positive experience is a great way to keep users and grow blender's community. I can't understand why reading docs or watching tutorials is so awful. If somebody opens Blender and feels lost (as did I many years ago), what's so hard about clicking on the help menu, choosing the first entry and starting to read? While the manual also needs work, the introductory chapters should be enough to get anybody started. If not, the community provides free help. That's how open source projects work. Not many really know anything about the greatness that is open source. They could care less or want free as in beer. Watching or reading is an investment and many people will not make it unless they have a good reason to do so. We need to give them that reason by giving them a great first experience. If somebody can't do that, I don't think he/she has enough drive to learn a 3D software anyway. I dropped blender for two year because of the interface but then came back because I really needed to do some 3d work and could not pay for it. I also got lucky and found a vid that got me over that hump, now I am good with blender and love it. Perhaps the first time blender is opened it should start playing a 3 minute beginner's video. :-) Seriously a big fat link to such a video on the start up image might help a lot. A vid that is fast, exciting, shows cool results and teaches some really basic stuff like how to select and stuff would be great. A bit of marketing a bit of fun, a bit of learning. Andrew Price makes the best vids of this nature that I have seen in the blender world. Maybe he might be willing to take up the challenge of making such a video. As a user, I'm very grateful for Blender and also for the documentation we do have. People really should use it. 2.4 was really wonderful! 2.5 is getting there slowly. To conclude, here's a post from a new Blender user who had a totally different experience than what is always assumed a new user would have. Maybe it helps to put things into perspective: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?217431-Mind-Blown-Babbling-Rant dead link Regards, Sanne -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
There are many ways to make blender less aggravating for new users, but as has been said, anything this powerful will have some kind of learning curve. It's a hassle, it's to be expected, and it's worth it! If you read a few paragraphs, I promise to make a point or three. Photoshop for example -- when I started with version 4, it was a bit overwhelming. Over the years and versions I picked up skills like painting, layers color channels just by using the software. The biggest jumps came when I picked up a book to get a new perspective on issues (the power of selection masking for example). And how to use the pen tool, which for some reason I never could figure out on my own. Same goes for driving a car! It has only a few controls of course, but even so there is no expectation that you'll be an expert driver the first time out. By the time you get behind the wheel, you've probably observed hundreds of hours by being driven around during childhood. And there is probably someone beside you saying that's the accelerator, that's the brake, don't touch those. When the windshield wipers are swinging back and forth when you meant to use the turn signal, you could say f*** this, I'll just walk from now on! Or you could say oops, wrong lever, remember that for next time, and keep driving. To reward your patience, you get a free open-source car with a lifetime supply of free gas. Same for any musical instrument. The first time you pick it up, it's going to sound pretty bad. If you never play again because music is hard, well... ok. This metaphor is a bit loose, since blender has competitors. It's like blender = guitar and [other 3D software] = piano. They both make music if you know how to move your fingers the right way! And they both take practice to get to that point. If you already know the piano, and expect those skills to transfer to the guitar, get ready for a shock. But if you don't know either, might as well go for the one that's portable and let's face it, way more cool. Ok, now it's blender's turn -- without the silly metaphors. Blender 2.1 was my first encounter. I played around with it a little while, found the interface confusing (and kind of ugly compared to the rest of MacOS), and quickly went back to PiXELS 3D. Next encounter was blender 2.3 -- got the book this time (which was awesome), learned a tiny bit more but soon went back to Lightwave (which also had a book). A few years ago I had to digitally recreate a football stadium from its plans and by visiting the site. After a slow and painful start using Sketchup, I gave blender 2.48 a shot and actually liked it! But by then I was serious about learning and got the Essential Blender book, which helped more than anything. After that I would just search for specific things and always found someone who had run across the same issue and written about it. The interface in late 2.4x was very different and very nice. After a custom layout, color scheme and style it looked awesome and worked well. And yes, I switched it to LMB select. I have no specific gripes with the current interface, but as I stick mostly to low-poly modeling there is plenty I don't ever see. 2.6 is also very different and (mostly) very nice; I've even switched back to RMB select! My own default layout discards the timeline, and shows object data instead of render on the properties panel, but otherwise is standard. That works for me, but I wouldn't dare force it on everyone. Having the render image button there on the screen is essential for the brief time before you know what F12 does. The spacebar addon is great, don't know why it's not part of the default setup. Any changes need to be well thought out and explained -- more than I think X is better than Y so obviously everyone would like X. Why is X better? Prove it or demonstrate it or otherwise make a solid case. Many people do like to learn by trial error, so make sure the errors are harmless, obvious, and reversible. I haven't kept up with the undo system recently, so maybe this has been fixed... but it used to fill up with system-initiated snapshots, so undo kind of lost meaning. Whenever you pressed [button], blender would do 5 things, 3 of them undo-able. So you press [button], say oops, undo, then wonder why the stuff on screen doesn't look exactly the same as before you pressed [button]. Reasonable default values and ranges for things are easy to implement and make things just a little nicer for new users. No idea how well this is done throughout blender, it might already be perfect. Same for basic interaction settings like turntable mode becoming default (a good move, even though I usually use trackball). Making rotate around selection default? My initial impression is yes, of course! but like I said above, we still need to answer why? in some convincing way. Remember Ubuntu had its papercuts project to fix many of the rough edges and little annoyances for desktop Linux. This thread (and similar ones before)
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Many valid interesting points made in the last few replies but could we steer this back onto improving our existing UI? (not the dreaded `defaults` discussion) There are enough simple problems we should deal with, Example of one - Andrew Hale made this example recently, http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=24723 This brings up the point that check-box buttons (on the right) dont get grouped nicely, Yet, I'm Told Matt Ebb wanted the check-boxes to be preferred. Anyone interested to knock up a drawing of how the layout of the left could work with check-boxes better? - (C'mon guys!, less talk, more action, or I go back and hide in the python api :D ) On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Mike Erwin significant@gmail.com wrote: There are many ways to make blender less aggravating for new users, but as has been said, anything this powerful will have some kind of learning curve. It's a hassle, it's to be expected, and it's worth it! If you read a few paragraphs, I promise to make a point or three. Photoshop for example -- when I started with version 4, it was a bit overwhelming. Over the years and versions I picked up skills like painting, layers color channels just by using the software. The biggest jumps came when I picked up a book to get a new perspective on issues (the power of selection masking for example). And how to use the pen tool, which for some reason I never could figure out on my own. Same goes for driving a car! It has only a few controls of course, but even so there is no expectation that you'll be an expert driver the first time out. By the time you get behind the wheel, you've probably observed hundreds of hours by being driven around during childhood. And there is probably someone beside you saying that's the accelerator, that's the brake, don't touch those. When the windshield wipers are swinging back and forth when you meant to use the turn signal, you could say f*** this, I'll just walk from now on! Or you could say oops, wrong lever, remember that for next time, and keep driving. To reward your patience, you get a free open-source car with a lifetime supply of free gas. Same for any musical instrument. The first time you pick it up, it's going to sound pretty bad. If you never play again because music is hard, well... ok. This metaphor is a bit loose, since blender has competitors. It's like blender = guitar and [other 3D software] = piano. They both make music if you know how to move your fingers the right way! And they both take practice to get to that point. If you already know the piano, and expect those skills to transfer to the guitar, get ready for a shock. But if you don't know either, might as well go for the one that's portable and let's face it, way more cool. Ok, now it's blender's turn -- without the silly metaphors. Blender 2.1 was my first encounter. I played around with it a little while, found the interface confusing (and kind of ugly compared to the rest of MacOS), and quickly went back to PiXELS 3D. Next encounter was blender 2.3 -- got the book this time (which was awesome), learned a tiny bit more but soon went back to Lightwave (which also had a book). A few years ago I had to digitally recreate a football stadium from its plans and by visiting the site. After a slow and painful start using Sketchup, I gave blender 2.48 a shot and actually liked it! But by then I was serious about learning and got the Essential Blender book, which helped more than anything. After that I would just search for specific things and always found someone who had run across the same issue and written about it. The interface in late 2.4x was very different and very nice. After a custom layout, color scheme and style it looked awesome and worked well. And yes, I switched it to LMB select. I have no specific gripes with the current interface, but as I stick mostly to low-poly modeling there is plenty I don't ever see. 2.6 is also very different and (mostly) very nice; I've even switched back to RMB select! My own default layout discards the timeline, and shows object data instead of render on the properties panel, but otherwise is standard. That works for me, but I wouldn't dare force it on everyone. Having the render image button there on the screen is essential for the brief time before you know what F12 does. The spacebar addon is great, don't know why it's not part of the default setup. Any changes need to be well thought out and explained -- more than I think X is better than Y so obviously everyone would like X. Why is X better? Prove it or demonstrate it or otherwise make a solid case. Many people do like to learn by trial error, so make sure the errors are harmless, obvious, and reversible. I haven't kept up with the undo system recently, so maybe this has been fixed... but it used to fill up with system-initiated snapshots, so undo kind of lost meaning. Whenever you pressed [button], blender
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Hi All, Slight improvement on the image Campbell posted: http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=24767 IMO check boxes can cause extra clutter if not used judiciously, using toggle buttons instead means that the area used to indicate True/False coincides with the label and is more space efficient. Also, using toggle buttons means you can align them with other UI elements, more clearly showing that they are related. I'm not suggesting they should be used all over the place, but certainly they have their uses. Thanks, Andrew On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 10:46 AM, Campbell Barton ideasma...@gmail.comwrote: Many valid interesting points made in the last few replies but could we steer this back onto improving our existing UI? (not the dreaded `defaults` discussion) There are enough simple problems we should deal with, Example of one - Andrew Hale made this example recently, http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=24723 This brings up the point that check-box buttons (on the right) dont get grouped nicely, Yet, I'm Told Matt Ebb wanted the check-boxes to be preferred. Anyone interested to knock up a drawing of how the layout of the left could work with check-boxes better? - (C'mon guys!, less talk, more action, or I go back and hide in the python api :D ) On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Mike Erwin significant@gmail.com wrote: There are many ways to make blender less aggravating for new users, but as has been said, anything this powerful will have some kind of learning curve. It's a hassle, it's to be expected, and it's worth it! If you read a few paragraphs, I promise to make a point or three. Photoshop for example -- when I started with version 4, it was a bit overwhelming. Over the years and versions I picked up skills like painting, layers color channels just by using the software. The biggest jumps came when I picked up a book to get a new perspective on issues (the power of selection masking for example). And how to use the pen tool, which for some reason I never could figure out on my own. Same goes for driving a car! It has only a few controls of course, but even so there is no expectation that you'll be an expert driver the first time out. By the time you get behind the wheel, you've probably observed hundreds of hours by being driven around during childhood. And there is probably someone beside you saying that's the accelerator, that's the brake, don't touch those. When the windshield wipers are swinging back and forth when you meant to use the turn signal, you could say f*** this, I'll just walk from now on! Or you could say oops, wrong lever, remember that for next time, and keep driving. To reward your patience, you get a free open-source car with a lifetime supply of free gas. Same for any musical instrument. The first time you pick it up, it's going to sound pretty bad. If you never play again because music is hard, well... ok. This metaphor is a bit loose, since blender has competitors. It's like blender = guitar and [other 3D software] = piano. They both make music if you know how to move your fingers the right way! And they both take practice to get to that point. If you already know the piano, and expect those skills to transfer to the guitar, get ready for a shock. But if you don't know either, might as well go for the one that's portable and let's face it, way more cool. Ok, now it's blender's turn -- without the silly metaphors. Blender 2.1 was my first encounter. I played around with it a little while, found the interface confusing (and kind of ugly compared to the rest of MacOS), and quickly went back to PiXELS 3D. Next encounter was blender 2.3 -- got the book this time (which was awesome), learned a tiny bit more but soon went back to Lightwave (which also had a book). A few years ago I had to digitally recreate a football stadium from its plans and by visiting the site. After a slow and painful start using Sketchup, I gave blender 2.48 a shot and actually liked it! But by then I was serious about learning and got the Essential Blender book, which helped more than anything. After that I would just search for specific things and always found someone who had run across the same issue and written about it. The interface in late 2.4x was very different and very nice. After a custom layout, color scheme and style it looked awesome and worked well. And yes, I switched it to LMB select. I have no specific gripes with the current interface, but as I stick mostly to low-poly modeling there is plenty I don't ever see. 2.6 is also very different and (mostly) very nice; I've even switched back to RMB select! My own default layout discards the timeline, and shows object data instead of render on the properties panel, but otherwise is standard. That works for me, but I wouldn't dare force it on everyone. Having the render image button there on the
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
[Offlist] Hi, trumanblend...@gmail.com (2012-01-21 at 1116.01 +1100): Hi All, Slight improvement on the image Campbell posted: http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=24767 IMO check boxes can cause extra clutter if not used judiciously, using toggle buttons instead means that the area used to indicate True/False coincides with the label and is more space efficient. Also, using toggle Also gives a way better hint of what zone can be clicked. It becomes obvious that the zone is big, even before you pick the mouse. So easier to hit and thus faster interaction with the program. Some toolkits accept clicking the label, others only the small square. The box-only mode is slowest while the box-and-label mode is as fast as the full-button case... if you ever learn you can do that. Too many people will never ever try clicking the label, and will always aim at the tiny square. Good job. GSR ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Why not simply draw a faint outline around the box and text? On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 7:42 PM, GSR gsr@infernal-iceberg.com wrote: [Offlist] Hi, trumanblend...@gmail.com (2012-01-21 at 1116.01 +1100): Hi All, Slight improvement on the image Campbell posted: http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=24767 IMO check boxes can cause extra clutter if not used judiciously, using toggle buttons instead means that the area used to indicate True/False coincides with the label and is more space efficient. Also, using toggle Also gives a way better hint of what zone can be clicked. It becomes obvious that the zone is big, even before you pick the mouse. So easier to hit and thus faster interaction with the program. Some toolkits accept clicking the label, others only the small square. The box-only mode is slowest while the box-and-label mode is as fast as the full-button case... if you ever learn you can do that. Too many people will never ever try clicking the label, and will always aim at the tiny square. Good job. GSR ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
But it would solve the problem of people not knowing the clickable region. On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 8:19 PM, GSR gsr@infernal-iceberg.com wrote: Hi, kelvinsh...@gmail.com (2012-01-20 at 2005.42 -0500): Why not simply draw a faint outline around the box and text? So basically it would be a faint button with a box (and check mark) on the left side. And still not everyone will think that zone is clickable, because the box is the one that looks like a button and the line could be a decoration outline. :] GSR ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Guys, I still think if you don't organize this stuff in some page where all proposals can be seen and compared together this will be a waste of time, just people chatting on a mailing list :/ I can do copy/paste/cleanups later, not now, but it'd be good if you can start doing that yourselves, the wiki is not a monster and certainly will not eat you alive! :P Luca On 21 January 2012 02:21, Kel M kelvinsh...@gmail.com wrote: But it would solve the problem of people not knowing the clickable region. On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 8:19 PM, GSR gsr@infernal-iceberg.com wrote: Hi, kelvinsh...@gmail.com (2012-01-20 at 2005.42 -0500): Why not simply draw a faint outline around the box and text? So basically it would be a faint button with a box (and check mark) on the left side. And still not everyone will think that zone is clickable, because the box is the one that looks like a button and the line could be a decoration outline. :] GSR ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Someone start a Wiki page and link it here, and I will contribute to it. I don't expect users to learn Blender at an advanced level without manuals and video tutorials. But like I said before: On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 7:50 PM, Jorge Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.comwrote: Everything needed to operate Blender *at its most basic level* should be learnable through Blender itself. Notice: At its most basic level. If the most complicated strategy games can be learned from within the game, Blender can be as well. -- Jorge Vino Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com twitter: VinoBS 919.757.3066 ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 1:59 AM, Jorge Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com wrote: I'm glad that this topic is being discussed, as it is one of the primary motivations for me beginning work on Blender. Here is my list of things that I would like to see fixed, from a newbie's point of view: * There is a + to open the N properties (and other panels) but no - to close it. +1 * Panels can be opened by dragging them out, but can't be closed by dragging them back. +1 * The toolbar on the left is a good idea but is rough, some buttons are pointless and it needs to be neater. I would love to see the background panel disappear, and the buttons therein presented as floating buttons on top of the UI. Like how Silo does it. (http://goo.gl/7HChk See left.) This would give more area to the 3D view, which is what's really important. * I would like to see right clicking on things offer a Delete option. * When right clicking for some things there is no Rename option. ?? * I would like to see a right click menu that provides copy and paste when right clicking text areas. Currently ctrl v,c and (x?) * Why does pressing Ctrl-S prompt the user to save? Why would anybody ever not want to save when they just pressed Ctrl-S? What other program does this, ever? You clicked it by mistake and do NOT want to save. I have done this many times. * Someone already mentioned that the button rows need to wrap and make a new row if they run out of space. I'll bet a lot of people don't know that you can scroll those things. But, you shouldn't ever have to. My idea but sometimes it is better to have the space so it should be an option and not a must, perhaps per panel. * When dialogs like the file dialog are open I always find myself clicking the Windows X button to close it, which closes Blender, often without saving my work. Needs another smaller (X) up there for closing the dialog without choosing a file. Yep, done that too but I have never lost my work due to Blenders rather odd way of saving stuff. * I think it is inane that saving user preferences saves the entire current .blend to be loaded again with the File-New command. If I want to rebind a key in the middle of my work, it saves my entire project, and then I continue my work and next time I load Blender I am presented with an old version of my project. It should save only user preferences, like it claims it does. Yep! +100 but we also need a way to save our start out scene. * In general I think the default Blender screen is too cluttered and should contain fewer panels. I think we can do away with the outliner and properties on the right, and also with the timeline on the bottom. I have tried a lot of ways and totally disagree. The outliner keeps you from getting lost for example when you accidentally make some thing hidden or whatever and lets you quickly rename stuff. You need the properties all the time, what would you do with them? They used to be on the bottom but with large screens they are quite nice on the side. The time line is small and does not take up much space and is needed any time you do animation or anything else with time like particles. The very best thing an artist can do is buy a large HD screen and the second is to buy a second large screen! If the user wants more panels, the user can create more panels. Advanced users already have their layout customized how they like it, presenting new users with 8 panels causes information overload, and turns people off Blender. So, a new user loading Blender for the first time might see something more like this:http://i41.tinypic.com/8yu et5.png The link is dead. I never had this problem but I do think it would be nice to have a very basic start up screen with a nice head there so that the first render comes out nicely with nice lighting and not a gray cube on a gray background with bad lighting. Talk about ugly. The new version of cycles that render a few good looking heads seems much nicer to me. I would like to see more of the presets up where it says default. AS a new user I always wondered what default meant. I think a bunch of screens there with settings of each common job set up by pros would be a much nicer way to learn. You might need a wide screen an a narrow setting for each one. A lot of clutter but it would have helped me! I plan on working on many of these things, once I'm done with my work on the basic controls (see the Transform tool tweaks thread.) -- Jorge Vino Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com Best of luck, you are fighting a lot of sticks in the mud, including me. :-) -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project.
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
I wanted to add one more big problem. When you switch between materials, textures and other stuff and come back sometimes the textures panel is blank. The way to get it back is to roll your mouse button on it and it scrolls into view. This is a dumb problem that should not exist. When it first happened to me I thought it was a real error and I actually wasted 40 minutes trying to find out what happened to all my settings! Stupid but it happened. I found the fix by asking on IRC. -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Hi Campbell, On 19 January 2012 20:16, Campbell Barton ideasma...@gmail.com wrote: We've had many long UI threads on the ML before which just die out without much gained besides everyone airing their opinions (which often conflict). Rather then suggesting many random annoyances it would help more IMHO if we could focus on specific areas such as... - better toolbar layout (operator redo is far too cramped) - general panel layout, button spacing / placement, layout engine. - re-organizing 3d view header buttons / menu / display panel which is currently a shamozzel. William Ranish's blog post covered some of these issues. http://www.blendernation.com/2011/10/29/cleaning-up-the-blender-ui/ The frustrating thing about UI discussions is they tend to go off topic far too quick and farly simple stuff gets overlooked/ignored, no consensus, nothing happens. would it be useful if I start collecting things in a wiki page and we start resuming problems there? It would be: - not a discussion page with long rants - schematic - possibly with mockups - only focused on usability. - divided it in areas (3d, properties, etc) and I can help keeping it that way. People might discuss here based on proposals collected there, and when things or blocks of things get approved and fixed we move stuff away or delete. Cheers, Luca ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
+1 to wiki page On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 2:12 PM, mindrones mindro...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Campbell, On 19 January 2012 20:16, Campbell Barton ideasma...@gmail.com wrote: We've had many long UI threads on the ML before which just die out without much gained besides everyone airing their opinions (which often conflict). Rather then suggesting many random annoyances it would help more IMHO if we could focus on specific areas such as... - better toolbar layout (operator redo is far too cramped) - general panel layout, button spacing / placement, layout engine. - re-organizing 3d view header buttons / menu / display panel which is currently a shamozzel. William Ranish's blog post covered some of these issues. http://www.blendernation.com/2011/10/29/cleaning-up-the-blender-ui/ The frustrating thing about UI discussions is they tend to go off topic far too quick and farly simple stuff gets overlooked/ignored, no consensus, nothing happens. would it be useful if I start collecting things in a wiki page and we start resuming problems there? It would be: - not a discussion page with long rants - schematic - possibly with mockups - only focused on usability. - divided it in areas (3d, properties, etc) and I can help keeping it that way. People might discuss here based on proposals collected there, and when things or blocks of things get approved and fixed we move stuff away or delete. Cheers, Luca ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
+1 here too. On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 10:26 PM, David Silverman silvermindy...@gmail.comwrote: +1 to wiki page On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 2:12 PM, mindrones mindro...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Campbell, On 19 January 2012 20:16, Campbell Barton ideasma...@gmail.com wrote: We've had many long UI threads on the ML before which just die out without much gained besides everyone airing their opinions (which often conflict). Rather then suggesting many random annoyances it would help more IMHO if we could focus on specific areas such as... - better toolbar layout (operator redo is far too cramped) - general panel layout, button spacing / placement, layout engine. - re-organizing 3d view header buttons / menu / display panel which is currently a shamozzel. William Ranish's blog post covered some of these issues. http://www.blendernation.com/2011/10/29/cleaning-up-the-blender-ui/ The frustrating thing about UI discussions is they tend to go off topic far too quick and farly simple stuff gets overlooked/ignored, no consensus, nothing happens. would it be useful if I start collecting things in a wiki page and we start resuming problems there? It would be: - not a discussion page with long rants - schematic - possibly with mockups - only focused on usability. - divided it in areas (3d, properties, etc) and I can help keeping it that way. People might discuss here based on proposals collected there, and when things or blocks of things get approved and fixed we move stuff away or delete. Cheers, Luca ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
@mindrones, This could work but would like to know... * Who in our existing UI dev team are interested to be involved (even if only to review approve proposals)? having feedback from existing UI mafia is nice so there is some authority when a proposal is approved. * Who works on this? are there new devs that want to be involved? if so we could make some smaller tasks to have them start. * Who manages this? - someone to set some direction, scrap wishlist additions to wiki, kick people for feedback etc (pssst!, DingTo!) if people don't like to be constrained too much they can write on their own User blender-wiki pages first so the interface wiki pages don't become a mishmash and its ensured ideas on the wiki have been checked to be realistic. On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 9:45 AM, Gianmichele Mariani g.mari...@liquidnet.it wrote: +1 here too. On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 10:26 PM, David Silverman silvermindy...@gmail.comwrote: +1 to wiki page On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 2:12 PM, mindrones mindro...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Campbell, On 19 January 2012 20:16, Campbell Barton ideasma...@gmail.com wrote: We've had many long UI threads on the ML before which just die out without much gained besides everyone airing their opinions (which often conflict). Rather then suggesting many random annoyances it would help more IMHO if we could focus on specific areas such as... - better toolbar layout (operator redo is far too cramped) - general panel layout, button spacing / placement, layout engine. - re-organizing 3d view header buttons / menu / display panel which is currently a shamozzel. William Ranish's blog post covered some of these issues. http://www.blendernation.com/2011/10/29/cleaning-up-the-blender-ui/ The frustrating thing about UI discussions is they tend to go off topic far too quick and farly simple stuff gets overlooked/ignored, no consensus, nothing happens. would it be useful if I start collecting things in a wiki page and we start resuming problems there? It would be: - not a discussion page with long rants - schematic - possibly with mockups - only focused on usability. - divided it in areas (3d, properties, etc) and I can help keeping it that way. People might discuss here based on proposals collected there, and when things or blocks of things get approved and fixed we move stuff away or delete. Cheers, Luca ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers -- - Campbell ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Hi, On 20 January 2012 00:11, Campbell Barton ideasma...@gmail.com wrote: * Who manages this? - someone to set some direction, scrap wishlist additions to wiki, kick people for feedback etc (pssst!, DingTo!) if people don't like to be constrained too much they can write on their own User blender-wiki pages first so the interface wiki pages don't become a mishmash and its ensured ideas on the wiki have been checked to be realistic. I can do the scrap wishlist additions to wiki part to collect opinions in a global page. Writing in own user pages is especially good because the main UI page(s) wouldn't be cluttered and one can still write what he/she wants on own space. I can extract important and especially *schematic* blocks from user pages and condense/organize them, so that at least the different points of view are clear. I'd link to user pages so one can read there if needed. As for development, can't say :) Luca ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
I volunteer for this UI business but of course it's up to the existing devs. As far as William Raynish's blog post goes, yes. Oh my god. Yes. I'm going to draw from that a lot as I work on this. I think I can implement many things he suggested. On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 9:14 AM, Knapp magick.c...@gmail.com wrote: * I would like to see a right click menu that provides copy and paste when right clicking text areas. Currently ctrl v,c and (x?) I know I know but it's good to provide another method. You clicked it by mistake and do NOT want to save. I have done this many times. Having a prompt does not solve this problem. If there's a prompt then accepting the prompt becomes an automatic part of the user's muscle memory. Then the user has saved when they don't want to and bam, same problem. Unless you mean, the user was trying to Ctrl-D instead or something? There's better ways to solve this problem. Incremental saves. Undos. Version control. Saving is such a universal feature that Blender should confirm to the norm, which is to only produce a popup dialog if a file name has not been chosen. Yep, done that too but I have never lost my work due to Blenders rather odd way of saving stuff. Step 1. Open Blender Step 2. Modify the default cube somehow. Move it around for instance. Do not save. Step 3. Click the window's X button. This closes Blender without asking to save changes. I'm on Windows so perhaps this behavior does not appear on other platforms. It's unacceptable. I have tried a lot of ways and totally disagree. The outliner keeps you from getting lost ... You need the properties all the time, what would you do with them? ... The time line is small and does not take up much space and is needed any time you do animation or anything else with time like particles. You need properties and scene view and timeline to do anything of substance, of course. That doesn't mean that these things should be part of Blender's default view. The point of the default view is new user experience. I realize that nobody here is a new user, so nobody here necessarily wants things that are only good for new users. But I consider myself a new user advocate, and not so long ago, a new user. I think that Blender can change and add new functionality that doesn't stifle existing users while making it easy for new users to learn. I get the sense that many people disregard the new user experience in exchange for power and information, I think this is a mistake. There are many more people who do not use Blender than there are who use it. If you want to increase Blender's adoption, you need to start thinking about new users. New users are concerned about two things. 1. How do I control the camera? 2. How do I edit the mesh in the most basic way? That's it. They don't yet care about animation, rendering, properties, cameras, materials, anything. All they care about is learning how to make an object worth animating, rendering, etc. Look at any tutorials, the first thing they go over is camera controls, the second thing is basic mesh editing. If you make these first steps confusing or difficult then they will abandon Blender as junk. Here are the steps a new user must go through to start editing a mesh. (Note: Yes all of this information is available through tutorials, but people don't like watching tutorials, especially if they're already familiar with other tools. Everything needed to operate Blender at its most basic level should be learnable through Blender itself.) 1. Change to edit mode. A new user doesn't know that this is necessary to edit a mesh. A new user doesn't know that the mesh can't be edited in object mode. The new user must look it up. It's not in a menu. It's in a dropdown labeled Object Mode - the user may not know what that means, or that it's a dropdown, or that clicking it allows mode changes. Edit Mode in that dropdown isn't visible unless the user clicks something. 2. Choose an edit type. The new user doesn't know how to do this. There are three buttons on the button bar that do this but they are buried in other crap and not obvious. This is also not available in a menu. 3. Select something in the mesh to edit. This is a problem since the user will try to left click and select is right click. It may not even occur to some people to try right click. It's really damn frustrating not to be able to select things. 4. Choose whether to Grab, Rotate, Scale. The user does not know these shortcut keys exist. The buttons on the toolbar that provide Maya style manipulators are not obvious, and not the recommended way of operating Blender. By now many people have quit. Even if they persevere, Blender has many other similar interface problems. Here's what I would like to see: 1. Change to edit mode. There is a larger button on screen that does this directly from Object mode. In fact, there should be four, one for Vertex, Edge, and Face, and one to return to Object. They are by default
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
I am happy to review changes and read such a wiki page and give feedback. Then we can see who can implement those changes. Am 20.01.2012 00:11, schrieb Campbell Barton: @mindrones, This could work but would like to know... * Who in our existing UI dev team are interested to be involved (even if only to review approve proposals)? having feedback from existing UI mafia is nice so there is some authority when a proposal is approved. * Who works on this? are there new devs that want to be involved? if so we could make some smaller tasks to have them start. * Who manages this? - someone to set some direction, scrap wishlist additions to wiki, kick people for feedback etc (pssst!, DingTo!) if people don't like to be constrained too much they can write on their own User blender-wiki pages first so the interface wiki pages don't become a mishmash and its ensured ideas on the wiki have been checked to be realistic. -- Thomas Dinges Blender Developer, Artist and Musician www.dingto.org ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Jorge Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com wrote: You clicked it by mistake and do NOT want to save. I have done this many times. Having a prompt does not solve this problem. If there's a prompt then accepting the prompt becomes an automatic part of the user's muscle memory. Then the user has saved when they don't want to and bam, same problem. As I said before I find it hard to hit things like shift or Ctrl etc so sometimes I press Ctrl-s when I wanted shift-s. The confirm solves this problem. Having an undo that undoes saves? Might work, if you knew that you had saved. Unless you mean, the user was trying to Ctrl-D instead or something? There's better ways to solve this problem. Incremental saves. Undos. Version control. Saving is such a universal feature that Blender should confirm to the norm, which is to only produce a popup dialog if a file name has not been chosen. Yep, done that too but I have never lost my work due to Blenders rather odd way of saving stuff. Step 1. Open Blender Step 2. Modify the default cube somehow. Move it around for instance. Do not save. Step 3. Click the window's X button. This closes Blender without asking to save changes. I'm on Windows so perhaps this behavior does not appear on other platforms. It's unacceptable. Yes, and then open blender and recover last session and you are back to normal with a moved cube at lest on Linux. 1. Change to edit mode. A new user doesn't know that this is necessary to edit a mesh. A new user doesn't know that the mesh can't be edited in object mode. The new user must look it up. It's not in a menu. It's in a dropdown labeled Object Mode - the user may not know what that means, or that it's a dropdown, or that clicking it allows mode changes. Edit Mode in that dropdown isn't visible unless the user clicks something. 2. Choose an edit type. The new user doesn't know how to do this. There are three buttons on the button bar that do this but they are buried in other crap and not obvious. This is also not available in a menu. 3. Select something in the mesh to edit. This is a problem since the user will try to left click and select is right click. It may not even occur to some people to try right click. It's really damn frustrating not to be able to select things. 4. Choose whether to Grab, Rotate, Scale. The user does not know these shortcut keys exist. The buttons on the toolbar that provide Maya style manipulators are not obvious, and not the recommended way of operating Blender. I know I did the first time I tried blender. The next time I found a video by gray-beard called something like learning the user interface and then all was good. 2. Select something to edit. Using left click like everything else does. Nobody cares that right click is superior - they already closed Blender because how the hell do you select things? Really I have no idea how right click select has persisted this long. Yes it is really odd at first but I think it has persisted so long because it is a much better system. I know that after using blender for about 3 weeks I started wish, really really wishing that all other GUIs worked like blender because it was so much better! (talking 2.4 here). Other users have said the same thing to me. There are a lot of teachers on the teacher list that think switching left and right click is way better for teaching and they teach the program with these settings as default. -- Douglas E Knapp ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 9:23 PM, Knapp magick.c...@gmail.com wrote: I know I did the first time I tried blender. The next time I found a video by gray-beard called something like learning the user interface and then all was good. I'd like Blender to be learnable without people having to go watch tutorials. The process of flipping to and from tutorial videos all the time is awfully disruptive. There's no reason it can't be more transparent. Yes it is really odd at first but I think it has persisted so long because it is a much better system. Sure, I believe you. I'm sure it is. I'm glad Blender is ahead of the curve in introducing new paradigms like this. I hear a lot of users say they enjoy Blender's right click select and that's great. Problem is, it frustrates the hell out of most users who have no idea why the left click doesn't select. It may be a better system but it's not one that any new users will be familiar with. Therefore, the default should be left click select. -- Jorge Vino Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com twitter: VinoBS 919.757.3066 ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
[Bf-committers] blender UI state
Hello, about a year ago I wanted to start a discussion about the UI of blender, also making some proposals. While the UI recode project brought some really nice changes, I was very surprised that the project somehow stopped somewhere in the middle. In between work has been done on issues like antialiasing and some minor details in the ui, while the big issues are largely ignored. So I would like to ask what are the reasons. Was there no more time or will to finish the UI project? Sincerely, I consider blender UI very cluttered and not much more effective on the user side. Of course, code - wise the changes are beautifull, allowing so much easier integration of scripts and a lot more. Issues I am talking about are mainly - no tabs, endless scrolling and inconsistent height of ui thanks to the folding of various panels and even changing the order of the panels(with tablet very easily accidental). last operator area and tool area conflicting - neither one has reasonable space, looks like a bad joke and forces you go fullscreen and back all the time. lots of stuff in the n-key areas, which basically replace and duplicate property window functionality. right-click menus and preset system are other of the todos of the project I remember... . Of course I appreciate the work of the coders and I see the constant improvement also in the UI area, just would like to start at least a little discussion about this. Cheers Vilem Novak ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Hi, big +1 from me. On 18 January 2012 12:33, Vilem Novak pildano...@post.cz wrote: no tabs, +1, IMO the paradigm used for contexts should be used also in panels, adding a new row of tab icons to avoid scrolling endless scrolling big +1 and inconsistent height of ui thanks to the folding of various panels and even changing the order of the panels(with tablet very easily accidental). +1 re: adaptive ui panels diomensions, it's very annoying how the ui shrinks removing pieces of labels text, it makes no sense to me last operator area and tool area conflicting +1 forces you go fullscreen and back all the time. on a small monitor, definitely agree This is one of those things that makes me a bit angry when new cool features are added in. It makes no sense to me to have a new fantastic modifier and leep basic problems unsolved. An example being the outliner not being consistent: clicking on a mesh icon brings you in edit more, or clicking on a constraint takes you to the constraints context, but then clicking on a material icon doesn't, why? Another example is when you rename objects and their constraints update the referenced object, but in some other relationships cases, renaming objects brakes the relationship, and so on. Or, you can do actions on hidden but selectable objects, and suddenly you find objects in weird places. I know you are supposed to know what you are doing but often you're tired, or objects are spanned in too many layer to recall them all, so a good UI should help you. After all Blender is the machine, I'm the human! UI and workflow are much more important things than new features, because you use them everyday over and over. It would be fantastic to see a project only focused on fixing annoyances/inconsistencies and on improving efficiency. And btw, I miss the OOPS :/ Regards, Luca ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
I agree with everything said. Blender interface currently looks unfinished and more as a testing field for different 3D tools. Someone has had nice idea what to do with but it looks like he lost that idea and now UI floats as unfinished experiment. big +1. On 18 January 2012 13:07, mindrones mindro...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, big +1 from me. On 18 January 2012 12:33, Vilem Novak pildano...@post.cz wrote: no tabs, +1, IMO the paradigm used for contexts should be used also in panels, adding a new row of tab icons to avoid scrolling endless scrolling big +1 and inconsistent height of ui thanks to the folding of various panels and even changing the order of the panels(with tablet very easily accidental). +1 re: adaptive ui panels diomensions, it's very annoying how the ui shrinks removing pieces of labels text, it makes no sense to me last operator area and tool area conflicting +1 forces you go fullscreen and back all the time. on a small monitor, definitely agree This is one of those things that makes me a bit angry when new cool features are added in. It makes no sense to me to have a new fantastic modifier and leep basic problems unsolved. An example being the outliner not being consistent: clicking on a mesh icon brings you in edit more, or clicking on a constraint takes you to the constraints context, but then clicking on a material icon doesn't, why? Another example is when you rename objects and their constraints update the referenced object, but in some other relationships cases, renaming objects brakes the relationship, and so on. Or, you can do actions on hidden but selectable objects, and suddenly you find objects in weird places. I know you are supposed to know what you are doing but often you're tired, or objects are spanned in too many layer to recall them all, so a good UI should help you. After all Blender is the machine, I'm the human! UI and workflow are much more important things than new features, because you use them everyday over and over. It would be fantastic to see a project only focused on fixing annoyances/inconsistencies and on improving efficiency. And btw, I miss the OOPS :/ Regards, Luca ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
+1 N toolbar area is a mess. We need tabs or something. Plus I hate being in sculpt mode, and having t go back to object mode to set the object normals to smooth. It's an example of how the N toolbar doesn't help as is. ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Toolbar is T, not N. N is the Properties Region ;-) Am 18.01.2012 18:12, schrieb David Silverman: +1 N toolbar area is a mess. We need tabs or something. Plus I hate being in sculpt mode, and having t go back to object mode to set the object normals to smooth. It's an example of how the N toolbar doesn't help as is. ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers -- Thomas Dinges Blender Developer, Artist and Musician www.dingto.org ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 1:07 PM, mindrones mindro...@gmail.com wrote: This is one of those things that makes me a bit angry when new cool features are added in. It makes no sense to me to have a new fantastic modifier and leep basic problems unsolved. There are a LOT of problems with the GUI but the thing is that you have no one to be angry at. This is open source. That means that I write what I want to write. If that is something really cool like Dynamic Paint and that is what I am into, then that is what I will write and there is NOTHING anyone can do to make me write GUI code. This is the nature of open source. So if you are really bugged by this GUI problem,then I suggest you do the code writing or at least help with it in some way that you can. Problems that I see; Entering an image series in video editor is not done the same way as in the composition nodes. Film strips and nodes are added where the mouse is. Great unless you happen to be clicking the add button. It was way better in 2.4 with film strip adding. It stuck to the mouse and then you dropped it where you wanted it. A MUCH better work flow, I think. When you have a small screen (or even a big one with many sub-screens) you have to grab and slide your tools list at the bottom of the window to get to them each time. I would love to have an option to set the row length here or not, a line wrap feature. I know there are others but these are the top two on my mind today. The VSE and the movie editor are almost the same thing. Should they not be the same thing but with buttons on the bottom to switch functions like the compositors? -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
Just wanted to add a few notes here. I tend to agree that the interface feels a bit unfinished, but I also think that is not so far away from being really good. Even though there's been a lot of work done to customize toolbars and panels, there are still a few things missing: - we can't create a custom toolbar and associate it to a key stroke. Since there's only one toolbar per mode, this becomes quite easily cluttered. I'd love to show you what it looks like with Gilga rig from Tube, and believe me this is nothing more than what i consider a standard interface for a rig - we can't use images directly from disk to put them in the toolbar or anywhere else. Only the one compiled in the source are available. Users shouldn't be bothered to compile their own version just to get a new icon available! - pie menus anyone? I am VERY happy with Blender but the interface needs to continue moving forward like all the other features otherwise it could become a bottleneck again. .Gian On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 6:20 PM, Knapp magick.c...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 1:07 PM, mindrones mindro...@gmail.com wrote: This is one of those things that makes me a bit angry when new cool features are added in. It makes no sense to me to have a new fantastic modifier and leep basic problems unsolved. There are a LOT of problems with the GUI but the thing is that you have no one to be angry at. This is open source. That means that I write what I want to write. If that is something really cool like Dynamic Paint and that is what I am into, then that is what I will write and there is NOTHING anyone can do to make me write GUI code. This is the nature of open source. So if you are really bugged by this GUI problem,then I suggest you do the code writing or at least help with it in some way that you can. Problems that I see; Entering an image series in video editor is not done the same way as in the composition nodes. Film strips and nodes are added where the mouse is. Great unless you happen to be clicking the add button. It was way better in 2.4 with film strip adding. It stuck to the mouse and then you dropped it where you wanted it. A MUCH better work flow, I think. When you have a small screen (or even a big one with many sub-screens) you have to grab and slide your tools list at the bottom of the window to get to them each time. I would love to have an option to set the row length here or not, a line wrap feature. I know there are others but these are the top two on my mind today. The VSE and the movie editor are almost the same thing. Should they not be the same thing but with buttons on the bottom to switch functions like the compositors? -- Douglas E Knapp Creative Commons Film Group, Helping people make open source movies with open source software! http://douglas.bespin.org/CommonsFilmGroup/phpBB3/index.php Massage in Gelsenkirchen-Buer: http://douglas.bespin.org/tcm/ztab1.htm Please link to me and trade links with me! Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
Re: [Bf-committers] blender UI state
I'm glad that this topic is being discussed, as it is one of the primary motivations for me beginning work on Blender. Here is my list of things that I would like to see fixed, from a newbie's point of view: * There is a + to open the N properties (and other panels) but no - to close it. * Panels can be opened by dragging them out, but can't be closed by dragging them back. * The toolbar on the left is a good idea but is rough, some buttons are pointless and it needs to be neater. I would love to see the background panel disappear, and the buttons therein presented as floating buttons on top of the UI. Like how Silo does it. (http://goo.gl/7HChk See left.) This would give more area to the 3D view, which is what's really important. * I would like to see right clicking on things offer a Delete option. * When right clicking for some things there is no Rename option. * I would like to see a right click menu that provides copy and paste when right clicking text areas. * Why does pressing Ctrl-S prompt the user to save? Why would anybody ever not want to save when they just pressed Ctrl-S? What other program does this, ever? * Someone already mentioned that the button rows need to wrap and make a new row if they run out of space. I'll bet a lot of people don't know that you can scroll those things. But, you shouldn't ever have to. * When dialogs like the file dialog are open I always find myself clicking the Windows X button to close it, which closes Blender, often without saving my work. Needs another smaller (X) up there for closing the dialog without choosing a file. * I think it is inane that saving user preferences saves the entire current .blend to be loaded again with the File-New command. If I want to rebind a key in the middle of my work, it saves my entire project, and then I continue my work and next time I load Blender I am presented with an old version of my project. It should save only user preferences, like it claims it does. * In general I think the default Blender screen is too cluttered and should contain fewer panels. I think we can do away with the outliner and properties on the right, and also with the timeline on the bottom. If the user wants more panels, the user can create more panels. Advanced users already have their layout customized how they like it, presenting new users with 8 panels causes information overload, and turns people off Blender. So, a new user loading Blender for the first time might see something more like this: http://i41.tinypic.com/8yuet5.png I plan on working on many of these things, once I'm done with my work on the basic controls (see the Transform tool tweaks thread.) -- Jorge Vino Rodriguez jo...@lunarworkshop.com twitter: VinoBS 919.757.3066 ___ Bf-committers mailing list Bf-committers@blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
