There is nothing wrong with the concept of fake user, but the way we expose it to our users is a bit obtuse. The user sees a button with a capital “F” on it. The “F” does not seem to relate to anything, and if they hover over it the popup hint text says “save this datablock even if it has no users” which does not contain anything important with an “F”.
Some English speakers, on seeing an “F”, might assume it means “Free”, as in discard - the opposite of what it really means. We could change it to something more obvious like “S” for Save or “K” for Keep, I suppose. But then do we translate those? “K” becoming “T” in Spanish or “G” in French? Using a letter in this case is just a little odd…
So I think this needs to be an icon that represents the operation. The following shows what it looks like now and with a “lock” icon instead, which almost works.
Unfortunately the “lock” is used elsewhere to indicate that something should not change. It can’t be many things that mean “save” like a floppy drive as most users would expect something to occur when you click it (like open a file browser) while we want something to show a state.
It could be something like a garbage can with an “X” through it but that would look confusing when it isn’t enabled.
In short, we need something that means keep, preserve, retain, protect, etc. but without overlap with locking and not changing.
There is nothing wrong with the concept of fake user
There is everything wrong with it. Deleting data unless it is referenced without user interaction is counter-intuitive to every user. I’d expect the vast majority of users to have learned about this by losing data. It wouldn’t be all that bad if “fake user” was active by default for all datablock types, but for most it isn’t.
This implementation detail (reference counting/garbage collection) that may be familiar to programmers should simply not be exposed to users at all. What should be visible is the fact that data is unused. Deletion should always be done explicitly, however there could be an operator to delete all unused data.
The idea that data is lost by default is just insane. No other program (that I am aware of) behaves likes this, and no user would ever expect such behaviour. If there is one thing I would change about blender, this is it.
Just change the behaviour, then there need not be any discussion on icon should be on a button that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Meh. Sure you learn about it by losing data. But this is such a basic thing that users will learn it before they’ve produced anything of value. That being said, sure, changing it would make it more intuitive for new users.
Many people feel exactly as you do, but not all. Regardless, it is not a behavior that is going to go away any time soon so it is not really relevant to the discussion at hand. The “F” can change to an icon tomorrow AND the behavior could change next year. They are not related.
Keep the “F”, gray it out. Make one “fakeuser” datablock per default. If the default fakeuser datablock is the last one left, the “F” becomes clickable. Then it means “free”.
I still worry about having a state like this indicated by a single English-language letter, especially when we now have translations for so many languages. I’d be even more nervous about keeping the same letter “F” but changing its underlying meaning from “fake user” to “free”
Many people feel exactly as you do, but not all. Regardless, it is not a behavior that is going to go away any time soon so it is not really relevant to the discussion at hand. The “F” can change to an icon tomorrow AND the behavior could change next year. They are not related.
And I wouldn’t have commented on it, if it wasn’t for your opening statement that there is “nothing wrong with them”. The behaviour with the fake user could also be changed tomorrow, it’s not a big deal in terms of code (and it has been changed before, to the worse, without warning, for animations). Hiding the button is another issue. Adding the icon on the other hand isn’t such a simple change as you might imagine, too. Since it isn’t an icon, but a character, you’d need to change the drawing routine (possibly in multiple places).
Having said that, I think the shield is a good metaphor for this, it might actually intrigue somebody to read the tooltip - more so than a cryptic ‘F’ anyway. Make it red, while you’re at it.
Say that again to the people who have lost data. It might not be “of value” to you. You can go a long while without ever noticing it. The first time it probably happens to you is when you are making a set of nice materials for your library. On which you might spend hours, believing them to be safe because you are saving all the time. I guess the degree to how much you’re up-in-arms against this depends on when you learned about it. But I have yet to see somebody bold enough to claim that losing data by default is a good idea. Why default to that? It just don’t understand.
And I wouldn’t have commented on it, if it wasn’t for your opening statement that there is “nothing wrong with them”.
To be honest, I used that wording in the comment on my patch in the tracker (using the lock icon) and I just reused it here. I was trying to contrast how we think of it internally (“fake user”) versus how we expose it to users (“save this datablock even if it has no users”).
Adding the icon on the other hand isn’t such a simple change as you might imagine, too. Since it isn’t an icon, but a character, you’d need to change the drawing routine (possibly in multiple places).
No, it is just one place as it is part of that control. This is why the hint can only say “save this datablock” versus “save this material”, etc. My patch is here:
Having said that, I think the shield is a good metaphor for this, it might actually intrigue somebody to read the tooltip - more so than a cryptic ‘F’ anyway. Make it red, while you’re at it.
Thanks. I’m hoping something like that will fit the concept and prompt people to read the tooltip. Shield does make sense…
Hmm fair enough, that discussion on the tracker looks to me like engineers deciding that the problem with the five-wheeled car must be its color. Would’ve been good if you had posted the link to it upfront.
So, since this is basically “done”, we could have a shield icon that is red when unchecked and green when checked. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.
Hmm fair enough, that discussion on the tracker looks to me like engineers deciding that the problem with the five-wheeled car must be its color.
LOL
For me one of the problems on that control is the mixture of buttons with such different usages and meanings. This one in particular shows a state while the others perform a function when pressed.
In Blender when we use button to show a state it isn’t really obvious in the unselected state. When you turn it ON it is obvious that it is showing a state because of the contrast. When off it could be a button that performs an action.
It might be nice to have a shield that has a little red “x” in the corner when not enabled and a green checkmark when enabled? Probably too complex for an icon of that small size…
Harley i agree with this,
i never understand the concept of the “fake user” i usually just press the + button
(that duplicates the material) makes a new one with the same parameters…
as far as i know… then i just play with that one…(problem is doing this you get a long list of similar materials in your material slot)
Yes, the internal solution of keeping an unused datablock by assigning it to fake user is really only something that makes sense to programmers. There is no need to talk of the geeky internals when exposing it to users.
For users the concept is simply “don’t delete this even if I’m not using it right now” and this does not include users, fake or otherwise. Marking something so important with a big “F” is just not helpful in communicating the concept, doubly-so for non-English users.
I like the “finger with string” idea, but in your example it is way more obvious when enabled than disabled.
We really need this thing to communicate its function well while it is NOT enabled, since that is the default state so often. Something just grayed out by default is usually pretty harmless. This needs to indicate “I’m potentially important but turned off”
A strongbox or a coffer maybe could give the idea, but they are difficult subjects to make an icon with.
@holyenigma74:
to press the + button to duplicate materials does not prevent you from losing the old stuff when you go out, if this is not applied to some object.
