I find the current UI usable but I am welcome to any improvements that can be made to it. As I said, it can improve.
I find the current UI usable but I am welcome to any improvements that can be made to it. As I said, it can improve.
I like your attitude. A change need not to be bad by default.
I understand your idea. Keyboard shortcuts arent wrong, but the method to use them as a workaround is. Keyboard shortcuts are tools equal to other tools, not something to be used to avoid those. It is like using a stone to pound a nail, because one does not like to unearth ones hammer.
Some time ago I thought about shortcuts. Some who say Blenders Shortcuts are best possible did not try good old emacs. Currently a single keystroke is bond to a single operator. If you speak about keyboard acrobatics, I think its that what you mean. It scatters operators over the keyboard.
We would need to press many keys at the same moment to reach a specific operator, menus are there to avoid this.
I have a suggestion on that issue: not to bind a single operator to a single keystroke on user level, but to a list of keystrokes. On deeper level operators are bond to single keystrokes. The difference, there is a special keystroke-listening operator.
All (non-special) operators keystroke-lists together create a tree. The leaves of the tree are the operators. On the other knots of the keystroke-tree there is a special operator, which listens for keystrokes of its “child keystrokes” (depending on the space type used). Pressing <Tab> or <Space>, this special operator shows the list of keystrokes it listens to in a kind of popup window.
There seems to be some suggestions that there are two camps here. Those that like blenders interface and those that don’t. Further to that, those that find fault with the interface appear to imply that those who don’t are deliberately holding back progress. I don’t be believe this to be the case.
Personally I like blenders interface and workflow, that’s why I use it. I have max, maya and mudbox available to me but I choose to use blender because I like the way it works. Would I claim it is perfect? Hell no. Of course there are improvements that could be made, and I agree with several points made in this and other threads however; I think those of us who like the interface get somewhat bewildered by suggestions that are often entirely based around: Blender should work like (usually) Maya.
I can’t speak for anyone else but, I like blenders interface and no I’m not adverse to change as long as it makes sense, is useful, and improves workflow. But I don’t like Maya’s interface, so why is it that my opinion can be considered as holding back progress just because I don’t want blender to be Maya clone.
The problem as I see it is that that these UI threads are full of opinions that blenders UI is confusing and unorganised with no concrete examples or suggestions (although not all of them) which, is going to end up in an argument. I started a UI thread recently for what I saw as a logical inconsistency. In the 2.67 RC the new paint tools had different default short cuts to the main navigation controls. So normally shift MMB translates the view, but shift RMB scales a stencil, and ctrl MMB zooms the view but ctrl RMB rotates a stencil, and as you can do these thing essentially at the same time I found it confusing. So I created a thread, a couple of people agreed and then I pm’d Psy Fi, as he was the developer (afaik). It didn’t get changed in the release. So I just remapped my keys, problem solved! Now people could have disagreed with my view, but at least the thread was focused and had a point.
no concrete examples or suggestions
… Sigh …
But I don’t like Maya’s interface, so why is it that my opinion can be considered as holding back progress just because I don’t want blender to be Maya clone
Really.
Point out where in your original post that an actual example or suggestion is made.
There are various. Its not my task to observe for you. The last one, very clear:
before your posting.
OK, we may have a slight misunderstanding here. I phrased a sentence in my previous post poorly.
I said:
The problem as I see it is that that these UI threads are full of opinions that blenders UI is confusing and unorganised with no concrete examples or suggestions (although not all of them) which, is going to end up in an argument.
What I should have written was:
The problem as I see it is that that some of these UI threads begin from the premise that blenders UI is confusing and unorganised with no concrete examples or suggestions (although not all of them) which, is going to end up in an argument
And they do generally end up in arguments rather than productive discussion. I was trying to be diplomatic by not refering to the original post. Obviously people will make examples as the thread continues, that goes without saying but, in your original post there are none.
You refered to my first posting. You are right, I did not made concrete suggestions on my first posting, it was my aim to outline my opinion. I tried to give a form (not generally the Blender UI, but (visual) Distraction). Into this form, I gave some suggestions later. But there were suggestions other made. I like the suggestion using icons in the toolbar to keep it small.
There are many postings and some of them are long. As there is always someone claiming that there is no suggestion/concrete example is made (“there are only complaints”) … counter proof are the postings itself … one could be mislead easily if one think there is a shortcut (e.g. reading other peoples opinion about something someone says or their opinion whats going on in this thread).
Such happens, missunderstandings, its being a human.
And they do generally end up in arguments rather than productive discussion.
There is a reason many discussions are mislead and alienated if someone thematizes Blenders UI.
Sorry for my harsh answer. But I am really annoyed about people using dishonest rhetorical tricks like strawman arguments, ad hominem / ad personam arguments (if someone is not content with something in Blenders UI, the only “true” reason behind this: he did not understood it. –> “You have to learn the UI!”).
Those are useful to make others believe that you dont have a valid point of view, without the need to think about your point of view in depth.
Thats what I struggled with from the beginning of this thread. Feeling anger because of it.
No one said that. Blenders does suffers from excessive keyboard travel.
Emacs is know for it’s absurd finger acrobatics. There’s nothing stopping you from creating a custom Emacs style key-map, if that your after.
Siebeneicher
Ok, so you are accusing me of strawmanning, and you have edited earlier posts to provide an example. You are assuming that, that comment was directed at you. To be fair, my post came directly after yours so I can see why you might think that. But it was really in response to:
Yes, I suppose it’s still a strawman argument as SaintHaven doesn’t actually say he wants blender to be a Maya clone, nor do I think he would really want it to be, but I hope both you and SaintHaven can understand why I made the comment? When you look at the wider context, there are often threads and articles here and around the web that say, why doesn’t blender work like X, Y, Z. Plus it seems like there has been a negative thread about blenders UI at the top of the discussions every week recently (although that could just be me).
Personally I’m kinda burnt out on them.
Its not about implementing something, its about gathering ideas. So, if you have ideas, you can share them. That is this thread for.
Emacs could be ugly, I agree. After some time not using it, I have had to remember keystrokes. If you dont know specific word for what you look for, you wont find the keystroke easily. Whether some people like Emacs or dislike it, the key idea (Binding Operators to lists of keystrokes instead of single keystrokes) is not touched by it.
Some time ago I read something about layers.
It is true, there are Object Groups.( Originally they are created to make importing of set of objects more easy? Not sure about.) I played a bit with them some time ago, together with the outliner. It was some time ago, I forgot about it. Someone in this thread remembered me to it.
They work good for layering, I think they could be a working replacement for our standard layering buttons.
Both layer methods work as long as you dont use them with Append/Link (from Library). Append/Link destroys any Layering (Group based or standard layers). I like to propose, to have an Append/Link of Objects which preserves any kind of layering. (If I am wrong with it, if I oversee something, please tell.)
Thinking on bone layers. There is nothing like object groups. Bone groups seem to be something like bone color styles. One bone could only have one color style. I like to propose to enable bones using multiple Bone groups. Then, there could be a second structure like Bone Styles, which assigns a color to a set of bones.
Bone Groups and Object Groups
( Idea behind …
With it, there would be a complete replacement for bit based layering. For people who like keep using layering buttons or M-shortcuts, there could be a set of groups (0 … 15) which can have custom names. A user would not feel much difference, it would work like bit based layering. But without the limitation of those. )
I do not like to overwhelm developers, i do not put things to their to do list, i dont like to make other people do so.
For me, its about gathering ideas and relations.
Definitely not just you; there have probably been at least 5 different threads going at once venting about the UI on the first page of CG Discussion the entire time I’ve been here.
Personally, I am burnt out by all the hyperbole in these discussions. It just doesn’t seem possible to mention some small difference in product XYZ without someone saying “No, don’t turn Blender into a clone of XYZ!” It’s just a stunted logical argument to say that we can learn nothing from other products. There are many things that Blender does better than competitors and many things that the competitors do better than Blender. But for so many people here even the comparison is offensive.
@kettlefish
Imagine: others enter, who are angry because of others who like blender to be like Maya/Xsi/etc.
Seeing it those might think that this thread is again something like that, and he will continue to fight something he thinks is another “Blender like Maya/XSI/etc”. This thread will be alienated soon.
I needed to set a borderline. I knew what happened yesterday and the day before in this thread.
I try to create a base where ideas could be exchanged.
I try to understand you that way:
on surface you speak about UI threads. But behind — I believe it, but I cannot approve it — you mean there are forces, suppressing blender. Once someone said that blender wont be good, as “everyone” is allowed to write code into it. I did not know what to say that moment. And there are others who cannot imagine that somethin which does not cost money could be equal to something which costs a lot. Debates on the UI are on the top of this.
It is understandable for me, if someone upsets. To know that Blender is valuable, and to see people who treat it as something worthless.
There is the feeling, that it is not right people do so.
It is not my wish to suppress Blender.
If it looks like that, please tell me.
I think it is nothing wrong about comparing. As long as its not biased.
To compare means to learn, to sharpen the senses.
Something i do not agree with …
if anyone questions something in blender, he might be fought in this community.
Harley, I take your point regarding the repeated use of that particular phrase.
Siebeneicher, no don’t worry, I don’t believe it’s your intention to denigrate blender. I guess I’m just bored of all the UI threads :spin:
I think I’ve derailed this thread long enough, sorry about that it wasn’t my intention.
Toodle
Ah… there is nothing wrong with comparing. Period. Adding the “as long as it not biased” is the very thing that stifles conversation and debate. None of us should be saying that certain discussions are fine “as long as…” except for the moderators. Besides, there is bias in all of us about almost everything and is impossible to completely remove.
I see … that moment I did not refer to you. Between us, there is an exchange of thoughts. That makes a big difference!
In this thread there were many cases, there werent an exchange of thoughts. I could have wroten anything, about ice cream and sunshine, some would still write as if I am complaining about blender.
Cu.
Blender UI is not intuitive? If someone come from another software, ok, can understood, your are used to another workflow and interface, is normal.
In my opinion Blender UI is great, I came from zbrush/softimage experience, and blender UI is very very good. VEry intuitive, well organized. Maya GUI (IMHO one of the worse UI/workflow) designer has something to learn…
Oh, now you’re just being overly cynical. People don’t really -
…oh. I see your point.
LOL@xrg, right on
I actually love the stuff that was coming up in the thread you had Harley - especially when it was getting more streamlined and still had all the options there, and then the script that was there for a bit on the icons side by side in the tool bar instead of the stacked word buttons - that made sense.
When the pie menus get fully adopted, I’m sure we will see all kinds of freakout then too. But I am just now trying to understand how to modify the ui scripts myself, and for my own purpose I need things that no one else will - so I hope I at least get to the point that I understand the python scripting. It’s one thing to add a text, another to actually make button width and create new icons. (python newb I am)