As for switching between layouts, would it not make sense to be able to rearrange them in the list? Because then you can use Ctrl + arrow to switch to whatever you choose. Also, I agree that it would be way to easy to accidentally hit. Any chance you could pop up a warning message when something major like that is about to be deleted?
Personally I think you are both wrong. I have the feeling that one want to focus on the newbies and the others want to focus on “experts”. The biggest group are left out.
That being said I don’t understand why they call you arrogant, it would be arrogant to think that what Blender doing is walhalla. Unfortunately self criticism isn’t certainly not a Blender feature, that is something that I noticed in the years.
I don’t know If I should laugh or cry when somebody for example see something like a"pie menu" as a “fancy idea”. I would even think that “great minds” would know about fitt’s law and how pie menu’s (or variants of that) cater that.
When I read this my hair stands… . And I will copy this sentence as an example for future presentations.
New users are an unknown quantity
That is so wrong. The relative quanity of each group is not unknow. What baffles me that the “great minds” with all the studies don’t know the general accepted view and studies that the biggest user groups are intermediates, not novices and not experts. Even if you think about it , it makes a lot of sense.
Novices and experts are the smallest group because novices mostly don’t stay novices long and intermediates don’t progress to the expert group as it takes a lot of work to become and also stay an expert user.
There are some small exceptions on the rule and you can debate that the nature of a 3D program makes it an “expert” program but then again I have 2 problems with that.
One that I have a feeling that in a expert world they tend to choose other programs (without making a judgement about the quality of Blender or even if it is a workflow related problem) and two I’m not even sure you can be an expert in Blender as a whole.
Complex software will always stay complex software. But that doesn’t mean that it should be hard or there is no room for improvement.
Any chance you could pop up a warning message when something major like that is about to be deleted?
If it is irrevocable by Undo I would also opt for a warning before removing it.
What an intriguing post.
It’s slightly off-topic, but I think this is a slight mis-characterization of what I do. It’s true that I focus on new users in my Blender work, but it’s not to the exclusion of experts or intermediate users. I think we agree that the focus on experts ends up causing Blender’s design and usability to suffer. Every user is assumed to be an expert and Blender pays for this in its user base. I remain of the firm belief that an interface improvement aimed at new users is usually also beneficial to all other users regardless of experience level. Since Blender suffers from a dearth of developers who care about new users, I’m overcompensating. When designing other things, (for example the various tools and games I’ve developed over the years,) I worry about all users equally.
I guess you took that off the mailing list. I looked in my logs, turns out I misquoted it. He said, “New users are undefined, and people project ideas on them.” He meant that it’s not possible to know how a new user thinks, what she wants, etc, therefore no attention should be given to making it easier for the new user. This is what I disagree with. New users are quite definable - just watch one of them trying to learn a tool, without input from its designer or developer. See where they struggle and fix that. This process in aggregate can be used to learn all of the common struggles of new users. I’ve done it many times, and it’s used by major studios such as Valve, Blizzard and Microsoft to make their games more fun and easier to play. The idea that it’s impossible to design software for new users is just plain wrong.
Any chance you could pop up a warning message when something major like that is about to be deleted?
If it’s something major that doesn’t get deleted often then the design should be such that users can’t accidentally delete it. Making users go out of their way to delete it is a better solution that a warning/popup. That’s why I don’t really like my most recent patch that much.
With all due regards to all…
I hope that the naysayers won’t wear you down Vino. I know that I wouldn’t have the patience with the self proclaimed ‘experts’ that you’re having.
‘Newbies’ in the present case is somewhat of a misnomer. ‘Newcomers’ would apply better since someone new to Blender can still be quite an expert at 3D. Welcoming defaults are not a fault; customization isn’t a vain word for us either. No one can claim any degree of expertize if one can’t adapt Blender to one’s needs. Let’s just have an option in the preferences to quiet warnings and then be done with that bickering once an for all.
I kinda like the latest patch since it unifies it with the rest you did.
But maybe you could…require a ctrl+click to actually delete it? (just give a message bubble that you need to do that…?)
this way its harder to delete.
Or you make the x’s smaller to hit?
Only necessary if it can’t be undone,ofcourse. Which I think is a fair reason to deviate from the paradigm.
also 2 extra possibilities concerning lists:
-shapekeys/vertex groups, drag and drop order : so much hassle to order them how you like or need! those little arrows are useless in big lists.
-The ability to make the list view bigger so you can see more then only 5 entries of shapekeys. sometimes you need to see as much as possible together to find those you need.
2 Major design issues,imo.
Already can do. Any list view [ ‘Shape Keys’, ‘Vertex Groups’, ‘Material’, ‘Tex’, etc…] can be lengthened by hovering over the area and SHIFT+Mouse Wheel Scroll.
It’s a little fidgety, but it works.
Say whu?
Goddammit blender! you have too much nice HIDDEN stuff XD
This is (imo) important extended functionality
There should be at least a visual clue somewhere.
Or a drag arrow when hovering above it. just…SOMETHING
Well I’m happy now,I know of it,but plenty of users will not know about it I’m sure.
I already have watched tons of tutorial video’s and this hasn’t come up once
It is indeed a bit fidgety as you apparently need to move your mouse each time you have expanded or reduced the number of entries.
Could something be done about this?
(also,thank you aomeoni)
You’re welcome.
I know lots of hidden stuff about Blender…
I actually think that the undocumented features out number the documented.
maybe one of these days I’ll write them all down.
Now you know how a new user feels all the time.
@IamInnocent: Thank you, that’s encouraging. I shall redouble my efforts.
I share your opinion on this.
I guess you took that off the mailing list. I looked in my logs, turns out I misquoted it. He said, “New users are undefined, and people project ideas on them.”
Then I stand corrected 
I fully agree with your take on newcomers…it kinda shifted my paradigm of what a new user is.
@vino
yeah I know,I never contradicted you or anyone on that (I think…?)
This is why I find cleaning up the UI in some ways one of the major things that need to be done,first,before any new fancy stuff. As well as extending customizability.
more filters,more organisation,better groups…
Sure more particle effects and nodes and cycles and other stuff are nice. But if they are not pleasant to use it almost defeats the purpose of having them.
Is adding a visual cue or improve the scrolling (without mousemoving) something you might do for your GSOC?
I don’t need it anymore now I know about it but new and other existing users might.
There is a wiki that you can contribute to </hint>
That’s a ridiculous implementation.
I would prefer a simple grip to extend list.
I know that the list is extended by increment of one item and can’t be as fluid as scopes panels’s one.
But cursor icon could change to inform user that mouse movement is taken into account.
Quoted for agreement
Hello, Im user of about a 30 different CG 2d/3d/vector/CAD programs + LISP+PGP interface customisation, and maybe my issues could be useful =)
= Method for switching from object mode to face/vertex/edge mode and back with one keystroke
> Classic 3Dsmax scheme. In Blender use “~” button instead “ctrl+tab” default. It is much simpler to press “1" "2” “`3”, than Ctrl+tab.
= Option to remove delete confirmations.
> Only if an Option.
= A method for allowing clicking on empty space to unselect
> 3Dsmax’s classic. Only if an option.
= Canceling extrude leaves duplicate geometry
> Sometimes useful. But there still will left “E 0”.
= Gray out non-selected objects in edit mode.
> Only if will free some memory.
About some my defaults:
= Alt+E is tuned to Edge slide (transform.edge_slide) as it use more often. Old Alt+E -> Alt+Shift+E
= V- merge, Alt+V- Rip, in order of using frequency. Allow left hand to stay on left side of keyboard.
= LeftMouse+Turntable by default? So, it could attract more users from other packages, RigthMouse is scaring a lot of people =)
If it is possible, option for turning off grease pencil’s antialiasing at all. 2.4x-like, for Bsurface perfomance (they asked)
If it is possible, return P and F options for Loopcut and Slide, if this ability stored from 2.4x
Text/Icons? Text. Absolutely. As donator and tutorialmaker - nice to remember, easy to use, better to write tutorials and google search.
I remind, that I’m from AutoCAD+LISP, under what I wrote about 300 functions without any icons - and my students easily remembers almost all of them.
So, if someone has doubts - let him try to learn or even google some of this functions:
Typical icon-oriented interface
Existing Icons count in Blender is enough.
Thanks for your attention.
= Method for switching from object mode to face/vertex/edge mode and back with one keystroke
> Classic 3Dsmax scheme. In Blender use “~” button instead “ctrl+tab” default. It is much simpler to press “1" "2” “`3”, than Ctrl+tab.
= A method for allowing clicking on empty space to unselect
> 3Dsmax’s classic. Only if an option.
Can already be done in the preferences.
Changing defaullt controls is out of scope of this GSOC.
Exactly what I would want
Simple,easy to recognize.
Good for all kinds of users
Also quoted for agreement
You’d be amazed at how many people use this mythical ‘new user’ as a strawman for whatever feature proposal they happen to be currently pimping and/or why blender should be a ‘free’ clone of whatever 3d package they’re used to.
In fact it happens so often it just becomes background noise.
If I were to start philosophizing I’d say that a big part of the resistance to your GSoC is based on this since you basically propped up the Noobie Strawman and said “give me Googlebucks™ to cater to this under-served user” without giving the impression of learning the reasoning behind the design decisions (or limitations) that lead blender to where it is now. I’ll admit my first reaction was “WTF, a GSoC ‘for the noobs’? …someone’s been hitting the crack-pipe”. Ok, I may be making up the ‘crack-pipe’ part for dramatic effect but there was a bit of politics involved in the decision process which, IMHO, isn’t how ‘open’ projects should be run. Cathedral vs. bazaar and all that…
Not that this has anything to do with you personally – you just inadvertently beat on a hornets’ nest (and I’m not much for playing politics so mostly just say what I mean).