Searching

I think it’s a nice thing and it will speed up my workflow. I always find myself dragging inputs and typing strings to have the required node. Sometimes even if i have to disconnect it immediately after. It’s just so handy to just type.
I can see already thou some peopple unhappy asking it to be a user preference, because they’re so comfortable with accelerator keys

Afterall I am one of them :laughing:
Anyway numeric accelerators* will remain I hope (…?)

  • If you type number X, the Xth entry in the menu gets selected, and so on for nested menus

Well that is not new, there used to be a search box at the top of the add menu for nodes.

What is new is that they got rid of the search box and now you can just type directly when you hit the add menu. Also you can do this with every add menu add node, add object, add modifier etc.

It is a good thing but my initial reaction was “panic, where has the search box gone?”.

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they should have had a hint: “Type to search”

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Agreed. Making the search box hidden is a disappointing reminder that the BF, after 20 years of development Blender, continues to make occasional decisions that sacrifice usability on the altar of design (it is no longer crippling decisions that prevent Blender from even having an appeal to professionals, but there is still a need for improvement in balancing design with user needs).

I am not saying that design should just be thrown out completely, but we do not want to risk regressing and start going back the other way.

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Eh, I dunno, it seems much more in line with how menus have worked in blender for decades, only better.

The search box at the top of the add menu is very new, it’s not a sacred cow. The new workflow saves a keystroke, once you know you can just type to get what you are looking for, then it’s smooth sailing.

and if you want a clicky interface with 10,000 buttons on screen and no keyboard operations required, there’s always B4A…

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Reduced discoverability…

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I’d rather need to learn once than have an unnecessary message every single I try to add a node.

There’s always a tradeoff between discoverability and usability. for an example, check out this guy:

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It is the conversion of a very useful and frequently used feature to a hidden one.

I use search all the time because of the sheer number of nodes in the Geometry Node editor. Since having a large number of nodes is unavoidable if you want such proceduralism to be friendly to artists, the reminder that you can search becomes important.


I am not talking about annoying message popups or sidekicks like Clippy either, it was as integrated into the menu as every other item and did not get in the way.

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I also don’t want a message. A search box instead have clear propose.

The search feature isn’t going away, it’s just easier to access now. Again, you only need to discover it once.

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Yeah, it’s just bad UI/UX… :slightly_smiling_face:

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F3 shortcut is allowing to add nodes, in node editor. F3 shortcut is indicated in Edit menu > Main Search.

Since click and drag from socket is used to create a connection with node added from search, search from menu is less used for that.

As a general change for menus, it will end-up to be shown in all video tutorials.

Each time, people will intentionally or not press a key after displaying a menu, it will pop-up.
So, although that is not obvious, that still has a certain amount of discoverability.

There is one in status bar, currently.

how about this:

It saves a line, it uses the existing header, does that make everyone happy?

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Yeah, like in c4d…

image

Very clear…

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From:

This new functionality can be enabled for a menu by setting bl_options = {'SEARCH_ON_KEY_PRESS'} to true in the menu type. The status bar shows Type to search... when a menu is opened that supports search.

And it it’s not as easy as it sounds… some conflicts with accelerator keys and also for example with other languages (chinese)…

…so someone has to wait a bit… unless someone do not want any technological progress ( → meaning of developement ) at all…

And that’s the fun part with blender… someone can stick to th version someone is using… until everthing is perfect…


Anyway:
But wasn’t this meant to inform users and not a discussion about what should be done ??

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I just wish they asked for more feedback from the general public before moving on with those UI changes…
The modifiers menu is a pain in the a$$ now…

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There’s the following issue created a few hours ago:

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That would be great, pretty much every other CG nodal software works this way actually.

Ok, I’ll ask… what is an accelerator key?

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