Pressing / Holding Z key action differentiation
During modeling geometrically complex objects there is a high relevance demand in checking/selecting/accessing internal structures of an edited objects or checking image reference in refrence modeling types, provided by wireframe mode.
The proposal is about satisfying such kind of a need by assigning:
- switching between wireframe/solid modes action by pressing Z key
- and accessing shading piemenu by holding Z key
similairly it was made for edit mode (when pressing tab enters edit mode, but holding tab brings piemenu with available editing modes). It is also a nice way to quickly stop viewport render.
6 Comments
If I'm not misunderstanding you, you can already do that if you open a new entry under "3D View" of the keymap. I've been using the setup you're describing for a long while:
"VIEW3D_MT_shading_pie" has ony the four shading modes, "VIEW3D_MT_shading_ex_pie" also adds "Toggle Overlays" and "Toggle X-Ray" options to the pie, which I really like.
Thanks! Yes, I know that (however, whenever I tried this I got sort of a quite jamming solution), but I think it is logical to set it by default in order to satisfy such a general demand.
Hello,
I would question the "general demand" you speak of. Another "demand" group would be those who use pie menus. Those you describe could benefit from this change unless they are using pie menus in which case this would be an annoyance. The reason for the pie menu system is speed. By the time I fully press a pie-menu key (z included), my mouse is already moving so that when I release the key, the action I want happens.
It took me a while to realize that, to my mind, the easiest solution is to use the pie menu (Z-left, Z-right). Your suggestion is to take two items from this pie menu and raise their status to a toggle. All other items are behind a paywall. That is, I'm paying in the time I have to wait to choose to toggle overlays or go to rendered view. The former I use at least as often as I choose wireframe, the latter I use much more.
Also, hamstringing the pie menu system for this one key would be inconsistent UI design. I would have to learn to pause for this menu only. And, yet, hamstringing all the other menus for the the sake of consistency would not advance your suggestion.
Having used Blender since 2.4 or so, I was annoyed when the pie menu system was first implemented. I had followed its development, but ignored the first iteration or two as they tweaked and expanded the feature. It took a while to remember why I was annoyed: I had to learn the new keymap. Which brings me to . . .
Unless I, too, misunderstand, the functionality you want is accessible with SHIFT-Z, which toggles to wireframe and back from any mode. I cannot recall what the function of the Z key was prior to the intro of pie menus. I'm guessing it did what SHIFT-Z does now. So you can imagine that it was a bit of a kerfluffle when they changed "Z" to "SHIFT-Z." Everyone who used this wireframe toggle (myself as well as users as you describe) now have to press two keys. Which I did until I got on the pie menu bandwagon (the piewagon?) and never looked back.
In conclusion, I don't see a constituency for switching this back.
General demand is viewing/accessing backfacing geometry (solid mode stands for checking composition, wireframe mode stands for accessing structure).
Pie benefit is not the speed but capacity - it provide access to more modes but is slower since require motorics actions, and it also jams when switching from render mode to other. Shift+Z is best used to switch to render mode, otherwise there is no direct shortcut for this.
At the moment I think the best alternative is to switch Z pie and Shift+Z wire functionality by default
I guess this could be done with keymapping already