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  • Published 1 Nov 2024

Improved Info Box - BCON UI Proposal

VIDEO PROPOSAL - Watch from 8:30-15:06

THE PROBLEM

Blender doesn't give enough feedback to the user about actions that have just occurred. Nor does it provide important contextual information to understand why something unusual is happening. For example, accidentally tapping (.) and enabling "Only Location". Then later, not being able to rotate or scale a single object, and not knowing why.   THE PROPOSED SOLUTION

Improve the existing Info box to display contextual information like:

  1. Recent actions that just occurred, along with their keyboard shortcut eg. "Duplicated 1 Object (Shift+D)"

scale-large.png

  1. Status flagging, when an action might be hindered by a non-default state. Eg. "Rotate (R) - Affect Only Location is ON" or "Scale (S) - Proportional Editing is ON". Non-breaking actions (FYI) could be light blue, but more action breaking statuses (eg. trying to move an object that is locked) could be Orange or Yellow.

Ideally a filter to the info box would be added so that it can display python operations to those that need it. But turn this off by default (like python tooltips)

notification-low-2_smallest.png

OTHER IDEAS

  1. Ideally, actions should display in the info box the moment an action happens (not once the action is finished). Because the time you need to know a status flag is when you're in that state, not after.
  2. If an action is being influenced by a non-default state, changing the object outline color from white to match the color of the status flag in the object info box. eg. light blue for FYI flags.
  3. Pablo Vaquez suggested the actions in the info box could be clickable, taking you back to that action. Then it serves as both useful information, and an interactive history log.
  4. I moved the keyboard shortcuts footer (which is frequently missed along the bottom bar), to the top left of the window that is active. Pablo suggested this be moved to the bottom left.
  5. I moved the rotation operation from the top left (where it's frequently missed) to follow underneath the cursor (suggestion from Pablo).
  6. If the info box proves useful, make it the default view for the Layout view, replacing the timeline. Because not everyone is making an animation, but everyone in Layout needs to know what actions are happening.
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Development Status: Open

Upvote 67 Downvote 0
AndrewPrice
1 Nov 2024

5 Comments

hyuri

I like the idea. But I think it would be even better to also have on-canvas feedback for this kind of issue. For example, if the rotation is locked and you try to rotate: imgur.com/a/0biTVjd

1
manuel64

do have something news about this Improved Info Box - BCON UI Proposal ?

cng

Love the ideas! Here are some of my thoughts:

  • For shortcuts, I use them at lot. Maybe change hide to double-H because shift-H needs to access 2 different keys, and retain only 1 & 2 to cycle through collections forward & backward.
  • For indicating geometries with non-default state. Add an icon to 3D Viewports top bar to show extra geometries & scene depend info. When hovering over, a box overlay lists info like "Transformation is locked ", "Not in scale", "Has 2 constraints", "Has 1 actions", "Has 2 drivers", "Move only location is on".
  • Users have option to turn on/off the keyboard shortcut overlay.
smoothie

I tried to write an addon that would alert the user to potentially problematic states, e.g. unapplied scale, but my coding skills were not up to the task.

I think that ideally, such a feature would do a few things:

  1. Alert the user when something "bad" is happening.
  2. Teach them about why this situation is a problem, and what they can do to fix it. (Don't just offer a "fix" button — it would be better for them to really understand the problem and how to detect and address it with regular tools.
  3. Let the use control which sorts of problems should generate alerts. So after you've been warned about unapplied scale a few times, and you get the idea, you could click a button to say, "don't warn me about this anymore."

To those "experts" who think Blender should not do any hand-holding, let's call this "realtime analysis" instead of "help."

daveginsberg

I like all of these ideas. Would add, regarding shortcuts, that I think it would be helpful for all of the actions to be accessible without using shortcuts (as an option). For instance, if I know I want to unparent or link materials, etc, but I can't recall the shortcut, the UI should provide an alternative way to find the action in a menu or button ... and, as an added feature, provide a way for the UI to show you where the command is via search. (I used to use a CAD tool that did this to great effect.) Also, I completely sympathize with the accidental pie menu problem. The pie menu itself seems outdated and could use a redesign or replacement, IMO.