Collapsible Frames
For organizational purposes we need a way to make a non-reusable "group" of nodes that only exists where it was created.
I propose the ability to collapse a frame down to only show the title of the frame. All noodles enter and exit through points on the left and right sides of the collapsed frame.
To access the contents of the frame press H to toggle visibility of the contents of the frame or press TAB to enter an isolated view similar to editing a real group node.
When in the isolated view there is no ability to change the input and output slots. You can freely change/add/remove all nodes that are not connected to the input and output. To get unlimited freedom, return to the default view and expand the frame with H or remove the frame with alt+H or convert the frame into a regular node group with ctrl+G
Frame titles need to allow line breaks and at least 512 characters so we can properly document our node networks. This is literally like programming without being able to make comments.
It is possible to use a text data block as the "background" of a frame but it is annoyingly impossible to read the entirety of that text because nodes are always covering a portion of it, line breaks are sometimes not represented for some reason, and you wind up with dozens and dozens of text data blocks mixed in with your actual scripting text data blocks.
Frames should instead allow for very long titles that support line breaks and in the Sidebar under Properties there should be a Description text box for longer text. (literally every data block in Blender would benefit from a Description field)
screenshots of what I'm complaining about:
I'll post mockups a little later.
6 Comments
Houdini gives this option and it's topnotch for graphs organisation purpose ! The only issue would be how the user would interact with already made connections, if any interaction could even be possible
Using frame nodes like this, you're just shooting yourself in the foot. Add groups. Their scopes are a matter of time and search organization, and this is a complete rework of all evaluation systems and the absence of any intuitive understanding
Groups are for re-use, not organization. To organize a material enough for me to be able to easily understand it a year later I'd need to add so many groups that will never be reused anywhere. If the purpose is only visual organization then it should be something other than groups.
I agree with @thinsolder here. Creating not-for-reuse groups clutters up the list of for-reuse groups. Separation of concerns FTW!
".group_name"
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