Improved tablet navigation & selection mode
Hello, I wish Blender had a proper tablet & pen support for the tablet users. I see that there is effort on making Blender better for tablet users and there has been lot of cool progress but I think there is something very fundamental that needs to be fixed. By doing google search or reading the forums you can find out that there is a lot confusion with people who are just starting out how you navigate in a intuitive way while using a table / pen.
The most common solution I see in the posts is "enable 3 button mouse" setting. Which seems to be good at first but then you realize that while in this 3 button mouse mode you cant use alt commands anymore so you cant do very fundamental selections anymore. To enable this mode you have to go in preferences, its quite hidden and named in a quite confusing way. You cant hotkey or quick favorite this setting either. Or you can but its not very simple either. Wouldn't it make sense to at least make this setting more accessible so it would be easier to toggle on and off? Also fix the selection issues so you could do all the essential selections while in the 3 button mouse mode if that is the intended to be the official "tablet mode".
And there is ton of other workarounds you can: Search for addons. Start remapping the hotkeys. Write your own python code to come up with workarounds... But isn't his something that would be ideally fixed in Blender out of the box? If you prefer to use Blender with tablet and pen would it make sense that there would be a good tablet mode out of the box which allows you to do all of the most common selections and navigation in a user friendly and intuitive way?
There are other apps which are basically designed primary for tablet users where you might look for solutions. I just wanted to bring this up as an issue that needs to be fixed in my opinion. I wonder what others think about the tablet UX?
Few example discussions I found just by doing simple search about how the tablet users use Blender
blenderartists.org/t/zooming-and-rotating-view-using-a-tablet/643862
blender.stackexchange.com/questions/127756/how-do-i-pan-in-blender-using-a-wacom-3d-pen
blenderartists.org/t/tablet-navigation-question/1464556
blender.stackexchange.com/questions/71912/roll-3d-view-smoothly-with-a-wacom-pen
4 Comments
Some things are simply made to work best with certain control hardware.
A game works best with a game pad (or a joystick). Painting works best with a pen/tablet. 3D software is best used with a mouse.
Blender has made some strides in getting the pen controller more integrated overall, but the program inherently was designed for a keyboard and a mouse for primary use. Until other areas (buttons, menu behaviors, etc) are somewhat redesigned, tablets are still going to feel more cumbersome at times.
Accessibiliy of "Emulate 3 Button Mouse"
I'd argue it's already pretty spot on, for what it ‒actually‒ is:
Location
This option modifies how your user input is interpreted, so it makes sense to be in the Input category. A user that doesn't really know what it does might expect to find it in the Keymap or Navigation sections since it affects these aspects of Blender, but ultimately you have to pick a place, and I'm not sure whether there is a strong incentive to favor the later two.
Name
"Emulate 3 button mouse" is literally to fix the issues people would have when using Blender without the recommended 3-button mouse (left, right and middle buttons). It's not a common thing to encounter, so there isn't really an existing name we can borrow from other softwares to exploit its user-familiarity; without creating incorrect expectations for it (see ¶ below).
The name is pretty descriptive of what it does, and the tooltip completes it well. Hence, I think it's a good name.
You propose to name it "tablet mode" if it is meant to be one: it isn't designed particularly for tablets, nor is it required for (I think most) tablet users to begin with:
It so happens that " some " tablet users have styluses that do not have "three buttons" (or more accurately, two buttons in addition to the stylus' lead tap acting as the first mouse button). Just like some mouse&keyboard users don't have a middle mouse button, use a laptop's trackpad without gestures for the third button, or not even a regular mouse at all.
Major tablet constructors Wacom, Huion and Xp-pen (which I believe to be the vast majority of Blender's tablet users) have been providing pens that have enough buttons on them to not require emulating the 3rd mouse button on Blender - for about a decade now.
That being said:
If someone can find a better name that would be even more crystal clear for new users, and relatable to both mouse&keyboard and tablet users, that would be awesome!
Though personally, sometimes I wonder if a simpler solution wouldn't be to take the opportunity at one of the next major releases to make a new keymap revamp where it doesn't rely on having a 3-button mouse to perform basic tasks, if at all.
At the end of the day, it's annoying for anyone having to deal with this, and it complexities the keymap maintenance for the devs.
As for the UX of Blender with a tablet, that definitely could be enhanced, but I am not sure exactly how.
Personally, I'm planning to make myself an addon to add some more clickable buttons, because tablet usage is by design click-heavy, but Blender is designed to be keyboard-heavy, so I reckon that's a good starting place to experiment and see what works best.
There are also a lot of things where Blender can't do much. Starting from the operating system or the driver messing up. Typically, posts you see online about people setting their stylus buttons to MMB and RMB, and it is not working: that's rarely Blender's end.
The name is not a big deal I just called it a "tablet mode" to describe the issue. I would also rather not deal with this setting at all. A well planned keymap revamp to make the navigation and selections work without the need for 3 button mouse could fix the problem and make it better for everyone.
Currently there are people who use the emulate 3 button mouse setting. There are some who bind MMB to the stylus extra buttons. Some who got a space mouse for the navigation and some who are using some kind of addon to make their life easier.
Obviously there will be always those who want to do their own addon or even buy a space mouse in addition because they like it that way.
To me it seems however like all those people have not come up with all these solutions because the default blender pen & tablet system was so great. Its probably more like they didn't like how things were so they came up with all these methods.
The preference item should be labelled "use Alt+left for middle mouse button"