New button styles (With mockup images)

shish · Post by **shish** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 3:33 pm

I *love* the new buttons - having each diffent type of button actually looking like a different type of button is great. Sure it might be easier for n00bs, but so long as it's not harder for experts I'd love to see it done.

Current:
Red square = action
gray square = action
gray square = toggle
blue square = toggle
purple square = toggle
gray square + number = slider + text entry
gray square + number + slider = slider + text entry
gray dash = drop down

New:
action button = action button
text entry = text entry
text entry + slider = text entry + slider
toggle = toggle
slider = slider
drop down = drop down

genius!

Etna · Post by **Etna** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 9:44 pm

haha, it so simple and nevertheless Great.

I love the current number button, push shift+LMB is cool and enough, don't overload button with arrow or anything..

I'm making a more designed GUI (IMHO), with section and organization (tools relatives to Animation, Modeling, Rendering) but always in a Blender style. I'll post that soon.

Anyway LED, aren't really desirable. We must play with button's geometry, not with colours, i think

soon

leinad13 · Post by **leinad13** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 10:29 pm

I think that the colors of the buttons should be changed, at the moment it seems to me that the button colors are very mixed up, there are green toggle buttons in place, grey in others. It seems that all action buttons are Orange. I think at least list boxes should be a different color to grey, because they are easilly confused with others, especially with just a dodgy line in them to indicate they are list boxes.

Also i just looked and in the Game / Actor tab, there are dark grey buttons, purple buttons, yellow, orange and green. And they are all for mixed up (IMO). I still think that the user should be able to tweak the GUI, and i dont mean having to change things in the source. What i would like to see, is the buttons position, color, geometry, function and text all in XML, or another scripting language. (Maybe we could make our own BML

) I got flamed last time i proposed this, by people who thought i wanted Skins. Which i dont, i want the GUI to be re-arranged, buttons added and removed. Something which i think a lot of people could find very usefull. (Buttons for things there are only keyboard shortcuts to.[For newbies])

Sorry for a long post

Karim · Post by **Karim** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 7:21 pm

I really like the ideas on new buttons.

I'm a long-time user of various 3d apps, with formal training in Studio.

I Love blender so far, but the interface is incredibly frustrating... Note: not bad, just frustrating.

As others have pointed out, the interface offers no hints as to how it is to be used. This is particularly annoying for an application that has little-to-no formal documentation.

With regard to the Number entry button and the arrows issue, how about going with something a little more radical?

This button could work exactly like the current number entry with the ability to edit the number directly without shift-clicking, but it gives more hints as to how to use it.

Karim · Post by **Karim** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 4:23 pm

I just had another goofy thought, Re: buttons.

It seems that the buttons are rendered by the same engine as the user objects. (ie: you can zoom and pan them).

Suppose one could "Unlock" the interface objects to editting to some degree.

If I wanted to rearrange the Button window to be a vertical, to fit along the side of the screen, I could grab the blocks of buttons and move them (G-Key) around to fit the space I want to put them in.

I'm not sure I like the idea myself, just throwing it out there.

One thing I would really LOVE to see is an XML configuration file that defines, at the very least, User Environment settings and Keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard shortcuts should be user definable. No interface layout is going to meet everyone's needs, and experienced users (note: NOT newbies) ought to be able to streamline the interface to their workflow, not have to alter their workflow around the interface.

For example:

If I had my 'druthers, SPACEBAR would bring up the coordinate editor (N) as I find myself using that ALL the time (now that someone told me about it;)), and MUCH more frequently than the function menu. Spacebar is a lot easier to hit than the N key. People who do mostly character modeling and animations probably are not as interested in precision, so use the N key less often, but for my projects (product modeling) precision is vital.

Example 2: I use a laptop 90% of the time. There is no numeric keypad, so I'm forced to use the "emulation" mode for changing views. In this case, the assigned keys for front/side/top views (1,3,7) make switching views rapidly a dodgy affair. It would be Much better for me to have those views assigned to 1, 2, 3, or even better: F, S, T (which I constantly find myself hitting by accident).

celeriac · Post by **celeriac** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 7:56 pm

nice mockups, but I think its iceing-on-the-cake stuff. Looks very like lightwave. personally I wish the interface was all simple monochrome 2d but that will never happen, everything is turning more '3d' look these days.
I don't see why we shouldn't make the entire interface out of actual 3d blender shapes. In fact, I think I'll say that in a new topic...

dittohead · Post by **dittohead** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 12:24 am

the icing on the cake is one way to get people to look at blender more.

i know that an app that has a nice looking interface always attracts me to it more than one that doesn't.

maya vs. softimage.

sure both are our mortal enemies, but i would go with softimage. i like's pretty-fied interface more... ^_^

Etna · Post by **Etna** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 2:15 am

i know that an app that has a nice looking interface always attracts me to it more than one that doesn't.

No! No! No, Newbies can't work because they don't read THE DOC! that's all

Houdini interface is also frustrating, although nobody critizice it! simply because it's a PRofessional Product mega expensive!
i'm kidding a bit, Houdini is excellent but just not attractive visually at all!

so....

Karim · Post by **Karim** » Mon Jul 07, 2003 5:30 pm

Nonsense.

An elegant, well designed interface is not icing on the cake; It's the oil in an engine. A well designed interface streamlines workflow, clarifies program functions, and improves productivity.

Carefully chosen colors for buttons, for example, is not eye-candy, it is a useful tool for visually orgainizing program controls and establishing an intuitive internal program logic.

joeri · Post by **joeri** » Fri Jul 11, 2003 12:12 am

I like new buttons, the more the better.
Specialy the dark/no contrast ones, you can see someone put alot of love in them in a dark room late at night.
Good for documentation too, change the buttons every 2 weeks I say, so no tutorial will ever be up to date.

-Joeri

dittohead · Post by **dittohead** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 7:11 pm

Etna wrote:i know that an app that has a nice looking interface always attracts me to it more than one that doesn't.

No! No! No, Newbies can't work because they don't read THE DOC! that's all

Houdini interface is also frustrating, although nobody critizice it! simply because it's a PRofessional Product mega expensive!
i'm kidding a bit, Houdini is excellent but just not attractive visually at all!

so....

A. i bought the manual, don't give me this BS

B. i can think of no one who uses Houdini, just a few effects houses, it's so blamed expensive no singular artist can afford it

C. i've tried houdini, total crap interface

D. a nice looking, yet simple interface is helpful to the newb, and the veteran alike, a cold, ugly interface isn't worth my time sometimes, it's not friendly, it's something i really had to get over when using blender for the 3rd time...

we also need to make the interface color-able!!

hanzo · Post by **hanzo** » Sat Jul 19, 2003 8:03 pm

I like blenders over all interface although it is not perfect, so it needs
change

hence evolution, I am anything but a newb, I know blender very
well, but sometimes I have to go from max/maya to blender, and I would
appreciate an interface that is not so dull and hard, REMEMBER the blender
community does have some artists O_O and everybody knows true artists
always like to look at stuff thats inspiring, not dull..

I say hail to the NEW SUPER COOL BUTTONS,

matt_e · Post by **matt_e** » Sun Jul 20, 2003 5:46 am

I've been doing some experiments on my own build of Blender, implementing some nicer button styles. It's still very WIP at the moment, but coming along nicely. Like in suberduber's mockups, I'm aiming to have each different type of control quite clearly discerned and communicate their functions more clearly. So far, I've only finished normal buttons and text fields. Here are some early screenshots (this is actual running code):

Text field:

Normal buttons:

EDIT: done some more...

Number field:

popup menu:

slider: (this is a bit more experimental and unfinished, but I was playing with representing the proportion or percentage idea a bit better, which is what makes a slider different to a number field)

> Renderbuttons screenshot <

Daniel Fairhead (madprof) has written some code that would allow a user preference to switch between button styles, so it would be possible to choose either 'classic style' blender controls or 'new style' blender controls on the fly, which should satisfy everyone.

Homer_S · Post by **Homer_S** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 1:25 am

Broken those look great. Keep up the good work

hanzo · Post by **hanzo** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 4:06 am

broken = powerful LORD OF COOL

keep it up man

and madprof's idea is excellent that way everybody can have what they want

cheers to you dude!