Thanks Michael,

I really appreciate it.
Moi customer support rocks!

Looking forward to the object organisation tool :)
Regarding the object organizer, will there be a kind of layer system that will be compatible with Rhino?
If so that would be great, and with a tag system so an object could be in a layer an also have multiple tags.
Then it could work as a kind selection set and make coplicated scenes easier to manage.

Eric

Hi Eric,

> Regarding the object organizer, will there be a kind of layer
> system that will be compatible with Rhino?

Sort of - what I'm going to try to do is have a somewhat more relaxed system that allows for some things that are not necessarily compatible with Rhino like having a single object on more than one "layer"/tag if you want.

But if you restrict yourself to only putting an object under a single tag, then that should be compatible and translate across to Rhino as layers in Rhino.


> If so that would be great, and with a tag system so an
> object could be in a layer an also have multiple tags.
> Then it could work as a kind selection set and make coplicated
> scenes easier to manage.

Yup, that is definitely the idea - I'd like to have just one system that kind of combines concepts from layers, groups, and named selection sets all in one UI.

But if you use the full level of flexibility (with a particular object belonging to more than one tag) that then does not seamlessly map to layers anymore because a Rhino/AutoCAD layer is an object property and each object is restricted there to only belong to just one single layer and not multiple ones.

- Michael

Thanks for your explenation!

Here`s an idea.
To make it compatible with software that uses traditional layer system, why not make layers "independent" of the tag system.
These can be shown and used together, but only the layer properties get exported when you want to take your model to an other program.

Se my quick an dirty illustration :)

Hi Eric,

> To make it compatible with software that uses traditional
> layer system, why not make layers "independent" of the
> tag system.

That's certainly a possibility... But it is really a big goal of this new system to try and reduce the amount of UI and try to get multiple functions out of just one system, instead of having multiple systems and multiple "manager" UIs for each system...

One other thing that could work is if an object could be assigned to have one particular tag as the "preferred" tag for export purposes.

But probably the easiest thing for me to do at first will be to just export the tags directly as layers if you have set them up to be compatible with layers (having an object only under one tag)...

- Michael

:) get your point, and I really appreciate your dedication to a good UI.
That is quite rare among programmers, is my personal experience.
Been fighting for good UI and explaining that it doesn`t matter how good the functions are
if nobody can figure out how to use them, or even know that they are there.

I agree that using just the tag system is the best solution,
just thought that it would be more familiar to people with an additional control like layer management.
But if you could somehow assign which tag to be converted to a "layer" on an object, it would be great.

Haha, complicated stuff this management, can`t quite get my head around it,
with all the options and pitfalls that you encounter when dealing with this :)

I fully trust you with this, you`ve proven all along that you don`t take UI design lightly.
You are on the right track!

PS!
Do you ever take a day off?
Seems like you are online helping out every day.

Take care, and don`t get burned out.
We want you here for a long time :)

Eric

Hi Eric,

> I agree that using just the tag system is the best solution,
> just thought that it would be more familiar to people with
> an additional control like layer management.

Well, we'll see how it works out. I would not be surprised if it will need several rounds of tweaking to get it all working nicely, so let me know more about how it works for you once some of the initial stuff is ready.

But it is generally easier for me to start with something simple and then add in stuff as needed, rather than starting with a complex thing...


> Haha, complicated stuff this management, can`t quite get my head
> around it, with all the options and pitfalls that you encounter when
> dealing with this :)

:) Yeah, you can kind of see why I did not want to tackle it for v1 along with everything else that also needed to get done for v1. It's a tough area to get right, and to try and provide flexibility and simplicity at the same time is pretty challenging.

But it is definitely a major missing area of MoI so it will be good to make progress on it now.

> PS!
> Do you ever take a day off?

Sometimes! :) But it kind of tends to be easier for me to keep up by answering stuff in the forum every day, otherwise stuff can kind of pile up.

- Michael