Hi there Michael !

Regarding interaction in the 3d viewport vs in ortho view : I'll write down some more precise thoughts (and proposals !) later as time allows, as that is a rather big topic to unpack. Overall my point is not so much about the way the tools operate, but rather the fact that going to ortho view could be avoided altogether thanks to the addition of a few manipulators/interaction paradigms. Nothing trivial of course, that's a big topic so I'll keep this out of this beta thread. (BTW I don't have an issue with the idea of being able to drag objects on click-drag ; if anything my one issue there is the fact that such dragging doesn't happen in screen space ;) )

Similarly the topic of file menu icons isn't really relevant to the beta of course ... it's just that I was juggling between imports/exports from Moi to other apps quite a bit today and it really started to confuse me hence I thought I'd mention it. But while we are at it : why the need for icons there in the first place anyways ? They honestly do not make the interaction any faster than plain text ...



Also I do believe that a slight misalignment is nowhere near as annoying as being confused by what a button does :) I understand the desire to make the presentation as perfect as possible but I don't think this can justify not using a clear word just because it is a character or two too long :D Anyways, I'll get used to it (or shall I say : time to dive into the css again to make a few edits hehe)

Hi pior,

> but rather the fact that going to ortho view could be avoided altogether thanks
> to the addition of a few manipulators/interaction paradigms.

I'd definitely be interested to see the ideas! But I'm doubtful that any of these things displayed in a 3D perspective view will be able to give the same kind of accuracy that is inherent in the 2D views where there is not any perspective foreshortening happening.

That is not to say that more types of 3D view mechanisms would not be useful in many situations. Just that I don't see that they are likely to be a full replacement for working with 2D curves inside 2D views.


> But while we are at it : why the need for icons there in the first place anyways ?

I guess it's not exactly required but it's a more consistent fit with action buttons in the rest of the UI.


> They honestly do not make the interaction any faster than plain text ...

It's subtle but they actually do, the text being shorter is slightly more difficult to target.

I do like the text you show there too though, more text does help with describing things certainly.

But there is no other area in MoI that has a text button display quite like that. In general a consistent look and feel is helpful. It would be a little weird having just one area that had different controls than was found anywhere else in the UI.

- Michael

Thank you.

I found the 3DConnexion rotation is not intuitive, not matter how I tweak the setting I still not able to get the same rotation control like Rhino and BricsCAD.

I change Rotation Styles to Free rotation, check Allow rotation tilt and Swap Twist and tilt, I wonder why these are not default.

Now Tilt and Twist are ok, but roll is reversed, there is no way to change in MOI setting for reverse roll only.

I also change Rotation speed to 0.25, Pan and Zoom keep 1 as is. Now I can get about the same feel of Rhino, only missing the reverse roll setting, I have to set it in 3Dconnexion control panel.

Hope 3Dconnexion support will be improved in next beta.

-Fred

Hi Fred,

re:
> I wonder why these are not default.

It's because the default is more oriented to behave like the controller is manipulating the camera, while it sounds like you want it to behave more like it is manipulating the object. Those are 2 different styles for how the controls feel and the default happens to not be the one that you prefer.

I'll take a look at it though.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Currently tilt and twist are manipulating the object, but roll is not.

-Fred

Hi Fred, so you need a "reverse roll" setting for doing that, and I wonder if the speed got messed up somehow when adding Mac 3dConnexion support in v4 so I'll investigate that. Anything else in particular that I should be paying attention to?

- Michael

Hi Michael,

"Reverse roll" should be default, then it will be consistent to the default tilt and twist setting.\

Thanks.

-Fred

Hi Fred, the defaults are intended to be set so it behaves similar to the regular mouse navigation. If reverse roll makes it behave strange with the other defaults like "Rotate around world z axis" then it would not be good to have it enabled by default.

But I'll see about adding in a Reverse roll option if that would be useful for you.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Fantastic update with lot of goodies, I (like many others) like new dimension tools so i have questions about that one

Is there way to set TEXT font size for dimension stool (i find ti too small by default) and is there way to show UNITS also ? I'd like to see meters/centimeters or any other user picked unit (in preferences) visible on the dimension line also.

Please check the screengrab

Thanks and sorry if all this has been answered already.

Hi Lewis,

re:
> Is there way to set TEXT font size for dimension stool (i find ti too small by default)

You can set the text size by clicking on the Font value here:



That way (using the properties panel for the selected object's properties) will change just what is selected. To change the defaults for newly created dimensions go to the Options dialog Dimensions section and set the preset's Font value.

> and is there way to show UNITS also ? I'd like to see meters/centimeters or any other user picked unit (in preferences)
> visible on the dimension line also.

You can customize the text content by editing the "Text" value that is just above the Font.

Put in your units label after the <> , so have it like: <>cm for example. The <> will be replaced by the dimension value.

There is not currently a way to set a units label for the default text. At some point in the future I would like to support other types of variables but that won't be ready for v4.

Hope that helps!

- Michael

Yes that helps, I've set size for default/new dimensions and works great, for units it's OK for now and i can edit that number but yeah would be great if it could also be set in options for default/newly created ones also in future.

Thanks :).

Hi Michael,

Some keyboard shortcuts don't work in my MacBook pro (Japanese Keyboard).
I checked which keys are recognized in MoI v4 Beta in the shortcut key setting dialog.

[Key I press] → [Recognized as]
backspace → N/A
Enter → End
Tab → Home
English/Number → N/A
Kana → N/A
CapsLock → A

[Env]
Mac OS catalina

I hope this make some help.
Thank you!

nemuneko

Hi nemuneko, thanks for reporting this problem with Japanese keyboard shortcut keys.

It may be related to this Qt bug mentioned here:
https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtbase/+/95050

There seem to be some fixes in the Qt Mac keymapper since the version that MoI currently uses. Probably the first thing to try is for me to update that and see if that helps.

Can you please try using the attached updated version? To apply it, right click on MoI v4 beta Jan-22-2020.app and choose "Show package contents". Then inside there go to Contents > Frameworks > qt > platforms. Rename the existing libqcocoa.dylib something like libqcocoa.dylib.bak and then put the attached one in place there.

Is there any change in behavior with that in place?

If not it may be difficult for me to fix this since I don't have a Japanese keyboard over here. Maybe I can make a couple of test builds to send to you that could gather more information about how those keys are being processed. I will be away on vacation for this next week so we could try that after I return.

I can reproduce the CapsLock making an "A" (on every 2nd keystroke it appears) so that's one I can dig into more easily. But I think the fix will be to just do nothing, CapsLock isn't meant to be used as a shortcut key.

Thanks,
- Michael

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your response.
I replaced the qt lib to your updated version and it work!

Backspace key work as 'Delete' shortcut.
Enter and Tab are recognized as UI shortcut (I think this is correct behavior).
Other keys show same behavior but they aren't meant to used as a shortcut key as you said.

It seems that the updated version of qt lib solved this problem.

Thanks a lot!

nemuneko

Hi nemuneko,

re:
> I replaced the qt lib to your updated version and it work!

Great! I'm glad that fixed it.


> Enter and Tab are recognized as UI shortcut (I think this is correct behavior).

Yes that's correct, since they are used by the UI as an alias for 'Done"/OK and for moving focus between controls they are not recognized as a target for shortcut keys.


> Other keys show same behavior but they aren't meant to used as a shortcut key as you said.

That was for English/Number, Kana, and CapsLock keys, is that correct?

I can reproduce the CapsLock one over here and I should be able to fix that up too.

The English/Number and Kana keys are modifier/mode type keys is that correct? I mean they don't produce a printable character if you press it just by itself?

- Michael

Hi Michael,

>That was for English/Number, Kana, and CapsLock keys, is that correct?

Yes.

>The English/Number and Kana keys are modifier/mode type keys is that correct? I mean they don't produce a printable character if you press it just by itself?
Yes, they are special mode keys which used to switch input methods (English <-> Japanese). They don't produce a printable character.
Also I think English/Number and Kana keys are not used for shortcut.
(I add them to the symptom list just to cover all physical key behaviors. I'm sorry if you recognize these keys are modifier key used for shortcut.)

Thanks.

nemuneko

Thanks nemuneko, I thought it was like that but I wanted to double check to make sure.

Thanks, - Michael

Hi,

I guess this has been mentioned, the fractional display on the dimensions does not work.

Otherwise I like the behaviour of dimensions, maybe the could be a stop on the resizing of the text when you zoom out at a certain point (perhaps when the text touches the arrows?).

Thanks,

Marc

Hi Marc,

re:
> I guess this has been mentioned, the fractional display on the dimensions does not work.

Fractional display should be working if you set Formatting > Distance display > Feet & Inches, but you also need the current unit system (under Options > General > Units) to something other than "No unit system" for it to take effect.

If you have "No unit system" then it isn't able to determine how long a foot is so "feet & inches" type fractional display isn't able to work there.


> Otherwise I like the behaviour of dimensions, maybe the could be a stop on the
> resizing of the text when you zoom out at a certain point (perhaps when the text
> touches the arrows?).

Well there isn't actually any resizing of text currently. Right now text is always drawn at the same on-screen point size regardless of zoom. This does have a kind of sense that it is sizing when you zoom out and objects become smaller but text size remains the same.

I do want to experiment in the future with some options to shrink the text down when you zoom out. But doing it when the text touches arrows would result in a variety of different text sizes on different dimensions if some have plenty of room between the arrows and others do not. The other problem is that text blocks only have a single reference point and so there is no "in between" measurement to use for them.

It will probably need to be a setting for "Max text size in model units" or something like that so you could say make stuff smaller than 5 model units to be shrunk down. That's probably not going to happen for the v4 timeframe. But there is one more related area that I have left to work on for v4 which is an option to make the text size entirely controlled by model size so it both shrinks and grows in size when zoomed same as geometry does. One part that's not good about that is that it then can cause really large sized text. But that way will have better compatibility with how other CAD programs handle text.

Thanks,
- Michael