I like the UI with as much as possible on the right hand side.
Similar to the one given me by Michael on a thread recently.
I only need the manipulators to be on the RH side(vertical) as maybe coming as an option in V2?

Thanks for the comments people. I made this partially because I wanted to see how far I could get and also I always like customizing the interface. For V2 I would also really like to be able to detach the palettes (tabs?). I have a whole second monitor that I use for palettes for photoshop, etc. that MoI can't use at the moment.

>> It looks like you have really gotten the hang of all the mechanisms that make up the UI.

Thanks Michael. I'm no html expert though - I just kept trying things until I figured out what did what. Managed to cause a few errors along the way but nothing stopped MoI loading.

>>What I dont understand is why the scale array is not where the
>>other array tool is....?

I put it there because, in my mind, it isn't really an array. It's a tool you use after you made an array. Made sense to me ;-)

>>For example Select tab with additional commands from Tony could be under one button, like Boolean etc

I tried to make this but failed to get it working properly. Also this makes for an extra click which I didn't want so I gave up and left them all available. I find myself using the select all curves one quite a bit.

Hi yannada,

>>>I have to keep switching between tabs in order to get to the tools and that gets confusing

I have changed my layout that does remove the tabs, (the commandsets are still in place on this version, so when I click on "line" for example, it does then open out to the option of line/polyine)



I have on this version placed all commands out into view (no commandsets, no sub options)

image trimmed~ not showing all commands

Manz

This is great idea - did you use just one tab or no tabs at all? Can't quite see on the image.

Hi Tony,

There is a need to place a tab (just one at the top), but I did not name it, so the tab is there (and can be clicked) but it is very thin (so not easy to see)

Thanks manz.

Thanks Michael. I didn't know that it would be a lot of work. Something else like creating a custom palette will work just as fine. The tools I find myself using most frequently after edge tools are boolean operations and surface creation tools in one tab and then scale and mirror on the other. I got some hot keys set up, but the problem with scale is that it has more options and the hot key will use the last used setting, so it is necessary to switch sometimes.

Thanks!
Val

Hi Val,

> I got some hot keys set up, but the problem with scale is
> that it has more options and the hot key will use the last
> used setting, so it is necessary to switch sometimes.

Could you please elaborate a bit on this one - for the regular Scale command there is just one "Make copies" option... Is that the option you are referring to here? Or are you talking about the difference between the 3D / 2D / 1D scaling commands?

If that "Make copies" option gets in your way, you can actually skip setting it by instead holding down the Ctrl key when you click the final point for the scale, that is an alternate way to drop a copy without setting the check-box.


But definitely simple scaling and rotating are things that I want to enable by a kind of "in viewport" type grips which should really reduce needing to open up the Transform tab so much.

You can get a feel for how I think these will work by using the current View/Image command to insert a background image - while you are in that Image command it will have grips just outside the corners of it for scaling, and also one for rotation as well.

- Michael

> But definitely simple scaling and rotating are things that I want to enable by a kind of "in viewport"
> type grips which should really reduce needing to
> open up the Transform tab so much.

I hope you plan to leave the existing scale commands as well. I love the way they work.

Me too !
i like the way they work !
Much better then the eyeballing in some other programs !
Peter

Hi Tony,

> I hope you plan to leave the existing scale commands as well.
> I love the way they work.

Yup, that is the plan - the existing scale and rotate commands will stay exactly as they are. The existing ones will have some advantages for precision work since they can snap on to reference points in the model for exact measurements and also take specific numeric input.

The idea for the other ones will be for doing quicker more just mouse-driven type manipulation.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

>>>But definitely simple scaling and rotating are things that I want to enable by a kind of "in viewport" type grips....

I would agree with Tony,....... but think you would leave current scaling (and move/ rotate) in place anyway.

I know having onscreen (widgets) manipulators can be good and save some time if they are implemented well. I see the "widgets" in many 3d poly modelers and they can be a complete pain at times, as they can become hidden/ off screen, I usually end up disabling them.

So if you do implement such a feature, could you please make it an option, so I can disable if wanted.


- Steve

edit:

Sorry Michael, you replied already.

Great, thanks Michael

Hi Steve,

> So if you do implement such a feature, could you please make
> it an option, so I can disable if wanted.

I will also make it possible to disable it entirely if you want.

But I will be putting quite a bit of effort into making it as unobtrusive as possible.

To start with it will probably only be applied to 2D shapes and function more like a 2D illustration kind of bounding-frame widget rather than the poly-modeler type manipulators.

- Michael

Yes, I am talking about the 2D, 3D scale options. And what a adding a viewport navigator would be good for basic stuff, but I am not sure how you can make it more advanced, like for example I use a lot the guide lines to find centers, coordinates, and so on to scale or rotate about, or to move objects to some relative point in space and so on.

Hi Val,

> but I am not sure how you can make it more advanced <...>

I have a few ideas... It may be possible to do something like bring up extra options or controls for certain actions like a click and release on a grip instead of a click and drag.

That might flip it between some different kinds of modes that have more draggable points within in the widget (like for an origin point for example). It's a possibility anyway.

You can see an example of this in the Image widget frame currently - if you click and release on the rotation grip there, it will switch to a tri-ball rotation widget that lets you rotate around any of 3 different axes instead of only rotating in the plane which is what happens when you drag directly on that rotation grip instead of click on it.

But I don't really have all that completely nailed down yet though.

At first the primary focus of this will be just for simple stuff, since the Transform commands cover the precision stuff well already. But it would certainly be nice if it could incorporate more advanced transforms as well.

- Michael

Although I only purchased MOI about a week ago (and am delighted with it by the way!), I have been intrigued by this thread, and being a bit of a 'fiddler' have been having a go at making my own changes.

Modo is my other favourite 3d app and I like its darker theme, so here is my attempt at producing something similar. I've based it on the UI provided by Tony (aka Ash) in this thread as I like its layout and the additional tools, but have darkened it down some what. I have attached a screen grab ... What do you think?

The modified files are in the second attachment.

Oops! ... just noticed that there in not enough contrast in the numeric input panel. This replacement UI zip fixes it .

Hi barney,

Looking good there, it is good that the UI can be changed easily, as I think a lot do like to customize.

To All,
I was looking at working in full screen mode. I can easily bring up all controls via shortcut keys into floating windows, but I cannot find a way to re-direct/show the options panel. Is there a way to do that?

- Steve

> but I cannot find a way to re-direct/show the options panel.
> Is there a way to do that?

Hi Steve, the key things for this are the <moi:CommandUIContainer> elements in the side pane.

The way that these currently work is that it really expects to only find one of these (of each type, command set and command UI) and the first one of these that is created will be remembered by the internal infrastructure as being the spot to funnel command option into.

It's not really expecting for that UI to come and go, so if you put it on a dialog and then close the dialog, the element on the closed dialog is still being targeted as the place to send the options into, which won't work very well because the dialog is not displayed and basically zombied at that point.


I think it would work if you removed it from where it currently is on the side pane, then I think it could go on a dialog as long as you didn't close that particular dialog after its initial display. Does that seem to work?

It would probably not be too difficult for me to tune this up in v2 to work a bit better and allow that to be closed and opened as a new instance later.

- Michael