Hi Eric, thanks for the feedback!

> For me it feels more natural when in ajecent mode that
> the browse is on the right side of the tools.
> People tend to use the tools far more than the browser, <...>

Yeah, I agree that the regular tools are used more frequently, but because they are used more frequently it can make sense for them to stay in a more fixed location so they will be in a more familiar spot all the time, rather than shifting around quite a bit depending on whether the browser is open or closed...

Anyway, that's the reasoning behind the current setup.

If want though you can edit a UI file so the panel will be placed where you want. To do this, go to the \ui subfolder inside of MoI's main installation folder, and open the file MainWindowLayout.xml in a text editor like notepad.

Go to line#13 which says this:
<UIPanel dock="right" src="moi://ui/BrowserPane.htm">

That's the entry for the browser pane. Cut that line out from that location, and paste it in at the top, just under the parent <UILayout> tag so it is first in the list of panels. That should result in the panel layout that you want.

At some point in the future I would like to make it so you could drag panels and dock them anywhere you want, but that is going to be pretty difficult to accomplish so it will probably be a while before that happens.

(but also note that if you switch this, the window control buttons that are normally in the upper-right corner of the window when maximized will still be attached to the regular side pane and will also be moved inwards as well, that's a good example of how it can be a lot more work to make swappable configurations it is not really only the matter of setting a single switch all the time).


> There is one things that I would want to see before you
> finalize V2, one rail sweep with mitered corners, PLEASE...

Yup, this work is still planned to be done in v2 after the browser stuff is all wrapped up. It will probably be the last batch of stuff that goes into v2.


> Another thing that would be great is a Merge Edge command
> (don`t mind if it`s a script).

Yeah this one is definitely on my list, but it is looking somewhat less probable for squeezing into v2 as the browser work has taken quite a lot of time and still isn't even complete yet.

> As others have mentioned, a lock style/groups/objects etc. would also be nice.

Yup, this one also is definitely on the list. It may happen for v2 but it depends on how long it takes to finish up other parts of the browser.


> You mentioned something about hitting the TAB key first and
> then type the object name.

Yeah the Tab + typing text will work now in this beta for typing in a command or script name. Like you can type in <tab> Line <enter> to start the line command if you like typing things in. The tab key puts the keyboard focus in the XYZ coordinate entry box in the bottom of the screen when you are not currently in a command.

I think that should be pretty easy to make it work for selecting named objects as well.

The general idea is to make that entry box kind of behave like a mini command line entry.


> Wild idea: Have a simple pixel based sketcher inside Moi
> with just a few brushes, nothing extensive.

I would love to do this, but it would be a very time consuming project to make it happen... Maybe for something like v5, I don't think it would be feasible to tackle it for v3 even. If there were only more hours in the day...

Thanks for the feedback and enthusiasm Eric!

- Michael

Hi Michael,

In regards to styles, once you have the lighting figured out, when we apply a colour to a solid or surface will the edges inherit the colour as well, as it does now, I think it would be more preferable and visually better for the edges to stay the default colour or an option to have the edges stay default or take on the body colour.

-

Hi Danny,

> when we apply a colour to a solid or surface will the edges
> inherit the colour as well,

Yeah that is probably what will happen normally, since when you apply a style to a solid, what happens is that style is assigned to all of its edge and face sub-objects.

You can also assign different styles to some edges and faces if you want, and if edges did not draw in their style color you would not be able to easily see what style the edge has.

Also one benefit of having the edges draw in their style color is that you will be able to see that color when the solid is selected.

But it should not be difficult for me to put in at least an .ini option that would cause edges to be drawn using style 0 (named "default" by default).

- Michael

Michael,

Thanks for the long feedback and explenation, that´s customer service :)

Man you must be one hell of a typist, no hunt an peck method here!
Answering practically everybodys posts is quite a feat.

Regards to my suggestions/requests, there is nothing that is critical to me that I do not already have,
just throwing ideas out. Except maybe the mitered corner sweep (thanks for putting it in V2).

Eric
(the software junkie)

With the inline browser I sometime get double scroll bars, one for all the tabs and one for the browser.
Maybe it could be limited to only one?




Some small details...

I agree with Thomas about the brilliant part and also on the tabs shape topic. Maybe the 'legs' could be smaller and not proportional.
I get a strange impression with the empty space created under the browser in adjacent mode, it's quite large when unexpanded.

Maybe the browser background could stretch down to the viewport length.
Also a line under tabs could help visually separating sections. (see image).











It's a massive improvement on organizing and displaying objects, I didn't had the chance to do a complex project yet but I get the impression this tool will be super-flexible, it sure open ways to manage uber-complex projects!

The sweep motion works great!

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but maybe right clicking on the browser button could open it inline or vice-versa..

Great work!

Marc

I was thinking that I might be a good thing if "types" should be the first Item in the list and expanded by default...

Marc

Hi Michael,

Sorry if this has already been reported, but if I read all of these posts to find out, my head will explode. :-)

Anywho, if you create a solid, like a box, then select one of its edges, and change the layer of said edge to some different layer, it kind of gets stuck in limbo and you cant touch it.

Let me know if you need further clarification.

thanks,

Nick

Hi Marc, thanks for the feedback!

> With the inline browser I sometime get double scroll
> bars, one for all the tabs and one for the browser.

What is your monitor's screen resolution?

I think this should not generally happen if you have a pretty high resolution screen, where there is a lot of empty space under the Construct/Transform tools, that's basically where the "inline" mode is meant to be used with.

The inline browser is limited to a maximum size of 40% of the main window's height - any larger than that and it will get its own internal scroll bar. But if that 40% size does not fit you will get the double scroll bar.

You can adjust the percent though in moi.ini, look in the [UI] section, for this:
InlineBrowserMaxPercentHeight=40

Maybe with your screen resolution / UI size, something like 30% limit would work better and limit the browser from going off the bottom of your side pane.


> I agree with Thomas about the brilliant part and also on the
> tabs shape topic. Maybe the 'legs' could be smaller and not
> proportional.

What you show there is similar to what I had earlier, here is the early version (to the left) along side the newer one:



The previous one felt kind of "blocky", but maybe it is a bit better.

The tail part is actually not proportional, which is probably the issue - when your text becomes small the fixed "tail" size can maybe be too long in proportion to the whole header.


> Maybe the browser background could stretch down to the viewport length.

Hmm, I don't know - that would make for different behavior with the other palettes, which have that exact same background only extend to cover their content. For example in your screenshot the bottom palette for Construct/Transform that is collapsed does not have its background stretch down to the bottom of the side pane.


> I get a strange impression with the empty space created
> under the browser in adjacent mode, it's quite large when
> unexpanded.

Hmm, there still seems to be a kind of empty feeling with the one you show there with it extended... It instead looks like a palette with a big empty section within it, which they don't normally have.

That may be hard to avoid the empty feeling when the area is actually empty of stuff.


> Also a line under tabs could help visually separating sections. (see image).

That looks really good! I think I will give that one a try - a little more indentation of the tab part looks good, I was trying to get something similar to that with the longer swoop coming in from the right side and narrowing down, but having an actual divider line rather than a narrow swoop looks better.


> I don't know if it's been mentioned, but maybe right clicking on
> the browser button could open it inline or vice-versa..

Well, the browser button disappears when you switch to inline mode, so that would maybe be a little weird to have the thing you clicked on kind of vaporize.

Probably under normal use (rather than "kicking the tires use") it will not really be frequent to switch between these modes on a rapid basis.

But if for some reason you do want to flip it back and forth quickly, you can set up a keyboard shortcut to do that, use this script as the command part of the shortcut:

script:moi.ui.browserPosition=(moi.ui.browserPosition == 'Adjacent' ? 'Inside' : 'Adjacent');


Thanks for the feedback Marc, I think that your header design looks better, the key thing there is the dividing line does a better job of what I was trying to do just with the sloping tail.

- Michael

Hi Nick,

> Anywho, if you create a solid, like a box, then select
> one of its edges, and change the layer of said edge to
> some different layer, it kind of gets stuck in limbo and
> you cant touch it.

I'm going to need some more details on this one - I can't seem to repeat the problem over here.

There are 2 different ways to set the style, one is by clicking on a style's swatch in the browser, and the other is by using the style flyout menu from the properties panel (where it shows the name, type, and size of the current selected object also).

Does one method work for you but not the other?

And what do you mean that you can't touch it - you mean that it will not select? And do you mean the whole box will not select, or just not that edge?

- Michael

Hi Michael, this was experienced at 1440x900.
I often crank up resolution when doing more elaborate work.

""For example in your screenshot the bottom palette for Construct/Transform that is collapsed does not have its background stretch down to the bottom of the side pane.""

Yes it was just the combined effect of the two spaces, Nothing too dramatic here...

""Probably under normal use (rather than "kicking the tires use")""

Right :-)


I did not noticed the button disappears when inline.


Marc

Hi Marc,

> Hi Michael, this was experienced at 1440x900.

Yeah the "inline" mode is not really designed to be used in lower than 1200 vertical pixel resolution or so.

It won't really fit well if there is not plenty of vertical space available - it's meant to be used with systems where there was previously a large open space under the "Construct/Transform" tools even when all palettes were open.

It may work with a lower resolution system if you lower the maximum percentage height to be quite a bit lower than the default, like maybe 15 or 20% instead of the default 40% height limit, but that means it will be limited to a pretty small exposed area with quite a lot of scrolling needed inside of it to get to various things. It is generally intended to use the "adjacent" mode instead for lower vertical resolutions.

- Michael

Not yet tested but...
does it possible to have a little video with the functions of the Object system? ;)
(because yet 70 messages to read :)

Hi Pilou, see this particular message:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2570.18

for an overview of how it works, like what actions are available, etc...

- Michael

Thanks again Michael G. !!!

I look forward to testing this out!

Michael T.

Michael
Thanks for that thread sellection you gave for Pilou.

As I have said before I can not see a great value of it for me--at this point in time!

However , the list of the other modifications in this Beta would be appreciated. (Have I missed it?)

Maybe put on a separate thread?

Brian

Hi Michael,

Sorry I was vague on the details of my report. I figured you'd say 'yes, i know'. ;-)

-Nick

Hi Brian,

> However , the list of the other modifications in this
> Beta would be appreciated. (Have I missed it?)

I almost have it done, should be ready with that a bit later tonight.

There is quite a bit of other stuff actually, and a lot of bug fixes.

- Michael

Hi Nick - I see what you mean now, sorry I did not know it involved hiding the solid part.

Yes that is a problem currently that if the parent solid of an edge is hidden, then the you can't select that edge with the mouse.

That's actually been a limitation for quite a while but before now it was not quite so easy to hide everything else other than one edge. So it is kind of more noticeable now.

You can get out of that problem by showing the solid, once it is shown then you should be able to select the edge as usual. For now that is the workaround but I think I will be fixing this one up.

- Michael

Yeah, sorry I didnt completely describe it properly to you. That Jing gets the job done! ;)

Hi Michael,

> But it should not be difficult for me to put
> in at least an .ini option that would cause
> edges to be drawn using style 0 (named "default" by default).

Perfect! Thanks

-