Hey there Burr, I missed you mate.

Do you mean, Is the "single object can belong to more than one Group" still waiting to be implemented?

If so, I believe so, the 'Group' section is not functional yet for this beta.
If not, you can apply different styles to an object, like a cube can have each face a different style (6 colours) and same with the edges, but as you know surface colours are coming later so you won't see anything, when you apply a style to a single solid surface, it's applied a style, just not visually yet.
Otherwise I don't think it's possible to have a single entity take on more than one style, unless I've missed something.

Cheers

Hi Danny,
I may have misinterpreted but I thought it was "Styles". Everyone was asking for "Layers" and Michael said "Styles would be in place of layers with out the limitation of layers and the one object, one layer thing.

So I was under the impression it would be Styles and the front tire can belong to the tires style but also the front of car one.

But it does sound like I'm talking about groups. so I could just be confused. And I know Groups is yet to come.

Anyway, it wouldnt be the first time I was confused! :O

Hi Burr, yeah Danny has that sorted out - the plan is that it will be Groups that will allow for additional flexibility of being able to have an object belong to more than one of them.

> Styles would be in place of layers with out the limitation
> of layers and the one object, one layer thing.

What I was trying to say earlier about that stuff was that I wanted to have some available method of organizing objects that does not have that limitation...

The idea is that Groups would be that method.

Groups should end up functioning in a generally similar way as styles, like there will be eyes to click on to hide/show... But they will allow for some more flexibility than the styles. Styles do share the limitation of "traditional" layers of only being able to have one style per object (or sub-object).

It doesn't really work well to have one object belong to more than one style at the same time since the style controls the visual appearance of the object, like something assigned to the style "Blue" will show up colored blue on the screen. Something assigned to "Red" will show up as red on the screen (or they will once the shaded display is working for that, currently the wire display will show it though). If there was a way to assign an object to be both "Blue" and "Red" at the same time, then which color would you expect to see on the screen? Since that does not really work styles are limited to only one per object but then Groups should provide the same kind of interface with the same abilities to hide/show, select/deselect but without that restriction.

I still have a few details to work out for Groups though.

The thing that I was mentioning about not liking layers so much is when that is the only way provided to do this kind of hide/show things in a list, but has that "object can only be assigned to one" limitation.

That's why I want to have some other sections of the browser that you can use instead of only one section. Each section can give some slightly different organization methods but all still have a consistent UI and actions that can be applied like hide/show, select/deselect.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Will it be possible to place a group within another group, like a sub assembly within another assembly ?

-

Hi Danny, yup that is the idea.

Basically a group will just be a container that can hold a list of objects or other groups inside of it.

So that will allow you to set up a hierarchical arrangement of items in the browser.

- Michael

Cool!

-

Nice Beta Michael! I'm already using styles to store/show/hide construction lines.

Keep up the Great Work!!!:)

Marc and Michael:
Yes, that feels much better. The lines under the titles give the tabs something to rest on, so they make more sense and do a better job with dividing the space.
Marcs shorter "leg" looks more in line with the general look of MoI to me where the long one was somehow irritating.
I'm still not sure if the leg is needed at all or if the line would be enough to divide the areas when only the upper corner of the tab would be rounded, but that may just be me ;-)

I tried the adjacent browser on my 30" with 2560x1600 and if enough objects are present, it extends just fine to the bottom.
I think I will have all tabs expanded all the time and the browser visible all the time for greatest flexibility. Great system!

I'm so used from other software to automatically have objects named like box_1, box_2 etc. that it currently seems unfamiliar to have to explicitly name them to make them show up under Objects at all. I will have to work for a while with it to see if it "clicks" or stays alien. An alternative would be to have everything named "Unnamed" until it is explicitly named.
Would that be more logical?
Is that something worth a preference?

Automatic naming:
- Off
- "Unnamed" until named
- Automatic numbering by type (Box_1, Spline_1, Extrude_3 ...)
- Automatic naming based on previously given name. (Create a box, call it "Basement" and following objects are called Basement until a new name is given to something)
- Automatic numbering based on previously given name. (Create a box, call it "Basement" and following objects are called Basement_1, Basement_2)

Not sure about the last two though... ;-)

I have to work with it for a while I guess ;-)
More often than not Michaels ideas make a lot of sense after I unlearned other habits!

Thanks a ton!

Thomas Helzle

Is it intentional that the 'Points' are not included in the Types Selection?
Cheers
Rainer

No Possibility to have that?
Less pertubating than the Adjacent ;)
So Adjacent, Inside, Separate :)
Button "Browser" can be stay on the right!
Less possible movements on the UI is more quietfull for the eyes! :)

Hi Michael Congratulations on the new beta, thanks for the offset fix it come in the wright time. The Browser is quite extensive, Very capable system. reserving feather judgment until we get groups.
I don't know how to put it but I think it would have been very "MoI" if you have kept the same style with tabs...The old design is simple but superior, What I like most is that it is obvious when a Tab is open or Closed also the border makes it easier to read/separate from other Tabs...

Example_1


Example_2

Hi Pilou,

Look at message 40 and 42 in this thread.

io di Isola Vicentina (VI)

Siamo vicini.......

Ciao Marco

Agree with Yannada!
Same design is better! Simple is beautifull :) (and separate on the left, see Paolo post above ;)

@PAolo!
Many Thx! That is exactly that I wish! :)

Hi yannada,

> Congratulations on the new beta

Thanks! Yeah there are quite a lot of bug fixes in this one, definitely surface offsetting is a lot more reliable now.


> I don't know how to put it but I think it would have
> been very "MoI" if you have kept the same style with tabs...

Yeah, if the browser only had an "adjacent" mode, then they would be set up like that.

But there is also an optional "inside" mode where the browser is placed inside of a tab on the side pane named "Scene browser", which does have that same kind of tab heading that you are mentioning. This is what that mode looks like:



When in this mode, the different sections for "Groups", "Objects", "Types", and "Styles" are all children of the "Scene browser" tab.

If those children had an identical look as their parent container, it would tend to lead to some confusion about their relationship. They would look too much the same and make it easy to think they had an equal relationship rather than being contained things.

So those scene browser sections have a different look to help with that inline mode, to prevent that confusing look that would otherwise happen.

- Michael

Hi Michael

Maybe this have been reported; when hiding one style, the eye disappear.
Would it be more logic for the eye of the hidden style to be grayed out?


It realize it's a bit premature at this stage, but it would be nice if vector (illustrator) export could keep the color information of objects in the destination file.

Sorting objects using color in vector applications is a great time saver, don't know if it's easy to implement though...



Marc

Hi Michael I'm aware of the "inside" mode, is the one Ill be using or trying to the most.
Another example taking into consideration the "children" term also chained/linked to each other....There is still room for improvement.
e

Hi Yannada,

> Another example taking into consideration the "children"
> term also chained/linked to each other....There is still
> room for improvement.

Yeah, your example there well shows the problem quite well - its not very clear there that "Scene Browser" is the parent item of those entries beneath it since they have such a similar appearance.

That looks quite a bit more confusing than the current design...

- Michael

I see, we clearly speak a different "Visual" language ( nothing wrong with that).
My only concern is if MoI @ V1 has two Tab styles and about half a dozen different Button styles/color schemes. How is gonna look @ V4?