Hi Will, yup it's one of those difficult areas to choose between.

In the first beta release with styles it did not change the visibility, but in a discussion here on the forum someone complained about that behavior, because if you are using the scene browser and the style you are clicking on is currently all hidden (no eye), when you assign the selection to it, it feels like the style is somehow changing since it then changes from no eye to half eye.

That's kind of surprising if you are used to a layer system where the layers themselves have an on/off state instead of it being an individual object property.


Styles in MoI are kind of a blend between a materials list and a layers mechanism in other programs.

But when you are using the Styles section of the scene browser as a way to manage hiding/showing objects, that kind of use sort of aligns more with the "layer"-ish type aspect. So that's why it seems to make sense to make it behave more like layers when using the scene browser swatch for style assignment, but more like materials when using the properties panel.


This is just one of the many examples where I've tried to make some small adjustments in MoI to make it more comfortable for people who are used to a different system.


- Michael

Also for the next beta if you hold down shift+control when clicking on a style swatch in the scene browser, it will not modify any hide or lock state of the objects.

- Michael

That should be good enough - just have to remember all of these modifiers!

Maybe in an appendix within your manual you can list the commands that have modifiers like this - having this listing in a single place would prevent hunting for individual commands that may use modifier keys...

Just a thought.

-Will

Hi Will,

> Maybe in an appendix within your manual you can list
> the commands that have modifiers like this - having this
> listing in a single place would prevent hunting for individual
> commands that may use modifier keys...
>
> Just a thought.

Yup - there is actually a page for this already in the wiki here:
http://moi3d.com/wiki/Shortcut_Keys

That lists all the various keyboard modifiers for different commands (like what holding down Ctrl does in different cases, etc..) in one place there.

I have not yet added in the new ones for this latest beta yet though but I will soon.

- Michael

Hi Will, I've now updated that shortcuts info page (http://moi3d.com/wiki/Shortcut_Keys) with the new stuff.

The new info added:

------------------------------


Shortcuts related to Styles for v2:

On a scene browser color swatch, Ctrl+Left click will pop up the color picker as a quick way to edit a style's color.

On a scene browser color swatch, Ctrl+Shift+Left click will assign the selection to that style without altering the visibility or locked state of the objects to match the current style.

On a style color swatch (either in the scene browser or in the dropdown from the properties panel), holding down Shift while clicking on the swatch will assign the style to the parent object without modifying any sub-objects. The parent style is used when brand new faces are created in a solid for things like the Fillet command, when the new fillet surface is bordered by multiple different styles.

In the Edit styles dialog, right-clicking on a style works as a shortcut for selecting it and pushing the "Edit" button.

On the properties panel, right-clicking on the style line will pop up the Edit style dialog and let you edit the name and/or color of that style.


Other scene browser shortcuts:

Ctrl+click on a browser item's status icon (where the eye icon is normally displayed) will toggle Lock on or off.

Clicking on the name part of a scene browser item is used for selection, if you hold down Ctrl while clicking on it it will work for deselection instead of selection, and if you hold down Shift while clicking on it it will only select currently visible objects instead of selecting and showing all objects that belong to that slot.

Hi Michael,

>>In the first beta release with styles it did not change the visibility,
>>but in a discussion here on the forum someone complained about that behavior

ok. I must have missed that message. And your explanation about changing that behaviour to be more predictable is rational and clear.

Petr

Hi Petr,

> ok. I must have missed that message.

It was back in this discussion thread:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2619.11

That feedback from Pitrak made me aware that someone who was really used to layers would expect to have the visibility of the object altered when it got assigned to a "hidden layer".

It has been a goal to try and make the Styles section of the browser feel at least somewhat familiar to people who are used to traditional AutoCAD-ish layers.

It's kind of a balance though - by not just doing an exact clone of layers it lets things have a lot more flexibility since there can multiple sections of organization methods used in the scene browser. With traditional layers it is not very easy to have things like a named object list with independent visibility control from the layers, because with traditional layers you can't just turn on one object all by itself without also turning on its whole layer.

- Michael