Hi Tom,

> As for where to place the feedback: Right there where it says "Calculating..." I'd say.
> If it works, the field closes as it does now. If not, it stays open and shows something as
> helpful as possible or a simple "Filleting failed".

What about if it said a more generic "Calculation failed", that would help a lot with allowing it to be used in all commands without a whole bunch of additional translated text to be added.


> I also wonder if the "Done" button would be better named "Apply" and only being available
> if the operation succeeds? That could be an additional hint that the current settings didn't
> work out if that's the case. And if it doesn't work, "Done" does the same as "Cancel",
> doesn't it?

This could be kind of strange, the current operation is canceled and restarted whenever any parameter is changed, and with a changed parameter what was previously a failure can now be a success, would that then involve switching that one button continuously back and forth between "Apply" and "Done"? I think that would be kind of generally weird.

"Done" basically just means that you want to end the current command stage and that you want to accept the current result, (or the one that will be generated next if it is still busy calculating when you push it).


> - fillet roundings extending outside of the object.

This usually means the fillet surfaces had some problem getting trimmed with one another, it can happen more often in areas where there is some tiny sized edge which then makes a tiny fillet surface which does not very cleanly intersect with other things, or also if you have boundaries that come close to being tangent to one another but are actually at some shallow 5 or 10 degree corner to each other, nearly tangent surfaces are also difficult to intersect with each other, they have a kind of overlapping region rather than a crisp intersection.


> - certain patches of the object vanishing completely or showing in a broken manner (like broken triangles in a polygon modeller).

That means that the trim boundaries are damaged in some way, like with a self intersecting loop in them somewhere.


> - fillets that exist at the same time as the original corner (there is a fillet patch below the original corner that somehow wasn't removed.

That usually means there was an error in trimming the main object body, but that fillets were able to be generated. I have modified the geometry library to return back the fillets in case of these kinds of errors rather than just do nothing at all since you can then potentially do some manual trimming to still get the fillets into place.


> - More rarely the whole object vanishes.

The result is probably pretty severely mangled in this case.


- Michael

Hi Michael,

I noticed there is space in most of the commands input panel could there be some alert indicator there?

A subtle exclamation mark maybe? seeing you're the minimalist master ;)

Hi Danny - the tricky part about that is it's not guaranteed to be open for every single command, it could be possible that some commands would have a slider bar or something like that going across that one particular area.

- Michael

I've thought about this alot and put a great deal of effort in this for Danny!

Danger Will Robinson! Were you thinking a loud woop woop siren to go with that Burr ;)

-

AUDIO!!!!!! Always outside of the box mate.

Hey Michael,

thanks for your feedback.

Yeah, "Calculation failed" would be absolutely fine with me if you want to keep it generic, as long as it stays on screen indefinitely in case I'm working in another software in parallel.

As far as the button - I was maybe unclear:
I personally would like the button to be only "pressable" if the last calculation was successful. Otherwise I'd prefer it to be greyed out, so the only option is "cancel".
I never meant it to change labels at all.
What I point at is the problem that in case of a failed operation it isn't clear what "Done" will do, therefore I think it shouldn't be available to be pressed in that case.

The thought about "Done" vs. "Apply" was separate from the above: I personally find "Done" not as clear as "Apply". Done is somehow generic and unspecific.
I often thought that when using MoI and just wanted to mention it.
I understand your point, but think that "Apply" would make it much clearer what to expect.
To me, "Done" feels too close to "Cancel".

Finally: I personally would prefer if the 3D-Views would show the original, unaltered model after a failed operation, not the last successful result, which is pretty irritating IMO.

Thanks and Cheers!

Tom

Hi Tom,

> Done is somehow generic and unspecific.

Yup, but that's actually intentional so that it can be applied in many different circumstances. Like for instance when MoI is waiting for you to do some kind of object selection you push the "Done" button to signal to MoI that you have finished the selection and are going on to the next stage of the command.

It's kind of helpful for consistency of operation to have a common button that is used for command workflow like that.


I'll see what's involved in making a "Calculation failed" message to be displayed.


- Michael

Well, I'm happy to agree to disagree here ;-)

I personally am sometimes confused since it's often unclear in MoI if hitting a button is going to the next stage of a multi-stage command (like in your example with the object selection) or if hitting it will actually apply the result. When selecting objects, "Done" makes absolute sense. But in the case of filleting, when I'm on the last screen, the missing differentiation between "Done" as in going to the next screen and "Done" as in applying the fillet finally is a bit too generic for me.
I understand and respect what you try to achieve, it just doesn't work for me personally.

But no big deal - I just wanted to bring it up for discussion. There's always Undo ;-)

I look forward to whatever improvements you decide to implement.

Cheers,

Tom

Hi Tom,

> But in the case of filleting, when I'm on the last screen, the missing differentiation between "Done"
> as in going to the next screen and "Done" as in applying the fillet finally is a bit too generic for me.

At that stage the "applying the fillet" is the "next screen" - basically you push Done to tell MoI that you're finished with the parameter adjusting stage of Fillet and want to move on from that.

The parameter adjusting stage happens to be the last stage of the command so once you move on from that the current result will be accepted and the command will finish.


Is it that you think any stage that has parameters that can be adjusted should have a button labeled "Apply" rather than "Done" ?

One big problem with using that specific word "Apply" is that it's commonly used in Windows programs on open dialogs to mean "apply the current settings but keep the dialog open and do NOT close it". So I don't think it would be that great to use that particular word "Apply" to actually mean "Close and finish" since it would kind of have an opposite meaning to how it's used in other programs.


I guess it could say "Finish" at the last stage (I guess reading your post again, it's the "last" stage that you want to have significance), but that's so close to "Done" in meaning anyway... Also it could be possible for some commands to finish at different stages depending on which particular options have been enabled or disabled along the way. It would be pretty annoying to try and keep track of that and change the text back and forth between "Done" and "Finished" or "Apply" or whatever.

It's just a lot more simple in general to have a single button always called "Done" for going to the next stage and when you're done with the last stage you've finished the command.

- Michael

Hi Tom, ok I've got a "Calculation failed" message set up now for the next v3 beta, displayed in the same spot as the "Calculating..." - it seems like it should handle the main kind of thing you were asking about.

Also I've got a tuneup that when it fails it should do a better job of reverting things back to the original selection on screen rather than just having the screen stay the same which was ending up showing the last successful calculation result.

It only considers things to have "failed" if nothing at all was generated though, it won't get displayed for the kinds of cases where there was a partial result that was returned.

There isn't any "Calculation succeeded" message, instead what happens is once you edit any parameter to start a new calculation any existing "Calculation failed" message will be dismissed right away and then if it then generates stuff there won't be any message at all there.

But I believe that the tuneup should eliminate any confusion about whether you are seeing any previous calculation or not.

- Michael

Brilliant!

Thank you very much!

Cheers,

Tom