Heard that the group feature will get improvements, so my two cents. The nested group feature sounds really great, but it would be nice to be possible to select a group by simply clicking on it. All the objects in the group can be highlighted in green color. Then, if clicking again on an object, it will select the single object. It's like entering temporary in a sort of "group mode" where every new object created automatically gets in the same group. Don't know, but would come handy to me.

Hi Max, yes when I get a chance to work on groups, I was thinking it would be nice to have an option you could enable for whether the group would select as a single unit when you click on it or not. Something like a "Select as one" checkbox that you could set at the time you make the group.

It's not likely that I will be able to experiment with actually implementing any of that until v4 though.

- Michael

Ok.
About the current group feature, is it possible to inherit the object name from the source object? For instance, if I extrude a curve named "A", is it possible that the solid created automatically gets the name "A"?

Hi max,

> About the current group feature, is it possible to inherit the object name from the source object?
> For instance, if I extrude a curve named "A", is it possible that the solid created automatically
> gets the name "A"?

Sorry, no there's no way to do that currently. The style will get inherited from a generator curve to the extrusion but not the object name.

Figuring out how these types of things should work for groups is part of what makes it a pretty complex area to implement.

- Michael

Ok, no worries. I'll quickly explain why I asked for such thing. I use MoI for drafting and modeling architectural projects. I organize my file in 2D layers (walls, stairs, furniture..), 3D layers (3D walls, 3D stairs, 3D windows..), and then I group each floor plan (3D_Floor1, 2D_Floor1, 3D_Floor2, 2D_Floor2 and so on..). In this way I can use layers for further linework when exporting in cad (line weight, type and so on..), while having in MoI a clean file, allowing me to hide/show/lock the floor plans as I need. This is the best workflow I've come up with so far. So a sort of group-mode would come handy to me, allowing me to put new data in an existing group without having to assign the name every time.

Hi max,

> allowing me to put new data in an existing group without having to assign the name every time.

So there's kind of 2 different ways this kind of thing could work, one is by having a concept of an "active name" (some way to mark one particular name in the names list) which would be automatically assigned to newly created stuff.

Then the other is something like you mentioned with inheritance from generator objects. But the inheritance method doesn't really work with things like basic drawing tools like drawing a line for example that doesn't have a parent object generating it.

- Michael

Active name is not bad!

An important aspect of group functionality for me is object sub-nesting. Really useful on ArchViz projects.

I think groups are one of the greatest areas of weakness in Rhino mainly because of the lack of a dedicated object manager so this area could be a real win for Moi from a UX perspective. It's a pity that MoI doesn't utilise contextual commands as group functionality is often managed most intuitively via contextual menus within the viewport but it would be great if you could find a modifier key (or something similar) that would allow for more management stuff to be done within the viewport in future versions of MoI.

The OS X beta of Rhino has moved away from the right click = 'action command' design pattern (and is all the better for it IMHO) although it still allows the space bar to be used for entering commands (a good compromise to my mind). The extra functionality you get via a selection of contextual commands being available via the right click is something I now miss when using the Windows version of Rhino.

Just a few loose thoughts for V4 and beyond. I'm sure the real design challenge in all these future functionality developments will be to not dilute the intuitive, fluid user experience that MoI currently provides.

jm

For now, it would be of great use having the auto-assign name feature for next release, for me it's very important since I use groups a lot, and having to assign newly created elements to the right group everytime is a little pain. I know there's a "auto-assign-name" script but still sometimes I forget some elements.. I guess it could work like for styles: you can pre-select a group name and every new element goes in there. Is this feature involving a lot of work?

Hi Max,

> I guess it could work like for styles: you can pre-select a group name and every new
> element goes in there. Is this feature involving a lot of work?

Well, it involves some planning for the UI for controlling that - and yes, UI design tends to be fairly time consuming work...

Right now it's not clear to me how the UI would be set up for doing that.

- Michael

Ok, I see. Look, MoI's is almost excelling at the modeling part right now, for most of the users here I think. But what is missing now is some little more advanced management of the scene, allowing the user to improve detailing and organization. I think closing the gap between the modeling part and the drawing management part would be a good point of focus, and would make the software more valuable. But still this is my opinion. I don't know what is going on for next releases, but I have faith things will come, as for a user like me this is an important aspect of my work.
Merry Christmas!
M.

Hi max,

> I think closing the gap between the modeling part and the drawing management part would
> be a good point of focus, and would make the software more valuable.

Yup, I definitely agree, and it is something that I want to work on in the future. The future does not necessarily mean "the very next beta release" though...

There are still more areas of improvement needed to more basic operations that have priority over that area currently.

There are only 24 hours in a day and so it's just not possible for me to do many different features all requiring a lot of design time all done at the same time.

- Michael