Hi Michael, do you have any plans for adding functionality to the layer system?

I have been relying on layers more lately as I have been creating files to cnc machine. Setting it all up in MOI first is much more user freindly. I love how they are very powerful and extremely quick to work with. Things like moving objects between layers, locking, hiding, filtering is super easy.

When it comes time to name the layers or change the order it gets a bit difficult. It takes me six clicks to change the name of a layer and at least 5 to move a layer or possibly 50 in a large file.

It would be great if it were possible to double click a layer name to re-name and drag layers up or down to re-order.

Thanks,

hi shane,
you could use this script, which will bring up the editing style window instantly and bring down your clicking count considerably..;D



cheerio,
marco

Click to edit names would be nice I agree. Although this can be achieved in the top section clicking on the name. Reordering would be nice but adding 01 02 etc. does fine for me.

One thing I would love to see in the layer panel is Groups or some form of tagging that allows grouping of parts. It could be done using material tags I suppose but groups would be more visually useful.

Hi Shane, yes there is a lot of work I want to do for styles and the scene browser, it just hasn't quite bubbled up to the top of the list yet.

Some shortcuts that are in there currently are - right-click on the style section of the properties panel to edit the layer of the current selected object in one click:




You can Ctrl+left click on a color swatch in the scene browser to edit the color.

In the Edit styles dialog you can right-click on a style to both select it and edit it in one click.

- Michael

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Marco, your script will me in handy.

MarkBTomlinson, your suggestion changes the object name and not the layer name unless I am not understanding you correctly.



Michael, I was aware of the Ctrl+left click on a color swatch shortcut and use it all time!

"right-click on the style section of the properties panel to edit the layer of the current selected object in one click:"

This is a good one I wasn't aware of as my MacPro track pad was not setup correctly. I use a table on my desktop machine, is there anyway to do this without the right click? Maybe Ctrl +Click could be the standard? It seems to be the standard for changing color, locking and filtering.


"In the Edit styles dialog you can right-click on a style to both select it and edit it in one click."

Thanks, that will save me some clicks.


Cinema 4d has some nice features in their layer system. It uses small icons so the functionality is always visible.

It is always exciting to see what you come up with.

Hi Shane,

re:
> This is a good one I wasn't aware of as my MacPro track pad was not setup correctly. I use
> a table on my desktop machine, is there anyway to do this without the right click? Maybe
> Ctrl +Click could be the standard? It seems to be the standard for changing color, locking and filtering.

I'll add this Ctrl + Click behavior for the next v4 beta to do the same as right click there.


> Cinema 4d has some nice features in their layer system. It uses small icons so the
> functionality is always visible.

The problem with having so many things visible is it takes longer to see what's going on and it's a little more difficult to target things. I've tried pretty hard to avoid having so many columns of controls all visible at once like that.

- Michael

Michael, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the simplicity of the interface you've designed. I don't like software that shows you everything at a glance. I know you wrote most of Rhino, but I get a little overwhelmed when I have to use it and I absolutely love the fact that MoI stands in the face of overly complicated programs. And I'm not arguing shane's request (don't get me wrong).

I also know that I'm preaching to the choir here. ;-)

Hi Micheal, I completely agree that I would not want to complicate the interface, it works very good as-is.

I really appreciate the thought that you put into it vs just throwing in a bunch of buttons / commands. Things like blend, boolean, trims etc. work on all objects it really simplifies my workflow and shortcuts.

Adding the Ctrl + Click behavior to do the same as right click will be great. Thank you.

I am going to get greedy and ask if Ctrl + Clicking on a style name can behave the same as it does in the properties panel and open up the naming dialogue?

Thanks,

Hi Shane,

re:
> I am going to get greedy and ask if Ctrl + Clicking on a style name can behave the same as it does in the
> properties panel and open up the naming dialogue?

Just to make sure - you're talking about in the Edit Styles dialog, making Ctrl + Click do the same thing as right-click does there currently?

- Michael

Hi Michael, what I am suggesting is in the styles directly without having to go into edit styles. See attached screenshot.

Hi shane, sorry no I can't do that one yet because I have not yet completed the full design for the scene browser and I don't know yet the full set of functions that a scene browser item will need to support.

- Michael

Thanks Micheal, your shortcut pointers and adding some of the Ctrl+Click behavior will be very helpful.