Michael,

I love V4 so much! MoI just keeps getting better and better.

A couple of questions:

Is there a way to get the sidebar items to move all the way at the top of the column? I don't have the largest screen, and when MoI boots, it seems to try to stack the default configuration of menus in the middle of the column. Problem is, when I open more or larger menus, I end up crowding against the bottom of the screen, but there is wasted empty space at the top.

Perhaps there is some necessity for this arrangement of which I am unaware. If not, is there a way to start out with the menus all the way to the top, so that I can use the full column?

Also, I noted the discussion where you provided a script to get all of the sidebar menus separated, so they can all be accessible at once, if need be. My need is more modest. I only want to split the Construct and Transform menus. These are the only two that I find myself constantly switching between while working. The other groupings work fine, as I seldom need to access features between them in the same session. Further searching in the forum turned up a way to do this by editing the file "SidePane.htm." Oddly, when I tried this with V4, the file seems to be empty when opened in (Mac) TextEdit. There's something there, but it doesn't seem to be text. I appears like a bunch of empty table cells. What am I doing wrong? The other .htm files load up the same way...

Thanks,
Mark

Hi Mark, for TextEdit by default when editing an .htm file TextEdit is showing you the "WYSIWYG" style HTML editor but what you need instead is to edit the raw source code. You can do that by a setting in TextEdit Preferences, look for the "Open and Save" tab and inside there a checkbox labeled "Display HTML files as HTML code instead of formatted text".

Can you show me a screenshot of what your initial MoI window looks like with the space you are talking about?

It is intentional that there is a space left up there because that area is used for context-specific UI like when you select an object it will put a properties panel in that space and when you run a command the UI for the command's options and controls will go in that area.

If there was no space at all left there, then every time any of that context specific UI was shown it would result in the other UI controls being pushed further down the side pane. So to try and keep things more in the same general area some space above the tool palettes is reserved. That way only a smaller number of commands that happen to have a lot of controls in them will push the tool palettes down.

It is not supposed to be a really huge area reserved though, it should be limited to 11 lines of text, or 1/4 of the window height, whichever is smaller.

The size of the reserved area comes from the first line of the SidePaneContextArea.htm file (located in the UI sub-folder inside the MoI app, right click on the app and choose "Show package contents" to get to it):

<div id="ContextAreaContainer" style="min-height:11em;">

You could edit the 11em there to reduce the reserved area or eliminate it with 0em. However if you do that then the UI will tend to have a more jumpy feel to it since every command will cause the tool palettes to shift down when they display in the context area.

re:
> Also, I noted the discussion where you provided a script to get all of the sidebar menus
> separated, so they can all be accessible at once, if need be. My need is more modest. I
> only want to split the Construct and Transform menus

I've attached a modified version of that script which will only separate out the Construct/Transform tabs and not any others. Place it into the Moi appdata startup folder so it will run at program startup. That is at ~/Library/Application Support/Moi/startup .

Note that Apple hides the ~/Library folder by default, to show it see the section "How to view a Mac's ~/Library folder" here:
https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/show-hidden-files-mac-3520878/

- Michael

Michael,

I knew there'd be a reason for the space. You'd think after using MoI for so long I'd have realized it.

And thanks for the tip about TextEdit. Its behavior has changed over the years and this one hadn't registered with me. Not only do you provide the best support in the industry for your own software, you also support Mac apps!

At your request, I'm attaching a graphic showing the alignment of the menus when MoI starts up. This screen is larger than the one I referenced in my message. The smaller one where things really get tight is my home machine, when I work on projects at weekends. Still, the second image shows how the menus run off the screen when opened. My main problem is when I have several objects in the Scene Browser/Items menu.

Given the reason for the space at the top, this is a minor issue that I can live with. I was just thinking it would be nice to have all that space at the bottom, but the only way that would work without the jumpiness you mentioned is if your context specific dialog box were a pop up floater. Of course, that would violate one of the cardinal rules of your interface design. One of the joys of MoI is that you don't have to spend time moving dialogs out of the way in order to get on with your work...

I may make the space smaller on my home installation, and put up with the occasional menu shift; but I don't think it would be worth it to do so on my main machine since I have more space to work with there.

Finally, thanks for the updated script! The Construct/Transform group is the only one I have any desire to split.

Cheers,
Mark

Hi Mark,

If it is the scene browser that is expanding beyond the bottom, you might consider trying Options > General > Scene browser position: Adjacent. I too appreciate Michael's SeparateSidePanePalettes.js to declutter the limited space of my laptop's small screen.

--Larry

Great suggestion, Larry. As I have more horizontal real estate than vertical, that will do nicely.

Thanks!

Hi Mark, you're welcome!

And yes, I agree with Larry above, if you're finding the space somewhat cramped then the scene browser in "Adjacent" mode where it will be its own separate panel is better than the "Inside" mode.

The scene browser "Inside" mode is good when you have a quite high resolution screen so there is whole bunch of space in the side pane.

> Of course, that would violate one of the cardinal rules of your interface design. One of the joys of
> MoI is that you don't have to spend time moving dialogs out of the way in order to get on with
> your work...

I'm really glad that you like it! :)

- Michael

The other thing is I know it's tempting to want to fill up every blank space in the UI so nothing is "wasted", but it's difficult for me to do that with the standard configuration because I don't want to require only high resolution screens and I also want to have space for future expansion with new stuff as well.

- Michael

Some times of the day, my vision does not work very well with the HiRes monitors...
Most of the time the extra real estate is nice.

- Brian