[Reiner]

Thanks for having a look

I haven’t decided yet what to do with the texture stuff. That’s why ^^

Ideally you have everything important at one look. And the texture area has not this much nodes than the other two main categories. But yes, those categories could go into the modify tab. Good idea

Don’t expect fast results. I have currently lots of work with updating everything for the next release. The new addons makes trouble. So this issue has lower priority at the moment.

[davis]

Some feedback after using the new shader panels extensively for a while.

Unfortunately I can´t say, that the system is working very well, I still keep searching everytime I need a not so common node. – Specially the modify common layout is pretty confusing. I believe the main reasons for this are the mix of double and single columns as well as the fact, that I have to scroll up and down within the panel. Due to the double columns the text gets cut off on certain node names, when I keep the menu compact to maximize my node work space. This is not really helping for a good overview either of course. – Out of frustration I have reverted to use the original Blender tabs on top. And I must say they are not bad at all, very easy to navigate and since everything within a category is organized as an alphabetic list, also uncommon nodes are easy to locate.

The only thing I am missing there are the icons, that would speed things up even more, locating the right node at a glance.

Is it possible to add the icons to those menu items as well? Since those would all be single column menus, my suggestion would be to add some spacing between the icons and the text, which would increase readability significantely for those long lists

What are everyones thoughts on this? Or am I the only one, that has trouble with the newly added “Common Menus”?

 

 

 

[Reiner]

Thanks for the feedback.

Heh, you will have no luck with using the old menus in the upcoming Bforartists version 0.9.7. I’ve removed it meanwhile

But I see what you mean with the cut off text. You have to pull the panel around to see the full text. Not really user friendly.

The original menus are unfortunately not to iconize. So i will not bring it back in its original incarnation. The Blender devs did a “great” job here. No comments, the code is very deep connected with other parts, and i have still no idea what exactly is part of this menu system and what not. I was happy enough to be able to make it disfunctional without to break Bforartists. I would have to rebuild all menus and panels in the addon instead, one by one. But i am simply not happy with the many tabs. I don’t want to.

What i could do is to reintroduce single columns instead of the double columns. Maybe grouped in blocks of four, so that you have the same line blocks than in icon mode. This may even work for the common stuff without scrolling. What do you think?

—

The spacing between icon and text is a very special chapter. Without icons everything is aligned left. With icons the text is centered. Don’t ask me why, and yes i already tried to find this code piece …

I use a special hack to have the text at least a bit aligned. I add spaces to the text before and after the text part

[davis]

I see, I wasn´t aware it developed further already.^^ … Removing the old menus is of course a good thing, since those are all double entries at the moment. I just thought it would be less work to upgrade them, instead of creating something new.

I see your point with the tabs and that things can be organized more economical in that menu. – I don´t really understand what you mean with the blocks of four and how that would avoid scrolling?

Would it not be an option to put each category into a rollout menu instead of its own tab? – Then just one tab might be sufficient for all material nodes. If you click the texture rollout, all textures appear as an alphabetical, inconized list. – To avoid scrolling you can close it with one click and open the shaders rollout instead, etc.

[Reiner]

To organize it in more panels would also be possible. And it becomes even necessary now. It’s too much content at once when we put the buttons underneath. We will see how much panels we need. I think i will make one panel for each category in the Modify nodes tab. That way you can even nail the parts that you need more often.

I see your point with the tabs and that things can be organized more economical in that menu. – I don´t really understand what you mean with the blocks of four and how that would avoid scrolling?

Nothing to do with scrolling. But having the buttons grouped in blocks makes it easier to organize and to find specific items. When you have 20 buttons underneath, then it’s hard to find number 17 for example. When you have five blocks of four, then it’s the last block and the first button in this block …

I’ll make the changes. You will see what i mean then

[Reiner]

Task created and at work.

https://www.bforartists.de/content/reorganize-node-editor-sidebar

[davis]

Yes, I get it, the grouping makes sense, and also helps the layout when switching to the icon only mode.

Are you only using icons when working with the nodes? For me that is somehow too many icons to remember^^, so I always turn the text on with the icons as well. – I noticed, that there is a “tooltip” when I hover over a specific icon, but they all say the same right now. I am not sure if more specific tooltips could be added there easily? This would improve the icon only mode usability quite a bit as well.

[Reiner]

Tooltips with proper description is mission impossible in this area. They don’t exist in Blender. Well, everything is possible, but i would have to make every little node an extra class. Do not want.

By default the buttons are text + icon. Icon only would be a bad default here. You don’t work a dozen times every hour with it. More ten minutes every few days. If even. And so icons only is more an expert mode here. Especialy with the incomplete tooltips that just shows the Python name.

[Author]

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