SPACEBAR not the same as ENTER, please make it so!

Any chance of adding an option to make the Scapebar act like Enter?
On the windows version I can use the spacebar to re-call commands AND I can use it to end commands as well. But the mac version it’s not always possible. I think a few of the commands simply do not have the focus on the OK key, so I have to either go in with the mouse and click it or use the ENTER to end the command.

It might just be the way I work, but the Spacebar is the most important input button and since I use a 3D mouse as well it is just “more better” to access the commands via the big button on the bottom of the keyboard.

The spacebar works as an Enter for me unless I’m in a command where a space is a valid character.

At a blank command prompt, it will repeat the last command.

Can you provide some specific details about when it doesn’t work for you?

At the top of my head: Sweep1, sweep2, Loft, basically anything that has a prompt screen to end the command.
If would be also good if the spacebar worked as enter for the Gumball as well. If I am not mistaken it does work like that on windows.

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In the case of Loft, spacebar is accepted as “Done” for selecting objects. The next step is the type of loft and Spacebar drops down the choices.
Enter from the keyboard completes the command.

I don’t know if this is standard Mac behavior of it it’s something @marlin can modify.

This has already been discussed in at least two different threads - the behavior on MacRhino is definitely different than on WinRhino. Take a look for instance here (towards the end of the thread): Having trouble adapting to the Mac version from PC

Philip

Sadly, @John_Brock, Loft does not work with the Spacebar as Enter if the Loft command is called before selecting the lines. As Philip mentions, I detail the problem in post 94. ~Dave

… And there’s more detail that I can’t seem to paste here while on a mobile device.

I’ll bring this to the attention of @dan and @marlin
I’m not a Mac user so I don’t know if this behavior is a Mac convention, or if it is a behavior we can change to act how you would prefer.
Neither Dan or Marlin are Rhino users like you so these subtleties may be new territory for them. I’ll show them the difference and see what happens.

Thanks for pushing

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Great, thanks!

Philip

That is exactly right. Most of the time the default values are fine and just continuing to press the spacebar it’s such a time saver.

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Yes!

Philip

@dan @marlin

Spacebar usability bugs reported for Mac Rhino for Loft, Sweep1 and Sweep2.

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if those are going to be looked into, might as well check these too:
SetPt
BlendCrv
BlendSrf
NetworkSrf
Mesh
maybe some others that i can’t think of at the moment…

there’s also Zebra and EMap which you can’t choose ‘done’ with any key (not spacebar nor enter or rmb)… but i suppose these are different in a way since they can stay on while you model and have off commands to close the dialogs.
EDIT- oh, hey… just realized you can close Zebra and EMap with esc… (similar to PointsOn)… so that’s sweet.

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Buggified all of them in your list.
I’ll poke around and see if I can find more.

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_Rebuild is another one.

it’s all of the dialogs that look like this:

…which to me, is a more standard mac looking dialog… the buttons on the bottom with one of them highlighted that will accept the return key… the look/color/etc [edit] maybe not color… they’re the same color as the other style so no difference there :slight_smile: [/edit]

in contrast, if you run the dashed version of these commands, you’ll get the less mac_y and more rhino-like command dialog… which is what these user reports are asking for.

with that dialog, i can drive the commands/options from the keyboard (which, to me, is more important than whether or not i can finish with space) as well as finish it off with spacebar where as the non-dashed Rebuild, i have to drive the command with the mouse cursor and can’t commit with spacebar.

with some of these commands, l’ll lose functionality if opting for the dashed version… for example, with -NetworkSrf ,there’s no preview option… with -BlendSrf, i lose the sweet sliders… so in those two cases, i don’t direct my alias to the dashed version whereas i do use the dashed version of SetPt… we get more options then (copy) as well as the speedier or keyboard driven dialog.


anyway, what i meant to say before going off on a tangent was that you can tell which commands are subject to the no-spacebar-policy by how they look… or from a developer side, possibly easier to find all of them because you’d just search for those types of panels in the code… (ha… i don’t know if you could really do that… just guessing)

Well, all this stems from the “no command line on Mac” philosophy. In Windows Rhino, the “normal” version of the command executes with a dialog (if there is one for the command, there aren’t all that many) and the dashed version executes the uniquely from the command line without invoking any dialog. The idea behind dashed commands (added in V2?) was to be able to bypass the dialogs when present, to make the execution of more sophisticated macros possible without getting interrupted by a dialog asking for user input. The dashed version occasionally has additional “advanced” options as well.

Now, on the Mac side, you have the normal command that runs through a dialog, and the dashed version that runs through… a dialog. :smile:

yeah Mitch, i see what you’re saying.

out of curiosity, when a command does use a dialog on windows, can you still drive it with the keyboard?
i assume BlendSrf is one with a dialog and has sliders similar as we have on mac… or, i assume most of the command is commandline then the ‘adjust surface blend’ portion comes up as a dialog?.. can you press spacebar to execute or in that case, do you have to use RMB/enter/click a button? can you use the keyboard to choose ‘same height’ during the dialog?

Yep, plenty of command line options before the slider dialog comes up.

Spacebar works as enter to execute

No. The Windows dialogs might or might not be keyboard accessible, but not easily. Some have letters underlined which you can access with alt+letter, but not all. For real keyboard control, you have to go through the dash version of the commands.

–Mitch

aside from the spacebar part, it seems as if it’s not really a Mac specific problem. the Mac side is just using the same core code but it’s presented differently since Mac command line is also a dialog. the dashed solution on windows doesn’t really translate as well on Mac since either way, we’re still seeing a dialog without much difference from the user side between dashed and non dashed
?

Exactly.

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