Could VA object properties (maybe together with section and parameters) move from the Rhino’s Properties panel to their own dedicated panel? (such as Levels and Sections have their own)
It is probably the most common thing to click on an object and display/modify its properties.
The inconvenience with those sub-panels being stored inside the Properties Panel is shown in the video.
In VisualARQ it is impossible to jump between different types of objects and keep desired “custom” (Wall, Window, Furniture, etc.) sub-panel open.
Generally, in Rhino if you click on an object, and open Properties sub-panel (for example Texture Mapping), selected sub-panel will be opened as long as you keep clicking on objects for which this kind of feature is available.
So, for example, you can click on some polysurfaces, extrusions or meshes and keep Texture Mapping sub-panel opened, but as soon as you click on a curve, sub-panel switches to “object” because there is no Texture Mapping for curves, if you click again on a polysurface it will display “object”.
In Revit, this kind of Properties panel can be visible all the time, without any extra clicks.
As you can see in the videos, my Properties panel is a bit bloated with sub-panel icons. I already described that desired sub-panels don’t open automatically. Fact that VA icons shuffle their position is making things a bit worse.
Maybe it is a “papercut” type of problem but I wanted to share my thoughts on this.
Best Regards
Yes, I agree with you that this is a bit annoying. As usual, this kind of “issue” is usually ignored because, in the end, you get used to it.
The problem is that Rhino properties panel try to select the previously selected sub-panel when a new object is selected, but as walls and windows have a different sub-panel, Rhino selects the default one each time.
I think I can try to fix it in two ways:
Try to detect if a VisualARQ object sub-panel (wall, window, slab, etc) was selected, and when a new VisualARQ is selected, find the sub-panel for this object, and select it. I don’t know if that is even possible, as it depends on the exposed function in the Rhino C++ SDK, but I can try.
Even if option 1 can be implemented, allow users to have a second “Properties” panel, for all VisuaARQ related sub-panels.
Option 1 can be fixed in VisualARQ 2, but option 2 will be probably delayed for VisualARQ 3, as it requires UI changes, documentation updates, etc, and VisualARQ 2 won’t receive many more updates now… probably 2.9 and 2.10.
I think it is a little Rhino issue (example with texture-mapping sub-panel), so maybe it could be solved for vanilla Rhino and affect VA? In that case, with some trick, Wall, Window, Furniture, etc. sub-panels maybe could be internally treated as the same type?
With bigger changes to UI, which I think would be welcomed, we can wait but…
It all depends on how long it will take us to wait for the VA 3
Btw. Will VisualARQ for Rhino WIP happen before version 3 of VA?
I bet you have more serious tasks to do, and we can get used to it for some time. Pity that it affects overall good feeling with what we got in VA already, so it is tempting to fix this problem sooner than later.
We’ve finally decided to make VisualARQ 2 compatible with Rhino WIP. We expect to publish VisualARQ 2.9 in September, and it will compatible with Rhino 5, 6, and 7.
How is this problem perceived now as we have VA 2.13?
I need to constantly move the cursor to the panel and do a lot of unnecessary clicks.
Sub-Panels are very slow to open, that makes this situation even worse because they start to “generate” themselves only after I click. So this supposedly easy task is divided into two chapters:
A) moving my mouse to the side and clicking on the sub-panel
B) waiting for it to open
This is a really unnecessary annoyance.
There are some performance improvements in the latest Visual ARQ, do they also affect UI?
I wonder if the new Rhino 8 Eto GUI will have some positive impact on the responsiveness or if this problem is more about gathering the data to display?
