Blockeditor overview with a lot of nested blocks

Hi there,

Does anyone know plugin / setting to make the blockeditor more useful when have a large amount of nested blocks.

So in my blocks there are multiple nested blocks, and each one of those could also have nested blocks within. Now when I open a block al the blocks are unfolded and the list becomes extremely long. To to point that i first need to close all those blocks to get a clear overview what is in that block.

So now its this:

And I would rather have it that every time I open a block that it looks like this:

(In the way that we work as a company have these amount of nested blocks is inevitable. This way works really good, and very modulair. Rhino just doesn’t yet have a system in place to manage these blocks / have a nice overview.)

Plugin/scripts recommendations are welcome!

Tnx in advance

Martijn

2 Likes

Hi Martjin - please have a look at the V8/WIP and see if the block management there is more helpful - Open the Block Definitions panel.

-Pascal

Hi Pascal,

Thanks for the reply, hadn’t seen that yet. I’ll check the WIP out and might leave some feedback in that thread. Thanks for bringing it to my notice.

Martijn

Hi Pascal,

I just started using rhino 8, the block management system has improved a bit but I think it could still use some improvement.

I came across this post:

I think this would be an amazing upgrade to BlockEdit.

Secondly i think the rhino7 blockmanager worked better. Maybe its me, but the screen is just not big enough to have a good view of the blockmanager when its docked in the side toolbars. The old popup screen was nicer to work with I think. (if its a floating toolbar it constantly trying to dock to other toolbars)

Third, the new blockmanager is not sorted. In my image you see I_,D_,€_,E_,€_,G_, (using euro instead of dollar signs because otherwise there was text decoration :sweat_smile:) and then later more E_. This is strange right? You would think this list would be sorted.

Thanks in advance,

Martijn

2 Likes

Hi Martjin, I agree with most of your sentiments.

On the missing alphabetisation of block definitions in Rh8, there seems to be a fix in the making: Block Manager List Isn't Alphabetized - #12 by wim

1 Like

Hello- one thing is that BlockManager need not be docked - you can bring it up floating, make it as wide as you like, and toggle it on and off with a macro

-_BlockManager _Visible _Toggle _EnterEnd

-Pascal

1 Like

Hi Pascal,

Yea I wrote the same macro myself, this helps. Thanks

Just a lot of changes and you know how engineers get when thing change :smiling_face_with_tear:
Hopefully the blockmanager sorting feature gets added soon.

Also,
This thread started as an request on the blockeditor.
What do you think of an improvement like this?

Personally I think this would greatly improve readability of this editor.
(also requested here: Rhino 8 Feature: Block Manager Panel - #80 by nperillo.np)
Together with some of the functions that this plugin has (Block Edit New | Food4Rhino) would make nested blocks so much nicer to use.

As always, thanks for your reply and I’m curious of your take on this.

Martijn

1 Like