Hi, I have a few suggestions for future grasshopper versions. Most of these are just for convenience, helping new users to become familiar with the environment, and for efficiency. I hope other people might find some of these suggestions helpful too. Thank you.
New option display both component name and icon
– Easier to get more familiar with each component
– maybe something like this:
Component info display the location
– with too many plugins, hard to find which plugin the component is under
– maybe something like this:
Add ‘Edit User Component’ upon right click, for recategorization
Components in drop-down list cannot be right clicked
– but non-hidden ones can
A 'Drag and Drop Panel" to rearrange data manually
– Rearrange Data, Rearrange Tree by drag and drop each line like google drive
– Sometimes imported data like shapes are messy and need to be manually sorted for further manipulation
– maybe something like this:
Follow above, Edit tree path in panel
– Maybe even possible to “type out” a tree of data in search for Panel?
something like "{0;0} 0:1 ;{0;1} 0:a 1:b 2:c ;{1;1} 0:21 1:8;
Faster way to display Point / Curve / Surface List than ‘Point List’
maybe incorporate in right click?
Mass apply number slider settings (especially ‘Expression’ under properties)
Multiple inputs for ‘Construct Path’ (add + and - for input)
Split screen with Rhino
Minor suggestions:
Add ‘Midpoint’ component (like the one in pufferfish), “Circle/arc from 2 points+radius+vector”, “Trimmed surface to Untrimmed surface”, Looper, Add line segment to ‘Divide Curve’ output
Evaluation with multiple functions/Expression and multiple outputs
Rename all nickname ‘Trim’ components
Rectangular Array with ‘width’ and ‘height’ input than ‘cell’
Drop down list for Unit Vector to switch between x, y, z unit vector
Right-click group show preview on off for all components in the group
Right-click group show non overlappable group option (so more like dividing the canvas into sections)
Rearrange Ribbon layout (similar to ‘lock docked windows’ in rhino)
Although icon mode will remain the standard display mode, I will make it possible to show the name as well. No more vertical text in GH2 though, it’s too cumbersome to read.
That could be added, but the Ctrl+Alt+Click mode will already tell you where a component appears on the tabs. Is that not sufficient?
The whole ‘user object’ thing needs to be rethought. I imagine there will be massive changes to almost every aspect of it.
Yup, that needs to be fixed.
I don’t really see how this is going to work within a dynamically updating system. How is all the effort you put into manually reordering a list supposed to be retained when that list grows or shrinks?
You can type out trees in (some of) the Set Multiple Xs menu and Manage X collection windows. Looks like this:
. Seems like making that sort of notation possible in other data entry text fields would do it.
I was hoping to add various display modes to GH2, including modes for easier debugging of data. Drawing list indices is something that will probably fit into one of these modes. But we can fine tune that stuff once there’s something to play with.
Eh, can you provide an step-by-step suggestion of clicks and key-presses that would do what you’re asking for? One of the features I really like in XaraX vector illustration is the ability to copy paste attributes (such as line and fill settings) from one shape to another. Is that what you’re asking for?
This is a pretty specific, detailed wish. Construct path takes a list of integers though, so if you have more than one input, should it generate more than one output path?
I don’t really know yet what’s possible in this area. A lot of the Rhino UI is being redesigned at the moment as well to use the Eto UI platform, so what’s possible changes all the time.
We’ll get the minor stuff when it makes sense to do so. It’s possible that GH2 is going to be different enough from GH1 in many respects so that some of these request won’t make sense any more.
Wow that’s a really fast reply. Shout out to that. I definitely learnt a few tricks that I’ve never noticed before (like the Ctrl+Alt+Click mode).
For 3, plus, a universal way to install plugins and a systematic way to manage/uninstall them would also be nice.
For 5, that is a good question that I have never thought about. However, it’s just sometimes when purposefully ‘setting geometries’ with multiple items in Rhino with a frame selection and things are not aligned in a predetermined way. Having some sorts of components to rearrange them in grasshopper would be much nicer than to reselect items one by one. It would be just like the current right-click - ‘manage geometry/point/curve collection’ function, but in its standalone component form.
-And in current ‘manage collection’, it would be nice when picking ‘line 4 point’ in the picture above, the corresponding point can be highlighted in rhino.
-Also maybe future ‘Panel’ component can be drag and drop -able just like the above ‘manage collection’?
Yes for 8. Just like that, either something visible to connect/drag and drop; or at least, for example, right-click one ‘number slider’ - copy settings, then right-click another ‘number slider’ - paste settings
For 9, I guess I mean a combined version of ‘merge + construct path’? Maybe I just haven’t find another way of using ‘construct path’ component by itself. Also maybe path construction can be additionally added to ‘Expression’ as a function?
Yeah, this is something which is needed for all of Rhino, not just Grasshopper. Luckily @will is working hard on our package manager (Yak). It’s already operational, but still in development. I imagine this will be the vector of choice for almost all plug-ins, barring the ones which need specific installer or licensing features.
That would be nice indeed. The panel in GH2 is going to be a generic data object rather than text only, so it will no longer be a bad idea to insert a panel into a wire. If drag+drop reordering combines forces with data agnosticism and internalise data, we may well end up with what you’re asking for.
Expressions in GH2 are just C# or VB statements with a bunch of syntactic sugar (also possibly Python in the future, that doesn’t work yet), so they can do pretty much everything.
I don’t know how many other people would agree with me but I think the multiline option in panel should be set to off by default and people can turn it on if needed. In most cases the panel is used to write a single line long text or a list of input values.
