Gumball Smooth Dragging override with Alt key

Rhino
1

Wish: Smooth Dragging override with Alt key (just like Snappy Dragging can be overriden with Alt key)

2

Hi Peter - it is not quite the same, but I see where you are headed - Alt suspends osnaps, but does nothing to Gumball - the action from snappy Gumball is still to but the Gumball origin at the cursor however. The problem I see is that if Alt changed gumball behavior… from smooth to snappy is would have to also not suspend Osnaps as it normally does, correct? And the toggle would move the gumball center to and away from the cursor position. That might be OK…
thinking…

-Pascal

3

Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. I currently have F2 set as a toggle for snappy/smooth dragging, but it doesn’t work if I’ve already started to move the object, at which point I have to undo, click F2, move the object again, and then click F2 again. If I have thought ahead, I still have to click F2, move with gumball, and remember to click F2 again (thus my wish.) My real wish is to have my gumball set to Smooth, but have a single-shot way to toggle to Snappy, and I thought the Alt idea was something but maybe there’s another way?

4

Peter, I think you have captured quite well the friction here. I catch myself having to either undo or escape a gumball transform because I’m either in snappy mode when I want to be in smooth, or viceversa.

Also I cannot do a gumball transform that is a bit of snappy and a bit to smooth. I might want to start dragging a face/object out of the weeds to snapping zombies everywhere to a clear pasture where I then wan to finish my transform in a snappy fashion.

I can do that in Rhino with the move tool and Osnap and Alt momentary override. I can do this with gumball in Modo by activating snapping mid-transformS. But with Rhino’s gumball is like:

“ok I’m going to let you transform with or without snaps, not both, sorry you can’t have that. Also I will in no way let you know which mode is on. You will have to start using gumbal and see if you got lucky and the ‘always smooth’ or ‘always snappy’ mode win your next move, have fun!”

So so so frustrating :man_facepalming:t2:

G

5

Not ideal but I leave snappy dragging on the gumball all the time and pressing ALT here disables it, then release Alt to snap. I think it should work both ways ie starting smooth and ALT for snappy but it doesn’t.

6

Hello - Alt does not currently disable snappy mode, it suspends Osnaps - the drag is still forced to the gumball origin with Snappy dragging regardless of the state of Osnaps.

-Pascal

7

Thanks Pascal, makes sense.

8

So I went to post about this as well, and including this thread, turns out I’m not the first (as usual).

(Posting about UI issues in Rhino is almost as frustrating as Blender, at times. So much low-hanging fruit and paper-cuts that could ease so much pain and RSI…) :see_no_evil:

9

Again, it’s been a while since I used Rhino, and again I got frustrated by this… going to the forum to see if anything is happening, and no, my post is still the last one. :stuck_out_tongue:

Is this even on the infamous “heap”?

10

This is super frustrating and counter-productive. Especially on heavy scenes where it takes a while to select all you need to move and start moving it, only to realize that the gumball was in the undesired mode.

Also solving awareness of ‘are you on snappy or in smooth mode?’ is not enough, we need a mixed environment, I explained that before here:

Every time I want to offer any feedback on improving a Gumball problem I realize that I open a rat nest of more problems because so much about Gumball has not been properly thought out, or tested.

So here I go with this one suggestion and the dependency problems that it implies to also fix:

A visual distinction of snappy/smooth mode would be super helpful, but changing the shape of the gumball options handle:

Smooth Mode (circle):

smooth_mode_circle_handle_gf_210918
smooth_mode_circle_handle_gf_2109181518×807 8.13 KB

Snappy Mode (square):

snappy_mode_square_handle_gf_210918
snappy_mode_square_handle_gf_2109181518×807 8.14 KB

Dependency problems:

Dependency 1: Rhino installs with default of zero visibility of this Gumballs options’ handle. Which means 90% (?) of rhino users don;t even know you can change these options in a relatively quick manner.

Dependency 2: The Gumbal’s option handle has a default color that is also a common color used in working modes so it makes the controller invincible so you cannot hit it when you want to, and you hit it when you don’t want to. So If I switch form gray background to white background tshi is how my gumball options handle looks like (invisible, but still clickable!) :

white_on_white_frustration_mode_gf_210918
white_on_white_frustration_mode_gf_2109181518×807 7.98 KB

I said it before and I’ll say it again: I want to see more effort put on the thoughtfulness of the existing tools, before keep adding more half-baked stuff to Rhino.

Gumball has a ton of problems.

BoxEdit has a ton of problems.

NamedViews has a ton of problems.

ClippingPlane has a ton of problems.

BlockManager (not even talking about Blocks themselves here) has a ton of problems.

Snapshots has a ton of problems (highly needed tool, yet utterly unusable at this point).

I could keep going but these are the most important in my opinion.

I hope this helps,

G

2 Likes
11

I got Blender flashbacks when I read that. This is a problem in all of software development. New and flashy stuff sells products to new users, while improving existing tools only makes things better for those who already paid (ie, not as profitable or newsworthy).

Again, I see a lot of similarities with Blender in Rhino in that add-on/script creators pick up the usability and tool optimization slack that the actual developers ought to do. I am grateful for them, but it’s a band-aid on a wound that never stops bleeding.

12

+1 for me too.

Personally (and this might not suit everyone), I’d rather if gumball respected Osnaps and didn’t have it’s own toggle for snappy and smooth. Ie: Osnaps enabled = snappy dragging. Osnaps disabled = smooth dragging.

I usually have Osnaps on and hold down Alt when I want it disabled. (Occasionally I’ll work the opposite way). I’d love for Gumball to work the same way.

1 Like
13

In my opinion Smooth Dragging doesn’t make too much sense at all. My Gumball is always set to Snappy Dragging. It would be one mode only and if you don’t want Osnap, disable Osnap. Even more so there is no native shortcut to toggle snappy / smooth so who really wants to navigate their mouse pointer into the menu at the bottom of the screen?

14

I mostly use snappy, but also smooth when doing more subtle changes, since the gumball otherwise jumps to the mouse.

fwiw: this script will toggle, but will not do it mid command:
toggle_gumball_draggingmode.py (302 Bytes)