No options command

Rhino for Mac
#1

Hi guys, just logging problems I’ve had switching from Rhino 4 PC to Rhino 5 OSX. So these are wishlist items if they’re not already implemented, or deserving of thanks if there’s an easy solution I just missed because of unfamiliarity.

Item 3 - this seems like something of an odd one. When you type “Options” or go to Tools > Options there’s a dialogue box “No Options Command”.

Anecdote - I had a friend traveling in Mexico once who asked how to get to from A to B and was told “ah, you can’t get there from here.” So she asked “well, is there somewhere I could go that I could get to B from?” And they responded, “oh, sure, you just have to go to C first.”

This one seems sort of similar - unless there’s some Pavlovian reason to teach people not to type “Options”, why not just bring up the Preferences dialogue box with a button to link it to Settings? This works pretty well with e.g., Print / Page Setup in other programs. Hope that’s a helpful suggestion.

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#2

Yep…

#3

The real problem here is that Windows Rhino puts two independent sets of settings on a single dialog. This is the wrong thing to do, but since Windows Rhino cannot open more than one model at once, this wasn’t obviously wrong. The Mac can open more than one model, so the idea of combining these two sets of settings in a single dialog just does not work.

This particular feature has been changed several times, trying to accommodate Windows Rhino users.

First, there was no Options command, because there is no such concept on the Mac as combining application preferences and file settings in a single place. And lots of (Windows) users of Mac Rhino would continually post questions about “How do I set Options??? When I type Options, I get unimplemented command!!!”

So I created an Options command that opened the Rhinoceros preferences. Then the constant questions changed to “How do I change [some file setting]??? It’s not on the Options panel!!!”

So I changed it to the current behavior as an aid to Windows users coming to Mac Rhino.

Clearly, there is no way to help accommodate Windows Rhino users on the Mac with this mis-designed command. So, starting with the next WIP release, the Options command will be gone. Use Rhinoceros > Preferences to change application preferences, and use File > Settings to change settings for a specific model. Just like every other Macintosh program does it.

#4

Well, fair enough, understood that Preferences and Settings need to be split up. Though I’ll still put in a plug for a “Print / Page Setup”-like button to transfer you from one to the other. And as long as I can add “Options” as an alias to get you to Preferences, ha - it’s a decade of muscle memory that’ll be hard to override.

By the way, this is probably old news to everyone who’s been on this forum for a while but thanks Marlin, it’s very much appreciated to have feedback actually from McNeel on these suggestions. Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Autodesk - I don’t think anyone else bothers to respond so your comment just seems to drift out into the ether.

#5

Yes! Thank you Marlin, you made my day! You know I’m a Windows user (mostly) but I think it’s far better for Windows users coming to Mac to find out where Preferences and Settings are for themselves rather than being led up a dead end with an Options menu item that leads nowhere…

Cheers, --Mitch

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