Rhino 8 User Interface Freeze Approaches


I was not able to remove (to save space) those “Layers” and “Properties” texts…

Toolbar Management issues

  1. Legacy misnomer

Now that toolbars are referenced from the Window menu, the reference to “Toolbar Layout” on the Tools menu is obsolete (and a misnomer: it opens the Toolbars panel which has no immediate layout capabilities). I suggest you remove the Tools menu item.

  1. Missing information

Toolbars panel does not show any toolbars from the default library ticked. Should show which ones are in use.

Toolbars panel does show one toolbar ticked for a plugin (Maxwell). However there are three Maxwell toolbars on display.

  1. Inconsistency

Right clicking on the primary toolbar (below the command panel in the default layout) shows this:
image

Right clicking on the sidebar shows this:

The latter lacks the management tools of the former and is more akin to the Toolbars panel. Except that inconsistently it refers to RUI files instead of Layouts.

  1. Papercuts

I am now permitted to add a panel to a menu set:

And a menu to a panel set:

This only really has any application in flyout sidebars.

But what’s fun is that after deleting Boxedit from my Standard Toolbar container - which ought to put me back to where I was before - I find that if I try to open the Boxedit panel it automatically redocks itself into my menu set. Apparently forever more. To stop it redocking I can’t use delete, I have to drag the Boxedit tab to another location.

  1. Left Sidebar

If you use the left sidebar toggle while you only have a Standard sidebar menu (i.e. Main) the menu reduces to a single column, apparently empty, container. There is no affordance that you can fly out the toolbar because there is no visible icon and the fly out only works if you click at the first icon position. Either display an icon or make a click anywhere in the container cause the fly out.

The Curves sidebar menu does display an icon, but that is a poor choice because it is the same icon as Control Point Curve.

The flyout sidebars do not display the full command sets of their fixed counterparts.

If you change the top toolbar to one that applies a different sidebar (e.g. from Standard to Curves) while the sidebar is toggled away, the icon does not change until you click on it (or its placeholder).

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UI Colour theme

Most of the UiPaintColors option settings seem to have been disconnected recently, making it impossible to experiment with alternatives to the stock Light and Dark themes in the search for better legibility suggestions.

It’s not removed but it has changed. Some examples of colors (still need to figure this out myself until I hear back from John):
Rhino.UI.ThemeSettings.Frame.Background (main background color)
Rhino.UI.ThemeSettings.Content.Background (main foreground color)
Rhino.UI.ThemeSettings.Content.Text.Enabled (text of enabled tabs and icon popout triangles)
Rhino.UI.ThemeSettings.Content.Text.Disabled(text of disabled tabs)
Rhino.UI.ThemeSettings.Frame.GripperDot
Rhino.UI.ThemeSettings.Frame.Button.EnabledHover.Text (hover color of statusbar texts)
Rhino.UI.ThemeSettings.Frame.Button.Checked.Text(text color of checked buttons in statusbar)
Rhino.UI.ThemeSettings.Frame.Button.Checked.Background(statusbar checked button bg color)
Rhino.UI.ThemeSettings.Frame.Button.Enabled.Background(statusbar not checked color)
Rhino.UI.ThemeSettings.Content.Button.EnabledHover.Background(buttons hover color)

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Thanks Gijs, I’ll try to have a play over the weekend. Is there going to be some sort of a GUI interface for selecting parts of the screen and setting their colours, or is it going to have to be done through the Advanced Options settings? If the latter, any idea when we might see some documentation on what setting applies where (over and above your detective work!)?

p.s. Big thumbs up for the new Reset command.

Not planned, but I think this is fairly easy to script once all dust has settled.

thanks, RH-74393 Toolbar Layout menu option is obsolete

The way I understand is how I reported it here RH-74394 Toolbars checkboxes

yes that seems wrong. RH-74395 Popup on main left toolbar is different

regarding point 4, this seems to work as intended. Containers are universal and you are even allowed to put instances of the same toolbars or panels in multiple locations.

Good point, RH-74396 Main toolbar is missing a toolbar icon

Thanks for taking the time to report!

Yes that’s currently not possible
RH-74401 Option to hide container titles

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@atair fyi the YT I made is set to ‘won’t fix’ as it is said that all the fonts used are based on the fonts used in your os. Please comment on this, if this doesn’t solve your problem, thanks

Does the imminent UI freeze mean that enabling Containers for the popup toolbar won’t be happening in V8?

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@MattE I was wondering the same thing…
I’ve just spent an hour looking at past WIP threads about the middle mouse button popup.
(honestly, I’ve found few to none comments about appreciating the new version… I might be biased, but not few comments about asking it to behave like in 7…)

RH-70733 is marked as “8.0 UI Freeze”.
And it mentions a possible “PopUpContainer” command that we could fit inside a macro (maybe?).
If I can argumentate a bit more, in Rhino opening a toolbar by holding a button already pops a “temporary container”. It would be just plenty to have that option for MMB (not to pops an already “anchored” permanent container).
I’m calling it “temporary” because it will disappear if you just use one of its buttons, but it will stick if the user drags it a bit:
popup
(in this gif you can also notice me going nuts about “temporary container” having some unneeded extra space, and after draggin the container have even more unnneded extra space! You can’t fix the wasted space but it will also forget its size if you close it and reopen it! … :see_no_evil::see_no_evil::see_no_evil: … UI freeze soon?
Edit: this is actually important!
“temporary containers” and normal containers should always have the same size, like it is in 7. At least the MMB popup would strictly need to remember the wanted size/format. Many users have lots of buttons arranged for quick access by position memory.)

… anyway.
In Rhino 7 it was awesome!
We could have the popup toolbar pops as “temporary container” for a quick command, but dragging it a bit would stick it in place like a normal container! Excellent UX imho!

Bring it back please. Exactly like it was on Rhino 7.

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It’s becoming fairly obvious that they built this system based on how a programmer looks at it - “yeah, it would be great if everything was linked into one giant interrelated cascading cross-referenced system, that way we have real control over everything…” - rather than considering how the users actually use it.

I’m sure some of this will get fixes applied before Rhino 8 ships, but it remains this kind of rigid rules-based framework where you have to start carving out exceptions and special cases in order to allow the users to do what they need. For example the just-added “make a new independent copy (of a macro)” function that allows one to short-circuit the built-in links when one does something simple like copy a button.

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Yep. Also the minimum toolbar size should be one button in both width and height. Right now this sucks big time with free-standing toolbars being a minimum of three buttons high - well, not exactly, it’s two buttons high plus another 3/4 button height that is just wasted space. Plus the flyouts changing size and shape when pulled out into the workspace.

Yep.

(from a different thread)
RH-73900 Extra click needed to access a command in a flyout toolbar

This stuff is in such a mess right now… UI freeze in two weeks???

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Embrace the new development culture Mitch.

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Yep, just like Elon and his starship Thursday. I only hope that when V8 is released that my computer won’t explode…. Or my head… :exploding_head:

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Docking containers make an unnecessary mess by expanding other containers sizes.


I agree with people who complain about how long the process of adding new buttons has become, and the lack of possibility to “freeze” pop-up container.
Being able to quickly create a temporary UI used to be Rhino’s forte, now it’s much more difficult.

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As you have been using Rhino 8 WIP for a good time already we can say that your computer is safe.

That was intended as a semi-humorous rhetorical statement…

I know, I tried to be humorous as well by making the reply only about your computer where you had a bit more to what I really responded to… :wink:

4 posts were split to a new topic: Rhino 8 Features for Architects