Hi McNeel
I don’t know if this has already been mentioned by others, but… I’m not too keen on the revised look of the command line in the WIP. I have a hard time distinguishing between the various options at a glance. I spend way too long time separating the various options from each other, trying to decide which parts of the prompt belongs to which sub-option. Case in point, look at the polyline command:
At a glance I read “Persistent Close Mode” and “Helpers Offset”, since there’s no visual indication in-between the various options. For the most commonly used commands, this is not a big problem, since the keyboard shortcuts are more or less muscle memory (and my primary way of input), but for commands used less often, having to actually “read through” and mentally separate the words of the command line is really annoying. In R8 it’s easy and clear, as the multi-options are all “single word” and have the equal sign (eg. PersistentClose=Yes).
Also the combination of check boxes, radio buttons, drop down menus and actual buttons makes the command line look so… fragmented. There’s just so many different things going on visually, that the command line gets a lot harder to navigate.
Any chance of adding more space, a small vertical spacer or something like that between the various options? Or am I the only one bothered by this?
TIA, Jakob
As you found out, you can make it look like it always has on Windows. The setting is not only available from the CommandMode command but also from the Rhino Options (and from there it depends on the platform).
Curtis is actively working on this area and the version that you showed in the image is not something that will be available in the future. There will probably be something similar but with clear buttons for the options.
The goal here is to find some mid-way UI between the traditional Windows and the traditional macOS styles. This mid-way will be the default in the hope that it is something that new users on both platforms will find useful. We are not thinking that we’ll convince long-time users of either platform to change to something else.
-wim
Hi @wim
That’s great to hear, because I’m in no way against the idea of overhauling the command line; it does indeed look and feel slightly outdated. And having tested putting the “compact” command line at the sidebar, I see that the “mix’n’match”-style makes more sense when it’s arranged vertically, so that there’s a clear distinction between the different sub-functions. I didn’t know this existed (outside of Mac OS). I haven’t been following the WIP all that closely. Thanks for chiming in
-Jakob
“Persistent close Mode” is easier to distinguish than “Persistent Close Mode”. Making the secondary word start with a capital letter causes the confusion. Possible workarounds:
PersistentClose Mode (classic Rhino style: joined words with a capital letter each)
Persistent close Mode (easiest solution: capital letter for the initial word only)
Persistent close | Mode (vertical separator)
Persistent Close | Mode (vertical separator)
Persistent close Mode (double space, but the forum does not allow that)
Persistent Close Mode (double space, but the forum does not allow that)
Personally I prefer double space and a capital letter only for the initial word.
