User Interface is Intimidating

Hmmm …
One thing I miss from Rhino 4 is the ability to freely resize toolbar buttons.
On Rhino 5 unfortunately that is gone …

But generally I never found Rhino toolbars easy to build/edit.
No way to search or edit command texts, to build buttons and toolbars by script … very annoying.

About tabs … well, I like them.
When you’re forced to use a small display, tabs look a lot like life savers …

I’ve always been short on display space (too many buttons …) and even asked repeatedly for tabs for years … sorry Philip. :wink:

And you certainly know that you are not forced to use tabs.
You can forget about them if you prefer. :slight_smile:

I get along fine with the Rhino interface but I’d agree that it could do with some improvement.

Like others, I’m not a big fan of the tabs that were introduced in V5. Although I understand that they help to organise the interface, which a obviously a good thing, it does introduce an extra level to find commands (an extra click). There is also duplication and a lot of wasted space, some tabs only have a few icons. I have combined a few so I don’t have an empty grey expanse stretching across my screen.

I actually use a customised pop up menu 90% of the time. It has most of my favoured commands (it should have all of them really). I wish it could be organised better, so I could group related commands. I know I can use tabs here but again, its an extra layer to navigate.

Adobe use GUI themes effectively, aimed as specific tasks. Just select from a drop down, easy to customise too. I have to agree with Rolf, something similar within Rhino could be a good solution. Plug in integration would be nice too, for me a surface modelling workspace and a V-Ray workspace would be nice.

Edit: I acknowledge that tabs would be very helpful if you’re working on a small screen. I’d also agree with Emilio that they can be pretty much ignored, in fact that’s what I do. I suppose this illustrates the point that the McNeel staff have made in this thread - you can’t please everybody. Therefore their approach of making the GUI highly customisable has to be the correct one. Just a little bit more polish would be good.

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That’s true of course. Personally I just don’t need them at all. I like to always have my icons/buttons stay put :slight_smile:

Philip

Well you can get used to anything over time…and anyone who has been using rhino for a while just gets on with it regardless…
For example, I almost never use the icons at all, but prefer to use keyboard macros, or the command line. When I’m looking for some command, I use the menus.
But for some reason I always use the explode icon, I guess it’s just located in a convenient spot…

However, the two things I think most need to be improved upon re the interface are:

  1. remove inconsistency in the commands. For example it drives me up the wall that “make hole”, delete hole" and a few other commands are persistent, regardless of whether they have completed their task. And wire cut, a very useful command that I use a lot, gets me every time because it breaks the convention of pressing enter once you have selected objects the command is going to work on in order to move to the next step. (Yes I know it’s logical since it only works with one object at a time, but the convention of the program as a whole is that you press enter to move on…) Maybe their should be a sticky thread to list all the inconsistent commands to nail them down…?
  2. I’ve never understood why rhino doesn’t make use of the right mouse button to bring up contextual options…? It’s a Windows convention that many programs follow, and one that a Windows user expects.
    I know this has been discussed before during previous wips- I can’t recall what the reasons were it has never been included, but even now I still find myself hopefully right clicking looking for next steps…

cheers
rabbit

Hi Tony - do you mean context within a command? I’m not sure I follow. There are three rmb context menus, customizable in Options > Context Menu, but these are static - I think you are asking about something ‘smart’ per command, is that right?

-Pascal

Yes Pascal - a continuously changing right click menu, in that it brings up only possible commands that are relevant based on the context.
“Smart” is a relative word of course, but even word processors manage to do this kind of thing in a helpful way…

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I like this idea a lot - and I have been implementing it in many scripts I write that come with a set of command-line options. Imagine if you run a command that has a bunch of command-line options: now, if you long-press RMB while in this command, you get a popup with all the same options that the command-line has - therefore you don’t need to switch your gaze to command line back and forth. I found this very smooth/seamless and intuitive…

-jarek

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Consider this a prototype (the pop-up would show on RMB-long press, not like here on quick-press that is limited by basic RhinoScript). But the idea would be the same:

Option Explicit
Call Main()
Sub Main()

	Dim arrMenuItems : arrMenuItems = array("ItemA", "ItemB", "ItemC")
	Dim strResult,intResult
	
	Do
		strResult = Rhino.GetString("Select Option:", "", arrMenuItems)
		If isnull(strResult) Or strResult = "" Then
			intResult = Rhino.PopupMenu(arrMenuItems)
			If Not isnull(intResult) And intResult <> -1 Then
				Rhino.Print "Context-menu option selected"
				Exit Do
			End If
		Else
			Rhino.Print "Command-line option selected"
			Exit Do
		End If
	Loop
	
End Sub

fwiw, Rhino for Mac has context sensitive right-click… for example, with no objects selected, you’ll get this upon right clicking:

…then with an object(s) selected:

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Hi Jeff, same in Windows… I thought it could be in-command, command-options sensitive. Sorry @rabbit if I am hijacking your idea, just thought it’s a really good one ; )

-j

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there’s just less options in MOI is all… otherwise, it’s moreOrLess the same as other applications.

to get any sort of meaningful/notable UI changes, we need new input/output devices… because as long as we’re using a mouse and a keyboard and a flat panel, we’re pretty much limited to clicking on icons with the mouse and typing stuff…

i mean, i’m sure there are some improvements that can be made to rhino’s UI but these ‘improvements’ are going to be minuscule compared to what could be accomplished if we change the way we communicate with a computer.
(imo)

got it… i read too fast without properly digesting the details :wink:

Have you tried MOI? Takes half the time to do Rhino tasks. Moi snapping and scaling, translate, rotate work intuitively and quickly. Rhino is a good value, but the interface is antiquated.

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Hyundai realized they didn’t get high end design. Smart.

Hyundai to hire ex-Bentley designer Donckerwolke to succeed Schreyer

Dirty Harry, “A man has got to know his limitations.”

Rhino is a good value proposition. The Rhino team and culture don’t get modern interface design. They need to hire an outsider from Keyshot or MOI or even Ashlar.

2 Likes

Hire me. I’ll fix your “too many icons” problem. XD

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^^ I like MoI3D and Michael Gibson is probably a very nice person, but MoI looks like a Website made on Windows 95… And the whole HTML used for the UI, man, no CSS, no jQuery like libraries, no proper documentation, no proper scripting. MoI is super awesome exactly as long as you love it the way it is…

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That is a radical suggestion, but that may be exactly what is needed. An outsider with a fresh look. I’ve always thought that MODO had the best UI for a 3D app. I’d like to see some of that aesthetic in Rhino.

Of course, any complex or powerful software will have A LOT of commands. Its not just 3D, take a look at any of the Adobe Creative Cloud apps, like Photoshop or After Effects. I think the same guy who was intimidated by “too many icons” may just be in the wrong field … or is a big, whiny baby.

It reminds me of a Steve Martin joke. “Did you know that the French say ‘Bonjour’ instead of hello? It’s like they have a different word for EVERYTHING!

2 Likes

yeah, I’ve tried it. the Z axis setup is awesome and I’ve made a couple of requests here asking for similar capabilities in rhino.

that said, I personally can’t work twice as fast in MOI or else I’d be using it… in fact, I find the vast toolset of rhino to be superior in my particular uses and these tools allow me to work faster in rhino as compared to moi… ymmv of course

Regarding this topic, I do think that the interface is a bit outdated in its appearance and interaction, but an experienced user will tend to customise everything with keyboard shortcuts and enter commands via command line so this apparent workflow hindrance is mitigated over time. I do understand the starting poster’s point that it may overwhelm the new user, unlike someone looking at Sketch Up or even C4D.

There are a couple of features that I really love in other 3D packages, though, and would be a blast if replicated in Rhino.

In Maya, “…the spacebar, in addition to being a good way to switch views from panel to panel/camera to camera, is also the button used to activate the Hotbox. While looking in the Perspective view (or a different camera, or any panel you might have open really) press and hold the Spacebar. What you’ll see here is the Hotbox–an on-demand substitute for the menu sets that normally appear above the main window. While holding down the spacebar, you can click each menu the same way you would to access the normal menus at the top of the screen–it’s essentially a “portable” version of all the menus, that appears centered on the location of your mouse.”

Having said that, I regularly use the pop-up menu, but it surely could use a lot of improvement.

For panels I’d look to Houdini, also it would be amazing if I could have a small dockable Grasshopper window… like in Houdini. B-)

Ok and a tree view is often handy. I like very much the latest “scene explorer” implementation in 3DS Max, which doubles as tree view and layers panel.

There is a fine UI in nearly every Windows program.
It is called ‘Menu’.

One click only to explore the whole menu.
And a next click on the wanted item.
Even possible with one click: Click and hold, release over the item.

In the meantime we can READ the caption, and something more in the status bar.
While we read, we will notice the existence of other commands (which are not the wanted ones yet).

If we don’t want to use the mouse, a tap on Alt activates the menu, and the arrow keys are for navigation then.

Once Alt is tapped, also all the possible shortcuts are seen, e.g. Alt, d, i for import.

If the menu had icons, same as the toolbars, it would be even better.

But McNeel says, this leads to ‘visual clutter’.
On the other hand, in some places where those icons are not really useful they have them:

-C-H-A-R-L-E-S-