Some Changes to the User Interface

[Paradigm 29]

Most Commonly Used Tools:
• Box tool
• Circle tool
• Hinge tool
• Fixate tool
• Spring tool
• Scale tool
Commonly Used Tools:
• Polygon tool
• Plane tool
• Cut tool
• Tracer tool
• Drag tool
• Laser tool
Rarely Used Tools:
• Chain tool
• Gear tool
• Texture tool
• Brush tool
Obsolete Tools:
• Pan tool
• Rotate tool
• Sketch tool

*All “Advanced Mode” adds from “medium” is the texture tool.
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Most Commonly Used Context Options:
• Selection
• Appearance
• Material
• Geometry Actions
Commonly Used Context Options:
• Information
• Mirror
• Velocities
• Script Menu
Rarely Used Context Options:
• Erase
• Clone
• Geometry controller
• Show plot
• Destroy key
• Mirror key
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Material Menu:
• Density, Mass, Friction, and Restitution are highly used.
• The default materials are obsolete and annoying. However, they are one of the few things the user can remove.
Geometry Actions:
• “Gearify” is obsolete (and is not a word).
Information Menu:
• Hinges should not have an information option if the information window doesn’t display any information for the hinge.
• Information for a spring should be relevant to the spring. Other, non-relevant, information should be removed unless other objects that report that type of information are also selected.
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Constructive Interface
The toolbar and context menu should include a prioritized mixture of “commonly used” and “most commonly used” tools and options. This is my personal preference and opinion, but the classification of the tools and menu options should be true for most anyone using the “Advanced” user interface.

Graphical Interface
The toolbar is smart. Each tool is a simple picture. If you don’t know what a picture means, then you put your mouse over it and a description of the tool appears. The context menu has a few pictures as well. Unlike the toolbar, the context menu has everything written out.
A user using the advanced interface regularly edits the properties of the objects in their scene. Just as a user learns to associate the picture with the tool, they can learn to associate the picture with a context menu option. This makes the context menu smaller, easier to navigate, and allows it to scale better with different translations.

***Also, please fix the size of the text on the forums. It is clearly too small and should have been fixed by now!***

[Chronos]

“Gearify” is obsolete (and is not a word).

Actually, I still use that regularly to make square gears (to make pinions and such). Besides, gearify is an awesome word, and you can't deny it.

[tatt61880]

If possible, would you please make and post images for this suggestion?

[Mystery]

-Sketch tool has its uses when used right it makes construction much easier not as fast as using hot-keys besides its good fun to use.
-Pan Tool is needed when you can't see any of the sky the drag your way around.
-Rotate Tool could be mainly for macs[?] as they only have a single mouse button, no right-click -drag to rotate for them. [Purely an assumption]

Gear tool is one of my favorites (Remember back when we had to use external mods to make gears) i could easily say i use it more then some of the tool you ranked higher up.

I actually find a lot of things i disagree with in that list, i guess the problem is you have based it of your own personal usages.

My Preferences to provide contrast

Most Commonly Used Tools:
• Polygon tool
• Box tool
• Circle tool
• Hinge tool
• Fixate tool
Commonly Used Tools:
• Drag tool
• Scale tool
• Spring tool
• Gear tool
• Laser tool (Only use for scripting)
Occasionally Used Tools:
• Cut tool (I uses CSG more often)
• Plane tool (Only ever need one)
• Tracer tool
• Sketch tool
• Brush tool
Rarely Used Tools:
• Pan tool
• Texture tool
• Chain tool
Obsolete Tools:
• Rotate tool

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Most Commonly Used Context Options:
• Selection
• Appearance
• Material
• Geometry Actions
Commonly Used Context Options:
• Information
• Clone
• Script Menu (Small portion of users use this >1%)
Occasionally Used Tools:
• Mirror
• Velocities
• Show plot (amazing for analyzing and improving designs)
• Destroy key
Rarely Used Context Options:
• Erase (Personally this is annoying, misclicked this too many times i use Del key always)
• Geometry controller (Less advanced users, which accounts for most users will use this though)
• Mirror key

[Paradigm 29]

If possible, would you please make and post images for this suggestion?

I will try to update it with graphics later.

@Mystery
Of course, these are based on personal usage. I did have some trouble ranking the gear tool. The default gears are so bad compared to circle gears that I don't even use them anymore. At first I considered the chain tool and gear tool to be obsolete, but I knew that users who focused on different constructions might actually use these. In the end I decided it was a rare occurrence. You have to think, "How many scenes do I not use the gear tool compared to how many scenes I do use the gear tool?"

Sketch, rotate, pan are obsolete for a person who has a mouse with a wheel and a right-click function. If you can't see the background, then you zoom out a bit until you can. The polygon tool has most of the functions of the sketch tool. When making scenes that require precision you use the hinge or fixate tool to properly place them, not some swirly motion that could put it anywhere.

The spring tool is a Most Commonly Used tool because it is a form of energy storage. I don't see how you can go about not using springs in an advanced mechanism.

The script menu is good for more than just scripts. It lets you input more precise material properties that the slider numbers just round off. However, I agree that the average user doesn't use the scripting menu. And the average user also probably doesn't even know that there is a "medium" or "advanced" setting or even a scripting menu at all. I'm not talking about the forums of course, everyone here knows about it.

[Rrobba]

I like this idea! It would improve things and show you only what you need to see for what your building.

*Support*

[kilebantick]

Support, it'd help many people. However, it'd not help me, only hinder my workflow. I suggest that if this gets implemented, there should be an option to revert to the older interface and menus.