Grasshopper

algorithmic modeling for Rhino

This has come up a number of times, but I thought I'd ask one more time before I start typing.

 

Would it, or would it not, be useful to have a switch between Expert and Beginner modes in the Grasshopper UI? At the most basic level this would involve hiding freaky components from the Beginner mode, but I imagine that I could also hide items from popup menus and other UI elements.

 

As there are more and more components every release, being able to hide the geeky ones must be a relief for beginners. Or am I wrong?

 

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David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Views: 2670

Replies to This Discussion

David, this looks really great! i think something like this would be definitely helpful to show things to people.

Now I'm confused whether this is a joke or not... Hopefully it is!


It's not a joke. I'm only allowed one joke a year and I already made it on april 1st. Not to worry though, unless you press Ctrl+Alt (a widely improbable combination) this will never bother you.

 

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David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

I indeed don't like this feature visually - it simply looks so damn foreign in your so elegantly layed out GUI that I thought it could only be your second Aprils joke.

Visual aspects aside: I believe such an arrow also doesn't communicate well. Learners have to understand the organization of Tabs and how to access its respective Toolshelves. What I see shown in your Clip is an Arrow pointing to a certain location in  Screen-Space.

It fails however to help Students find the way who currently have a completly different Layout visible (= other Tab active - this will be damn likely).

I can already hear them say: "On my Screen this looks different - there' s no such button!"

If one implemented such I believe also Tab-Changes and the way the Mouse travels had to get visualized in a convincing way, otherwise I'd consider this Helper of very limited value.

Well if you're going to animate it, you'll never get it right either. It'll either move too slow or too quick. Plus, animating the cursor is already quite easy, you do it all the time by dragging the mouse around.

 

It could probably use a second arrow pointing at the tab, and a smaller arrow pointing at the icon, and maybe some additional big red text, but this will be easily visible on an overhead projector from a distance.

 

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David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Brilliant!

It's a nice gadget, but I think in some cases it will be more confusing. The beginners especially the one you are teaching to will ask why the arrow doesn't go from the component you were clicking on to the place in the toolbar where you can find it.

(for example at 0:07; 0:11; 0:13 and 0:15)

Of course it's just a first sketch. ;)

Good work.

Yeah I know. Problem is that the arrow might be very long or very short depending on where the component and the icon are located relative to each other. I think I'll move to a system where I draw a circle around the component on the canvas, an arrow at the tab name and another circle+arrow at the icon.

 

Drawing stuff on the screen like this is a big of a hack and the smaller the individual items the faster it will be.

 

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David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

How about this? It's very difficult to draw markers for components which are on the dropdown only. In fact it's not possible without rewriting a lot of the UI code. Maybe someday, but not now.

 

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David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Hi David,

I think this is a very nice first step.

I also like the style. ;)

Better than the one I've imagine.

 

Back to yours...

Of course, like you say I can imagine that it is a lot of work to do this for the dropdown.

Does this also work with all components, when you take the "Draw All Components" mode from the view settings?

 

Best Martin.

If the icon is visible on the tab, it will work.

 

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David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

second try is much better,

this will make teaching much easier :)

do you really think the pink arrow is necessary? 

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