Improved Window Border Selection (Simple)
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Authored by Harley Acheson (harley) on May 22 2020, 6:47 PM.

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Brecht Van Lommel (brecht)
William Reynish (billreynish)

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rB4e8693ffcddb: Improved Area Border Selection and Dragging

Summary

Resizing areas is made more difficult than is should be because of a long-standing issue: the dark borders you see between editors is actually wider than the gaps between editors. By default you see a 3 pixel-wide border, but you actually have to hit a gap that is only single pixel wide.

Following is a summary of the current differences between what you see and what you must hit:

I have tried to address this in a couple ways previously, but it always gets quite complex. Making the gap widths match the border widths, while keeping everything else the same, results in blurry edges because the current border-drawing results in subpixels (a default border of 1 1/2 pixels around areas). And doing it so that borders are not overprinting the areas requires very complex corner rounding in order to match the non-opaque jitterred areas to solid-color borders.

This patch solves this in a very trivial way. When we are checking to see if the mouse is on an edge, we just act like the edges are wider than they are.

This works so well that this patch expands them slightly more than needed to make them even easier to use. So currently, by default we must hit a single pixel despite seeing a 3-pixel gap, so it is 3 times harder than it looks. With this patch the gap is 5 pixels so it is even easier than it looks. Five times easier to hit than it is now.

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Repository: rB Blender

Event Timeline

Harley Acheson (harley) requested review of this revision.May 22 2020, 6:47 PM

Harley Acheson (harley) created this revision.

stefano severi (Tetone) awarded a token.May 22 2020, 9:28 PM

Brecht Van Lommel (brecht) accepted this revision.May 22 2020, 10:26 PM

This revision is now accepted and ready to land.May 22 2020, 10:26 PM

Pieter Schiettecatte (Schiette) awarded a token.May 22 2020, 10:39 PM

Pablo Vazquez (pablovazquez) awarded a token.May 25 2020, 1:02 PM

William Reynish (billreynish) accepted this revision.May 25 2020, 9:04 PM

Closed by commit rB4e8693ffcddb: Improved Area Border Selection and Dragging (authored by Harley Acheson (harley)). · Explain WhyMay 26 2020, 1:31 AM

This revision was automatically updated to reflect the committed changes.

Harley Acheson (harley) added a commit: rB4e8693ffcddb: Improved Area Border Selection and Dragging.

Harley Acheson (harley) mentioned this in D4947: Fix for T64956: Improving Window Border Selection.May 26 2020, 1:34 AM

Harley Acheson (harley) mentioned this in T64956: Window borders remain difficult to select, even after Resolution Scale is increased.

I like it! When you are trying to select something that is 3 pixels wide, every single pixel matters. The target is easier to hit, taking the strain off the mouse arm and the eyes as they try to gain precision.

Sorry you had to go through hoops to get here... but I guess we all know the code just a tiny bit better, and things behave in a way that one would expect.
*BONUS*
My future 65 year old self will thank you again. ;)

AnityEx (AnityEx) awarded a token.Jun 2 2020, 4:57 AM

i sincerely appreciate this product, and Every single person who has but their time and knowledge into it, and I mean no disrespect with this comment. I simply felt that as a whole, blender had moved beyond this level.

I do not understand. This does not appear to be incorporated in 2.83 or the 2.9 beta. Are we expected to change and compile source code ourselves? It makes sense to add this feature as it is one of the most annoying parts of working in blender. it needs to be added as an editable value in preferences. I do not wish to zoom in the rest of my U.I. just to be able to select a border between windows, and that is after this 'patch'. I consider this a severe issue. Also, expecting an end user to change and compile source code for something that is now considered a product, not a project, just makes blender look bad.
Apologies for the rant, this just happened to be the last straw today when trying to get things done.

@H. Bean (Nomorecookies) You don't have to compile anything yourself. The post you've commented on is the review of a differential that is included in 2.90, 2.91 and the master branch since May 26, 2020. The beta build of 2.90 already includes this feature.

Thank you for clarifying that. I was rather flummoxed with several different issues i am having with blender at the time of writing that comment (such as blender alembic grooms not playing nicely with UE4 without tricks)
I swore I had changed the setting before. that is part of why i was so baffled that i could not find it now. (blinded by my own frustration)
So, at this point, i have changed the line width in the preferences. Sad to say, for my shaky mouse movements, that is still not big enough for ease.
If you would take another moment, perhaps you can tell me if i am missing another setting to control the active selection space of the borders.

Thank you again

@H. Bean (Nomorecookies) - i have changed the line width in the preferences. Sad to say, for my shaky mouse movements, that is still not big enough for ease.

Hi!

This patch is a fairly simple change and only widens the "hit area' between editors to make it easier to resize them. Prior to 2.90 the visible borders were wider than the actual space you had to hit with your mouse. For example at 1X scale and "auto" line size you would see a gap of 3 pixels but had to hit a single one. With the patch that space is now 5 pixels wide.

But it this isn't enough I would love more details about your settings, circumstances, and experience. What is UI scale, what is the line width, are you using a mouse or pen, etc

Howdy, thanks for the info and inquiry. I use 1.00 scale, and switch between mouse and pen. I switch between 6500 and 3250 mouse resolution at 1khz poll rate. although it is easier to accurately hit the trigger pixels with 3250, i prefer to keep the mouse at 6500 as i use 4 to 6 screens at any given time. also, my muscle memory is trained to the 6500 behavior. i am running 2.83 and 2.90 alpha (will be updating 2.9 shortly) but it honestly seems like even increasing the line width in the settings still leaves me with not enough of a selection space. really, i think i require around 8 to 10 pixel selection area and i suppose i was hoping for a literal 'select the pixel amount for line/selection area' setting

Thank you all, be well!

Well, it seems windows built in 'enhance pointer precision' was not playing nice with Blender. It seems that perhaps it was prioritizing focus to next window, instead of focus to border. turning off "enhance pointer precision" in control panel, mouse settings of windows 10 made a major difference for me. I even upped my mouse to 8200DPI to test, and i am still able to focus on the border with little effort, with that setting disabled.
Again, apologies for the earlier rant.

Thank you all, be well!

@H. Bean (Nomorecookies) - Well, it seems windows built in 'enhance pointer precision' was not playing nice with Blender....able to focus on the border with little effort, with that setting disabled.

Awesome!