Change Details

Now that we are adding more pie menus, we could make some small but effective improvements to them. ==Wedge Highlighting First, the wedge could be highlighted as you rollover it, to make it clearer how big the area is, like so: {F4823725} ==Active Item Highlighting Currently, we have an indicator for activated options for pie menus, but it is so subtle that you almost can't see it: {F4847494} This is inactive: {F4847499} This is active: {F4847500} Even if you know it, you have to look very closely using a loupe to see the difference. We can make this vastly more clear, like so: {F4847537} The blue color is consistent with the way we display active elements in Blender. We can then distinguish between active and selected as demonstrated. == Holding, Then Releasing Key Should Always Dismiss Pie There's a slight quirk in the way we handle input: Normally, if you hold a key to invoke a pie menu and then let go, the pie menu is dismissed. This works if you move your cursor to an item, or to an empty area. But, if you don't move the cursor at all, this doesn't work. This makes the behaviour inconsistent, and makes the pies 'stick' in an annoying way if you regret opening one. == Number input While Pie is Active Currently, when a pie is open, users can use the number keys to activate commands inside them. However, the numbering order is scrambled. It doesn't follow the order of the actual items, which is left=1, right=2, top=3, bottom=4, and so on. As you can see here, there the first item is number 4, second is 6, third is 8, fourth is 2. You have to add 8 items to a pie to get it to show number 1: {F4847647} == Letter Input While Pie is Active While number input works reasonably well, in Blender we also use letters to invoke options in menus. For pies, letters work better, because the order makes less direct sense. There's nothing intuitive that says left=1, right=2, and so on. We should enable letter input to activate pie options. This way, user can press Z, S to activate Solid Mode. ==Glitches There's a bug which sometimes prevents some pie items of being highlighted correctly, making them not as reliable as they should be. ---- These three changes should make pie menus more delightful to use.

Now that we are adding more pie menus, we could make some small but effective improvements to them. ==Wedge Highlighting First, the wedge could be highlighted as you rollover it, to make it clearer how big the area is, like so: {F4823725} == Holding, Then Releasing Key Should Always Dismiss Pie There's a slight quirk in the way we handle input: Normally, if you hold a key to invoke a pie menu and then let go, the pie menu is dismissed. This works if you move your cursor to an item, or to an empty area. But, if you don't move the cursor at all, this doesn't work. This makes the behaviour inconsistent, and makes the pies 'stick' in an annoying way if you regret opening one. == Number input While Pie is Active Currently, when a pie is open, users can use the number keys to activate commands inside them. However, the numbering order is scrambled. It doesn't follow the order of the actual items, which is left=1, right=2, top=3, bottom=4, and so on. As you can see here, there the first item is number 4, second is 6, third is 8, fourth is 2. You have to add 8 items to a pie to get it to show number 1: {F4847647} == Letter Input While Pie is Active While number input works reasonably well, in Blender we also use letters to invoke options in menus. For pies, letters work better, because the order makes less direct sense. There's nothing intuitive that says left=1, right=2, and so on. We should enable letter input to activate pie options. This way, user can press Z, S to activate Solid Mode. ==Glitches There's a bug which sometimes prevents some pie items of being highlighted correctly, making them not as reliable as they should be. ---- These three changes should make pie menus more delightful to use.

Now that we are adding more pie menus, we could make some small but effective improvements to them. ==Wedge Highlighting First, the wedge could be highlighted as you rollover it, to make it clearer how big the area is, like so: {F4823725} ==Active Item Highlighting Currently, we have an indicator for activated options for pie menus, but it is so subtle that you almost can't see it: {F4847494} This is inactive: {F4847499} This is active: {F4847500} Even if you know it, you have to look very closely using a loupe to see the difference. We can make this vastly more clear, like so: {F4847537} The blue color is consistent with the way we display active elements in Blender. We can then distinguish between active and selected as demonstrated. == Holding, Then Releasing Key Should Always Dismiss Pie There's a slight quirk in the way we handle input: Normally, if you hold a key to invoke a pie menu and then let go, the pie menu is dismissed. This works if you move your cursor to an item, or to an empty area. But, if you don't move the cursor at all, this doesn't work. This makes the behaviour inconsistent, and makes the pies 'stick' in an annoying way if you regret opening one. == Number input While Pie is Active Currently, when a pie is open, users can use the number keys to activate commands inside them. However, the numbering order is scrambled. It doesn't follow the order of the actual items, which is left=1, right=2, top=3, bottom=4, and so on. As you can see here, there the first item is number 4, second is 6, third is 8, fourth is 2. You have to add 8 items to a pie to get it to show number 1: {F4847647} == Letter Input While Pie is Active While number input works reasonably well, in Blender we also use letters to invoke options in menus. For pies, letters work better, because the order makes less direct sense. There's nothing intuitive that says left=1, right=2, and so on. We should enable letter input to activate pie options. This way, user can press Z, S to activate Solid Mode. ==Glitches There's a bug which sometimes prevents some pie items of being highlighted correctly, making them not as reliable as they should be. ---- These three changes should make pie menus more delightful to use.