[Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
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[Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
Hello,
Been waiting for a Link branch section for quite a while. Opening new bug/issue tickets for small improvements on GitHub felt a big excessive, it's nice that there's a place for such things now.
Now, I've been using pie menus since forever (~ year 2012? In Maya they were called Marking Menus as far as I remember), and every software that eventually gets this functionality, improves my workflow 5-fold.
Including FreeCAD Link! The existence of Pie-Menus is great, I'm currently trying to get as much functionality from them as possible. There are a few shortcomings though, some of them might be an easy fix (I keep saying that, but it's never the case)
1. Accessing the Pie Menu.
Currently a pie menu is accessing by 'clicking' a button. It's OK, but pie-menus should be gesture-based. Something that doesn't require too much thought. And gestures are usually performed when paired with an "Activate gestures" button. A button that you click-and-hold and perform a gesture.
So, for example, if the Q button opens a pie menu that changes the View of the viewport:
Currently:
Press and Depress Release Q button, perform 'gesture'. X amount of time passes. Something happens.
Should be:
Press (and hold) Q, perform 'gesture', Release Q. Something happens (immediately after release of Q).
From a UX standpoint, you want something to happen after your direct input (Moving your mouse is a very 'weak' input, as it isn't exact, it doesn't have a start or a finish, it doesn't "click").
Pushing a keyboard button (and holding), moving the mouse and releasing the button, subliminally, also feels like 1 action that you perform with both hands. Because it happens at the same time.
Whereas pushing and releasing a button with one hand, then performing a gesture with the other feels like 2 actions (requires some coordination)
The click-hold-move-release also used by (not limited to, but just the ones I'm aware of):
Blender
Maya
Fusion 360
(outside software)
MX Master
Doom Eternal (gestures are gestures!)(Also the only game I play )
Lastly, this type of gesturing allows second-level menus (which I don't think we're ready for yet) in the future, so it would be nice to start building muscle memory already.
I would like to continue this thread, if my suggested features are implemented. There are a lot of ways we can improve and make the Pie menu even more usable and intuitive! Once again, I cannot express my gratitude enough, simply for the fact itself, that the pie menus exist in this software already. These are just suggestions and they shouldn't be taken as something that "needs to be implemented, or else".
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Been waiting for a Link branch section for quite a while. Opening new bug/issue tickets for small improvements on GitHub felt a big excessive, it's nice that there's a place for such things now.
Now, I've been using pie menus since forever (~ year 2012? In Maya they were called Marking Menus as far as I remember), and every software that eventually gets this functionality, improves my workflow 5-fold.
Including FreeCAD Link! The existence of Pie-Menus is great, I'm currently trying to get as much functionality from them as possible. There are a few shortcomings though, some of them might be an easy fix (I keep saying that, but it's never the case)
1. Accessing the Pie Menu.
Currently a pie menu is accessing by 'clicking' a button. It's OK, but pie-menus should be gesture-based. Something that doesn't require too much thought. And gestures are usually performed when paired with an "Activate gestures" button. A button that you click-and-hold and perform a gesture.
So, for example, if the Q button opens a pie menu that changes the View of the viewport:
Currently:
Press and Depress Release Q button, perform 'gesture'. X amount of time passes. Something happens.
Should be:
Press (and hold) Q, perform 'gesture', Release Q. Something happens (immediately after release of Q).
From a UX standpoint, you want something to happen after your direct input (Moving your mouse is a very 'weak' input, as it isn't exact, it doesn't have a start or a finish, it doesn't "click").
Pushing a keyboard button (and holding), moving the mouse and releasing the button, subliminally, also feels like 1 action that you perform with both hands. Because it happens at the same time.
Whereas pushing and releasing a button with one hand, then performing a gesture with the other feels like 2 actions (requires some coordination)
The click-hold-move-release also used by (not limited to, but just the ones I'm aware of):
Blender
Maya
Fusion 360
(outside software)
MX Master
Doom Eternal (gestures are gestures!)(Also the only game I play )
Lastly, this type of gesturing allows second-level menus (which I don't think we're ready for yet) in the future, so it would be nice to start building muscle memory already.
I would like to continue this thread, if my suggested features are implemented. There are a lot of ways we can improve and make the Pie menu even more usable and intuitive! Once again, I cannot express my gratitude enough, simply for the fact itself, that the pie menus exist in this software already. These are just suggestions and they shouldn't be taken as something that "needs to be implemented, or else".
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Last edited by Petrikas on Tue Apr 19, 2022 4:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: [Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
If I understand it correctly at the moment I can assign a shortcut only to my own custom menus, but not to standard toolbar menus?
I have assigned Q as a shortcut to my own personal global menu- the behaviour is (at least for me) as follows:
press Q once - pie menu shows
click the mouse anywhere away from pie menu - pie menu disappears
so I don't understand this business of
"...Press and Depress Q button, perform 'gesture'. X amount of time passes. Something happens..."
this is not what happens when I try it?
BTW is it possible to have standard toolbars as pie menus?
I have assigned Q as a shortcut to my own personal global menu- the behaviour is (at least for me) as follows:
press Q once - pie menu shows
click the mouse anywhere away from pie menu - pie menu disappears
so I don't understand this business of
"...Press and Depress Q button, perform 'gesture'. X amount of time passes. Something happens..."
this is not what happens when I try it?
BTW is it possible to have standard toolbars as pie menus?
- adrianinsaval
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Re: [Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
press and depress refers to pressing and then letting go of the key, as opposed to the proposed behavior of holding the key to keep the pie menu open. the gesture is the movement of the mouse towards the desired pie menu item.
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Re: [Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
Ah! In English, press and depress mean the same thing - almost, depress means press downward. What you meant was press and release.adrianinsaval wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 8:01 pm press and depress refers to pressing and then letting go of the key
- adrianinsaval
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Re: [Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
yeah it looked weird to me when I read it but I figured from context that's what he meant.
Anyways, I think I agree that holding the key and performing the action on release would be a better behavior for consistency with other apps.
Anyways, I think I agree that holding the key and performing the action on release would be a better behavior for consistency with other apps.
Re: [Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
now you are making senseedwilliams16 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 3:42 pm ... In English, press and depress mean the same thing....
when I said press once = press and release
I don't use other apps, so have no pre-conceived ideas on how it should behave.adrianinsaval wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 3:58 pm ...I think I agree that holding the key and performing the action on release would be a better behavior for consistency with other apps.
I am just confused by all you guys talking about the same thing and meaning something different
so we have:
press once
press and release
holding the key and performing the action on release
'clicking' a button
my head is spinning
Re: [Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
Inflammable means flammable!?
Re: [Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
No - blame Latin for this particular confusion
- adrianinsaval
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Re: [Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
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Re: [Suggestion] Pie-Menu improvement(s)
Yes, but probably you have to not blame Latins for this, as probably is some late modifications, of language.
A little example in latin bird is "Avis" that became "avicellum" to mean "little bird" and in Italian it ìbecame "uccello" to indicate the class and the "normal sized" animal, very strange, but you have also "French" and Spanish, and Portuguese and Romanian (that derive some of his term from latin), (Plus many terms that migrates from Latin to English and German, only to say some most spoken languages).
So not every "latin sounding" word could be directly coupled with "classical latin".
An example "senior" and "junior" are latin terms for "older" and "younger" and here in Italy many pronunce them as an "english term" ignoring that they are "standard latin word".
Same for "nike" that is the greek term for "victory" and is pronunced "english like".
But this is clearly OT.
Sorry for bothering
Regards
Carlo D.
GitHub page: https://github.com/onekk/freecad-doc.
- In deep articles on FreeCAD.
- Learning how to model with scripting.
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Blog: https://okkmkblog.wordpress.com/
- In deep articles on FreeCAD.
- Learning how to model with scripting.
- Various other stuffs.
Blog: https://okkmkblog.wordpress.com/