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Feedback Editor UI changes

Discussion in '2021.2 Beta' started by hippocoder, Aug 2, 2021.

  1. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Really big quality of life changes come in subtle forms. Being able to press space to hide or show elements of the Scene view is mana from heaven for experienced and new Unity developers.

    It's not just a pretty or minimalistic face though. By bringing all the scene view controls under user control, they ALSO know where to go whenever they need to look for something relating to scene view.

    The muscle memory from this is already yielding productivity gains for me. I may be imagining it or not, but my stress is lower, I know where to go. I don't have so many things catching my eye that are nothing to do with my working context.

    Above all it's increased my confidence in working because I'm looking less at things I don't need to, and focusing more on what I do. And I can control that focus with just the space bar.

    Excellent design.
     
    sqallpl, Ruchir, cxode and 4 others like this.
  2. LeonhardP

    LeonhardP

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    Thanks a lot @hippocoder. I'll let the team know. The nice words are much appreciated!
     
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  3. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Can you also pass on having an option to show the menu while you hold space rather than it be sticky up there? the reason being is that it can be a bother to dismiss it if you are messing with it in play mode or in general are busy.

    For me I'd prob just hold space, rapidly do my stuff then rapidly do other stuff, though I appreciate for newcomers it should be sticky by default.
     
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  4. LeonhardP

    LeonhardP

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    Done!
     
    hippocoder and MousePods like this.
  5. gabrielw_unity

    gabrielw_unity

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    Thanks, this is great to hear! Exactly what we are going for :)
     
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  6. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Little bug: the classic particle system's dockable stuff doesn't go away once it turns up :)
     
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  7. Ruchir

    Ruchir

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    One more thing along side holding space bar would be to add an option to hide and un-hide all the overlays inside the space menu itself as many developers still don't know that they can do so using ` key. It would make the menu goto place for all things overlay related :)

    One more thing would be a way to provide overlay layouts as assets for AssetStore Devs.
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2021
  8. spacefrog

    spacefrog

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    Like the improvements too, though i have some beef with the two tool handle position and tool handle rotation buttons: now they open a drop down menu and we have to perform extra steps to change the current value.
    previously a click on the button itself cycled through the options
    Thats everything else but not quick and workflow keeping ....
    could we have the clickability back please on those ?
     
  9. gabrielw_unity

    gabrielw_unity

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    Ah-ha, we're ahead for once! :D Yes, there is now a visual toggle in the Overlay Menu, for exactly this.
    Also, the Overlay Configurations uses the same system as Layouts, so yup that can be saved to a file and shared with your asset store package/etc! :)

    Thanks. Yes, we know the options drop-down is a controversial change. However:
    1- The previous solution was very problematic for new users, a totally custom bit of UI that had to be known of and then trial-and-error learned.
    2- We needed a solution future-proof for more than just 2 options, as we're opening up the ability for anyone to add more options, getting parity with DCC apps (this is really exciting!).

    100% with you (and the others who have brought this up), the multi-click is painful ... as advanced users though, I feel we're better of making use of the shortcut keys for this (z and x, by default). Additionally, the ability to add things like "pick surface normal" for orientation, then saving and storing that to reuse as you work ... this will be a huge improvement, and requires this dropdown change.

    Hope that helps!
     
    Ruchir likes this.
  10. spacefrog

    spacefrog

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    Thanks for the response, but still not convinced:
    cycle through multiple options by clicking still would be possible and a great way to improve UX
    You already have that kind of button in the ui which provides a click-reacting region a splitter and the dropdown arrow
    For example the gizmo visiblity button or grid visibility button work this way
    The new user argument is questionable in my eyes too, the buttons now without the text are even more hidden and confusing . The symbols not really helping either without opening the drop downs

    Regarding the DCC argument ( I do have +20yrs 3ds Max experience BTW)
    I' ve the same beef with exactly those options and 3ds Max's UI too, and shortcuts don't - well - cut it, when you got more options ( 3ds max has ~10 in its pivot drop down alone ), you cant manage that with different shortcuts
    I wrote a script which cycles through my preferred options there ...
     
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