Official: Proposed solution for the double-click conundrum.

Problem: with the indtroduction of Groups in FF4.0, the familiar behavior of double-click in the Filter Editor -- lock / unlock preview -- has been made inconsistent by the fact that double-clicking groups opens them instead of locking the preview. This inconsistency creates too much unnecessary rage, confusion and hatred, and thus the double-click behavior should be made consistent without resorting to half-measures (such as Options).

A solution we're looking for should make the double-click behavior consistent, and should take into account the fact that both behaviors -- lock preview and opening groups -- are equally good candidates to be put on double-click.

Here's what I propose:

1. Add a button to group properties that opens the group contents.

2. Add a clickable sub-area 'Open...' to all Groups. Double-clicking this sub-area opens the corresponding groups. The sub-area is highlighted when a cursor is hovered over it, even if the group under the cursor is not selected.

3. Double-clicking Groups outside the 'Open...' sub-area locks / unlocks preview, as with normal, non-Group components.

I've attached a picture for visual explanation.

So, what do you think? Will this work?

(We're also planning to add commands for opening groups and locking / unlocking the preview to the right-click menu of a component).

In Quartz Composer and several other programs dealing with macros / group nodes utilize doubleclick to open the node. Given that I think that subarea becoming double-clickable is exactly in the right direction (I think).

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Oh and while your at it, it would be awesome, if the back button of the mouse would take you back out of the group

Back button of the mouse? Sorry, but I'm confused. What mouse do you use, and where's the back button -- on the side? Which applications support the back behavior you're (probably) referring to?

BTW, we have a hotkey for backing out, Backspace (just like in Windows Explorer).

Sounds good! Why not just single-click "open" to open the group?

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Sounds good! Why not just single-click "open" to open the group?

Because accidental single-clicks in the sub-area would cause the group to open when you just wanted to select the group component, especially in zoomed-out view.

In Filter Forge, single-click always selects things (the only exception so far is the Don't Panic thingy), and I don't want to ruin or dilute that.

How about using [CTRL] + Double-Click for opening groups?

To me, the proposed button on the properties tab appears to be a rather inconvenient way to open groups (too many clicks and moving around the GUI). The button on the component itself seems slightly more convenient, but using some form of double-clicking would be most efficient IMHO.

Crapadilla wrote:

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How about using [CTRL] + Double-Click for opening groups?

+1
I prefer shortcuts aswell. (Maybe sometime in the future you could add user defined Shortcuts to preferences )

Additionally for those like Ray, a action button could be added, then all would be happy.

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To me, the proposed button on the properties tab appears to be a rather inconvenient way to open groups (too many clicks and moving around the GUI). The button on the component itself seems slightly more convenient, but using some form of double-clicking would be most efficient IMHO.

Dilla, we'll try adding all three solutions: the action button on the component itself, the Open button in Properties, and Ctrl+Doubleclick anywhere on the component.

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Maybe Ctrl+Doubleclick should also work for opening the Input Editor on Map Script and Curve Script components.

LOL, great minds think alike I thought about including an action button in all script components (yes, exactly, for consistency reasons), but I'm torn about the action.

On one hand, it should be bound to Input Editor, as you (and consistency reasons) suggest. On the other hand, the most frequent operation with script components is editing the script, but that ideally should be handled by remembering which tab is open per component (so when you leave a script component with a Script tab open, you'll see it open the next time you select it).

As for the right-click menu, that's where it all started We do plan to include such option, though in light of new action buttions it will be better to simply duplicate the action buttons in the right-click menu.

Those are really great ideas! I'm thinking using double clicking for both preview and opening groups could cause some mix ups because it would be two different actions on one component using double click.

How about a square lock button for previews in one of the corners of groups (and all previewable components for consistency) that could be single click? I don't know if it's true for anyone else but I don't tend to select a component by the corners or edges so that might be a good "safe zone" for a single click button.

In general, I'm always used to double clicking things to open them and something like previewing is done with a single click.

Anyway, which ever way you feel works best

Is there any solution for this on the horizon? Like, in the next beta stage, for example...

I planned this for v6.0, but not for the first betas. I'd like to take a stab at greenification first (and try to fix The Blend Bug https://www.filterforge.com/forum/read...&MID=97263 in the process).

As for usability in general, I think it's time for a big boring usability-improving release (preset reordering, location dropdown in Save Filter, drag-and-drop swapping / copying for color swatches, tooltips for filter controls, copy image to clipboard, component search, the double-click conundrum etc etc.)

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: As for usability in general, I think it's time for a big boring usability-improving release (preset reordering, location dropdown in Save Filter, drag-and-drop swapping / copying for color swatches, tooltips for filter controls, copy image to clipboard, component search, the double-click conundrum etc etc.)

I sincerely hope all these are still in the books for FF6, because that stuff would be awesome.

"Greenification" would be sweet of course, but given GMM's comments about the sample cache rewrite being more difficult than anticipated, I guess it probably won't make it into FF6.

[Off-topic]

LexArt,

the Sock Puppet Detector that I have installed in my secret lair insists that [LexArt = SpaceRay]. I'm currently in the process of debugging its pattern recognition algorithms, running and re-running checks to see if there's a malfunction. Can you confirm?