PANE REARRANGEMENT INTERFACE SUGGESTION

GnotMe

PANE REARRANGEMENT SUGGESTION

Psychologist tell us, and our own experience corrobarates, that LOCATION IN SPACE is one the most important factors in our memory. Change the location and we make mistakes, and it may take a lot of time to relearn where things are after a re-arrangement, whether it be furniture, kitchen shelves, or a program interface. 

We waste time, and feel frustrated if forced to re-learn where things have moved, so it is wonderful that the DAZ Studio was designed to let us re-arrange all of the panes, but I and many others find it a difficult task.

The Docking Feature has always been confusing many, many versions ago, and I think it is still HORRIBLY CONFUSING.

Partly because although you may have in the distant past figured out how to do it, but it was long ago, and now you cannot remember it at all.. Partly because many helpful people's instructions are hard to follow since it is not easy to instruct (without a picture) without standard names for every piece of a pane, where to place your mouse pointer (the top grey area ?, the dark grey outline? the inner grey area bounded by the thin grey frame ?, the middle of the whole pane ?  the tab itself ?

What if you simply want don't want to add or remove but simply  re-position one of the panes?
What if none of the preset WorkSpace Layouts is even close to what you want and you want to start from scratch, rather than edit an existing Workspace Layout ? How do you creat a Pane Group where none exists?

Hereis my suggestion for how it should be designed:

1. There should be way to turn on a RED DOT in every pane , which would allow the pane to be dragged to where you wish it to go.  The REARRANGE PANES (RED DOT) MODE feature should be the FIRST ITEM available in the Panes Menu. It should Toggle the RED DOT on or off in every pane on the screen display.

2. Then when you let go of the RED DOT it should offer to snap into place above (if the top of the selected pane is above the one below, between (if the top of the dragged pane is between two other panes), and below (if dragged below a specific existing pane)

3. If you had DELETED every PANE GROUP because you wanted completely redo it all, there should be a dotted outline of the PANE GROUP AREA that appears when in REARRANGE PANE MODE so you can drop you panes in this region. This PANE GROUP AREA outline will disappear once the REARRANGE PANE mode is toggled off.

If you have had difficulty rearranging the panes, and you would like such a feature, and or have an better idea PLEASE  add your comments with a post.

Syrus_Dante

Hi,

yea I was thinking of this issue for a while now - the interface of a program is very important to work with it efficiently.

Foreword

I remember as I once started DazStudio for the first time - maybe it was version 4.5 and I saw the default interface layout I was wondering what all the toolbar icons are for and thought of - damn will I ever know what every single symbol stands for? Today I'm wiser and know most of it I will never use or there is some other way to reach and use this function.

After a while I realised that you can customize the interface - so the first thing I did was to switch the layout to "self service". What this exactly means - I found out just recently.

For the beginning I recomend you to clean up the interface and just concentrate on the most commonly used panes: Viewport - Parameters - Scene - Content Library - maybe Smart Content. Every other pane can be opened as needed with going to Main-Menu: Window>Panes (Tabs) and every Action / Function that the default Toolbars provide can also be found in the Main-Menu or the panes options sub-menus.

 

the Red Dot

Oh you thinking of a RED DOT - maybe you can win the Red Dot design award with that. Sorry for this joke I couldnt resist on that wordplay.

I know what you mean and I've seen this concept of maybe a dotted outline or an empty space to show you the areas where you can drag&drop Interface elements in edit interface mode in other programs. But in DazStudio you can work with the program regardless of - if the "Lock Docking/Undocking" in Enabeld or not - this is an advantage I think. If you drag panes around you should see a highlight line in the area you drag the pane over to create a new Pane Group.

As an alternative you can see that I have included the "Lock Docking/Undocking" Action in my Toolbar (called MyToolbar_Main). With this I can allways see the status and switch it to Enabled/Disabled.

This affects the ability of all panes at once to get draged&droped somewhere else in the interface. I think this is easier to understand than to have to switch the draging&docking ability for every single pane seperate.

 

My suggestion for the Workspace / Panes Layout

As you can see in my screenshot below I have 5 Pane Groups - maybe the Pane Group Nr. 4 is obsolete. But the concept behind this is that I am right handed so my Pane Groups are all on the right side. I wouldnt suggest you to have one Pane Group on the left and one on the right of the Viewport because then you have to move the mouse constantly from the left to the right and you have to remember - is the setting I'm searching for on the left or the right side.

 

Issues with Pane Groups and with the Timeline Pane

One issue with these three vertical Pane Groups Nr. 2, 3 & 4  I use is that - you can only have two opened at the same time - and you have to take care of the width of the groups - dont scale one too big in width or the other dosnt have enougth space. Otherwise it serves me quite well.

One other issue that I had and now its back is the placement of the Timeline pane. Hard enougth to understand how to dock a floating Pane or Pane Group back into the interface but if I try to dock the timline back to the bottom of the screen lately it gives me some trouble - like the timeline only docks in the bottom area of the Viewport Pane Group and I am no longer able to hide / retract it with left-click on the Pane title.

Also other people got issues with the timline docking at the bottom see this thread: How to dock the timeline at the bottom ?

Issues with the Pane Groups Scaling

While talking about panes - there is a main issue with that every pane needs a minimum of space to show its content - because it can not shrink further. But this will also affect the minimum space that is needed for all other panes in the same Pane Group.

This is why I no longer dock the Animation Plugins KeyMate & GraphMate in the same Pane Group like the Timeline. I mean its still big and there and it is awfull how much screen space gets wasted over and under the frames selection stripe - but with the plugins docked together it takes allmost one half of the screen. (Edit: I found a glitch to make it smaler in height - just set it to show in minimalistic mode go to Options Menu and uncheck Advanced View. Then resize it and check Advanced View again it stays in the height it was before with still all advanced inferface elements showing)

While this idea with the minimum space isnt that bad - you can get problems if you try to Dock such panes that need much space by default eg. the Shader Mixer in the same Group like the Viewport - eg. see this Thread Cut Off Viewport

 

Using my provided Layout

Download my Layout and do whatever it takes with it until it serves your needs.

This is including: Workspace / Panes Layout | The extended Main Menu | Various Tool Bars | Interface Color Style

1. To be save first make a BACKUP of your current Workspace Layout! Therefore go to Main-Menu: Window>Workspace>Save Layout As. Then enter a name and leave all other selections Actions, Menus and Toolbars at Custom. Next press Accept - Done. You can use "Select Layout" later and change back to the pevious state if anything goes wrong or you dont like my Layout.

2. To use my Layout you have to extract the content of the provided ZIP-File "DazStudio4-10_Syrus_MyCustomLayout_3" somewhere you can find.

3. Then open DazStudio and go to Main-Menu: Window>Workspace>Customize. Next press the Import Button - select the Interface File Type: Layouts and press OK.

4. Navigate to the location where you have extracted the content of the provided ZIP-File and select the file in the folder:

...\user layouts\DazStudio4-10_Syrus_MyCustomLayout_3.dsa

With this Layout I didnt provide any custom Actions this stands for Keyboard Shortcuts I think - so your Shourtcuts stays the same. Also the Interface Color Style dosnt get loaded with that - and I dont exactly know how to include it within this layout file because you cant import a Style.

But it is included with the ZIP-File in the folder "user styles" and called "Even-Darker_v4.dsa" you just have to copy it to the special folder

(Windows specific path) "C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\user styles" to select it in DS-Main-Menu: Window>Style>Select Style.

Download Link: DazStudio4-10_Syrus_MyCustomLayout_3.zip

I give no warranty that these configuration files will work - I dont even be shure if they can be imported to your DazStudio installation. Please give a comment if they do - dont bother me if they dont. Nor do I give any warranty that DazStudio will work buggy as usual with these files.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My thread for further information:

How to Customize Daz Studio - to speed up Workflow!?

DrNewcenstein

Meh. HDTVs with VGA ports are cheap enough. Get 2. One for the Render/Preview window and one for all the Panes. Set tabs across the tops and down the sides, lay out all the individual windows/panes you think you'll need.