somebody wrote:
> I partially buy that, but not the suggestion (often voiced by die hard
> Blender fans) that Blender's interface is optimized for 3D workflow and,
> say, that 3DSMax's is not.

I didn't mean to imply I thought that.  I have heard from professionals that 
while lots of cheaper programs can do 95% of what they need, none of them 
have the interface that makes the workflow easy.

Also, as programs get more complex and computers get more powerful, you 
sometimes have to break from the tried-and-true to support more stuff, like 
in that Office Ribbon design video I posted recently.

It's not really clear that the Blender coders did the kind of research 
outside their own little shop that would make for a better interface. It 
also means it can be a PITA for people who aren't doing production-level 
animation stuff. I dreaded even trying to do something big, knowing that if 
I needed to adjust something early in the flow to deal with a problem I 
encountered late in the flow, there was a whole bunch of manual stuff I'd 
have to redo from scratch.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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On 6-8-2009 22:59, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> Am I the only one that is percentage wise more often cursing Word than 
>> Blender that I can not find how to accomplish simple things?
> 
> How much help and training did you get on each one?  
none
> Did you go thru a 
> blender tutorial before trying to use it? 
some
> Did you go thru a Word 
> tutorial before trying to use it?
some

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4a7b44f3$1@news.povray.org...
> somebody wrote:

> > I partially buy that, but not the suggestion (often voiced by die hard
> > Blender fans) that Blender's interface is optimized for 3D workflow and,
> > say, that 3DSMax's is not.

> I didn't mean to imply I thought that.

I didn't mean to imply you did - that's why I said "some die hard Blender
fans".

> I have heard from professionals that
> while lots of cheaper programs can do 95% of what they need, none of them
> have the interface that makes the workflow easy.

Well, when the programmers actually get money for their work, they listen
(or are made to listen, by their bosses) to their users' wants and needs.

> Also, as programs get more complex and computers get more powerful, you
> sometimes have to break from the tried-and-true to support more stuff,
like
> in that Office Ribbon design video I posted recently.

I didn't get to watch it, but if I may make a blind statement, it's one
thing for a companies with large R&D and testing departments like MS and
Apple to invent and innovate UIs (although even they screw up badly from
time to time), it's another for a lone programmer to presume he can
singlehandedly build the ideal interface by going against all conventions
and standards. UI design is much more difficult than many programmers
believe and should seldom, if ever, be attempted from scratch.

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somebody wrote:
> UI design is much more difficult than many programmers
> believe and should seldom, if ever, be attempted from scratch.

I certainly agree. I was just pointing out that "tried and true" is not 
always best either, just like newtonian physics doesn't work for extreme 
speeds. One of the things the Ribbon video covers is that there were like 5 
menus with 18 total options in Word 1.0, and 30 menus with hundreds of 
options in Word 2003 (numbers approximate) at which point you need something 
new.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

Post a reply to this message

> I think it depends on the application. If you spend 8 hours a day in 
> blender

Imagine the horror! :-)

> (or photoshop, say), having an interface optimized for that work is 
> probably better.

Sorry, but I fail to see how a cludgy text-based 80's file open interface 
that doesn't even allow you to select network locations or change view 
settings is "more optimised" than the standard Windows file open dialog. 
It's surprising the number of times I use the "New Folder" and copy, paste, 
rename options within standard file open and save dialogs.  Why did they 
think it was necessary to stop the user doing this in Blender?

Or how pressing space instead of right button to open the menu (which then 
follows some weird non-standard behaviour, like the items changing order) is 
more optimised.  It's funny, I have used several pieces of professional 3D 
CAD software (which are used by tens of thousands of people for 8 hours a 
day) and yet none of them felt it necessary to reassign the standard Windows 
operations like left click to select, right click for menu, F1 for help, 
ctrl-left-click to multi-select or use their own file dialog boxes or menu 
systems in order to make their program "more optimised".

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scott wrote:
> Sorry, but I fail to see how a cludgy text-based 80's file open 
> interface that doesn't even allow you to select network locations or 
> change view settings is "more optimised" than the standard Windows file 
> open dialog.

I'm not defending Blender's UI. I'm simply saying that neither "each program 
has its best interface regardless of platform" nor "platform absolutely 
dictates form of the interface" is a good position to take. You have to look 
at the usage of the software.

I agree blender's UI sucks. I disagree that it sucks *because* it doesn't 
match the platform.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4a7c43f1$1@news.povray.org...
> scott wrote:

>> Sorry, but I fail to see how a cludgy text-based 80's file open interface 
>> that doesn't even allow you to select network locations or change view 
>> settings is "more optimised" than the standard Windows file open dialog.
>
> I'm not defending Blender's UI. I'm simply saying that neither "each 
> program has its best interface regardless of platform" nor "platform 
> absolutely dictates form of the interface" is a good position to take. You 
> have to look at the usage of the software.
>
> I agree blender's UI sucks. I disagree that it sucks *because* it doesn't 
> match the platform.

It sucks because it doesn't match *anything*, platform being the most 
obvious. Is there a usability argument to not using the platform file 
open/save dialog, for instance, like scott mentions? I doubt it. There are 
only laziness and arrogance arguments for such decisions.

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