Blurred preview in Password Protected Clusters

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on October 2, 2012 at 7:37am

Hi Jonathan,

it sounds like using the tooltip image to find problems in clusters is a terrible way to go about it. If you're ok with people seeing your cluster, why do you still want to add a password? Can you think of a more efficient way for your clients to find problems in clusters -the expense be damned-?

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David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Sheridan on October 2, 2012 at 10:17am

I advised a client to hang over a cluster in a defintion I have designed for them - to see where in the preview a fail in the chain of event occurs. i.e. Orange or Red component in the visual location - Only to descover that this nice preview is blurred in a password protected cluster...

Solution concept:

Maybe a fail could be illustrated in a list - a list that describes the component that fails and why they fail, in that list when one hovers over the cluster component, just as with preview. 

Initially I would like a list, just for annotation and development notes, to develop the design. In the future however I consider it could connect parameters using IF & THEN functions... updating iteratativley and fixing problems through generations of designs and modelling linking clusters in homogeny of the overall system.

NB/ a list like this could very easily reveal and allow access to a clusters design, however it will still maintain a control and quality system over its change and development. Protecting the DNA and RNA of the design and stoppin people in the design group tampering with that particular part of the definition - just as with a drawing release and control system. Obviously it would be turn-on-able for those that want to protect from people copying - however I think the functionality of a cluster is more than that.

p.s. its difficult to edit clusters, it would be better to allow explode cluster back out.

Also the cluster leaves a preview of the outputs. It would be more useful if it gave a preview of some chosen preview components in the cluster to illustrate whats going on in there too.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on October 2, 2012 at 2:25pm

Hi Jonathan,

I like the idea of automatically compiled performance reports for cluster. I don't like doing this in tooltips and on limited size bitmaps for three reasons:

• It exposes information about password protected clusters that doesn't necessarily need to be exposed.
• If the cluster is very large then feedback of limited size may not be enough.
• It makes is impossible to get information about nested clusters. What if the error happened in a cluster that was actually inside the cluster you're debugging?

I think I can see the glimmer of a solution, but it needs some more thought and quite a lot of work, meaning I can't get around to it very quickly as my schedule is hopelessly overloaded at the moment.

--

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Sheridan on October 23, 2012 at 2:26am

After deliberating on what clusters are, do and can become. I feel it could be useful to have more accessibility to clusters when designing with them in parallel - i.e. in ways that help to easily work with one another up and down the heirarchy.

Being able to control through a quick view panel for example - or alternativley a way to explode and re-cluster would be very useful for development of a design using cluster elements. I hope you can address this in the future as it will make designing defintions with clusters more appealing. Giving fluidity to the development stages.

p.s. congrats on your award. I hope and trust it is the tipping point for your involvement with the refinements of what will become a classic and legendry suite of software.