Question for Teachers/Instructors

This has come up a number of times, but I thought I'd ask one more time before I start typing.

Would it, or would it not, be useful to have a switch between Expert and Beginner modes in the Grasshopper UI? At the most basic level this would involve hiding freaky components from the Beginner mode, but I imagine that I could also hide items from popup menus and other UI elements.

As there are more and more components every release, being able to hide the geeky ones must be a relief for beginners. Or am I wrong?

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Arthur Mamou-Mani on October 3, 2011 at 6:37am

Hi David,

Sorry is this option available now?

About to give a class :S

many thanks,

Arthur

Permalink Reply by Stan Carroll on April 18, 2011 at 8:10pm

David,
If you are looking for ways to advance the beginners more quickly by having a beginner mode and an advanced mode, I would suggest investing in developing help menu further. For me this would go the furtherest for both simple components and also more advanced components if you developed a deeper discussion on each components help documentation. Many times I wrestle with syntax for quite a while on a component that is new to me. Examples are always helpful. Pre-identified links to the Discussion forum built right into the right click help menu would also be very cool. Many of the discussion forums threads are ready-made help topics.

Many of the help menu documentation has a good start but many others seem cryptic with excessive jargon. When the input is a specialized or is less main stream, it would be helpful to offer a way to generate the necessary input. For example, I recently tried to learn the Replace Branches component. The help menus indicated that the syntax for the mask was {0;0;1} but I did not know how to EASILY generate the proper data. It would have sped up my process if the help menu would have mentioned the Param Viewer component as a handy method of generating the branch mask.

If you are wanting to more quickly advance beginners (and intermediates and even experts) I would invest in a more comprehensive help documentation. I know this is probably less glamorous for the high powered code writer types but if the goal is teaching how to use the software faster, dumbing a concept down to the simple language and examples in a help menu is my preferred tool ...but only if the help is well written, comprehensive, and full of examples and at-length discussions.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on April 19, 2011 at 2:23am

I think that Stan is correct on this aspect of getting the Help Documentation furthered. As GH is nearing a completed product maybe McNeel could either loan you an employee or extend to you a budget to employ a dedicated Help/Tutorial writer to bring it up to scratch. This way you can still focus on getting the product itself in better shape.

What do you think Bob?

Edit: I would obviously put myself forward but have other commitments at the moment :)

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on April 19, 2011 at 5:11am

This is indeed my plan. I'm hoping to get someone in (at least part-time) to rewrite all help topics and supply examples for each component. This will also require a complete rewrite of the help-mechanism so it's a very long term project indeed.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Agnes Tan on April 19, 2011 at 8:49am

David,

I can use my time to help to rewrite but I have only simple examples.

Permalink Reply by Agnes Tan on April 18, 2011 at 8:13pm

why hide buttons? it might create a perception to new users that there are unavailable functions.

there is no need to spend time on this? currently students are happy exploring each unknown button.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on April 19, 2011 at 5:14am

It would be obvious that one is currently in Beginner mode just by looking at the window. I'd have to make sure of that. But if newcomers are not daunted by the avalanche of components, I guess this is a non-issue. Andrews suggestion holds the most water as far as I'm concerned so that will probably be my next point of focus.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Mateusz Zwierzycki on April 19, 2011 at 11:34am

I also think that hiding components would make such feeling. ( " Iam begginer, so dont bother with "expert" mode )... Expert mode usually contains advantages that are not essential - in GH 90% of all components are essential.

I would love to see GH in "pure" mode - no components which can be made simply with other components (such as - no a2 (square) and a3 (cubical) - only "a powered by n")

Permalink Reply by Martin Dembski on April 19, 2011 at 12:07am

Hi David

as teaching assistant I can say it would be more confusing to unable or hide some components for the beginners. I think it is a better way to see all of them and explore them step by step.

But one idea for a "beginner mode" would be thinking more about a help menu like it is in Rhino, so that you can switch on or off a sidebar in the grasshopper window which show you the help or things about the component which you have currently selected or draged into the window.

- the icon

- the name

- where you can find the component in the menu

- what does the input's and output's mean

- what function does the component have

In my teaching experience this are the most asked questions.

And this kind of help menu would be also better to explore the program by yourself when you are a beginner.

Or of course like some wrote before to have a widget which hi-light you by selecting one component in the window where it is in the canvas / menu but I think this is just a help for teachers / instructors so maybe this could be a "teaching mode".

Best,

Martin.

Permalink Reply by Dedackelzucht on April 19, 2011 at 1:05am

Hey David,

I agree with Martin. These are questions the students ask.

I got often asked for videos. Videos like they are in the F1 Rhino help menu. For example -CageEdit-

I know that would mean a lot of work. But you could show easily what happens if you move the slider, or put a funktion, or graft, or flatten, or....

And also difficult components like many of the math components (booleon) or the differences between the domain components could be explained (maybe) easier.

Best Regards

DeDackel

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on April 19, 2011 at 3:54am

Hi David,

As the Markov widget is compiling stats of what components we use next, do you want the data returned so you can glean some useful numbers about which components get used and in what industry?

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on April 19, 2011 at 5:17am

Hah, this very topic came up a few days ago with someone who is writing an online version of the GrasshopperExportHelp output. It might be interesting to collect a lot of markov data, though I'm not sure how to improve the product with it.

The really useful information would be to see which components fail the most (for debugging purposes) and which take the most time (for optimisation purposes).

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia