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 Holger on April 19, 2011 at 8:46am

I also think Andrews Suggestion of storable configurations was the most flexible approach!

Beginner/Expert-Modes have never convinced me as a concept. One has to use Expert-Mode anyway - because of the single essential tool which isn't available in the simplified GUI...

Scaleable Configurations (with more options the further the course progresses) will help Teachers and Students. But also normal users who in most cases also don't use the full set of Tools profit.

I'd be so happy if one could do such in Rhino too...Here I'd just like to hide all Commands and Editors from the GUI which have do do with Work I prefer doing in other packages. So the

desire for cleaning up has not only to do with Experience-Level...

A division between two predefined modes can't reflect such very personal preferences.

Maybe one thing I like a lot about Photoshop could get implemented?

Here users can hide menu arbitrary Menu-Items (here it had to be Ribbon-Items), when holding Ctrl however, all default entries are revealed.

This again could be helpful when teachers for instance have the same slim GUI-Configuration loaded as their Student and want to quickly have access to advanced methods for Bug-Tracking.

Could also nicely be used as a teaser to make curious for the next lecture:

"Next time we'll then look at this component which does all we had to do manually today automatically"...

Permalink Reply by Holger on April 19, 2011 at 8:56am

I forgot one Group which could get made happy by what Andrew proposed:

Those users who don't think that it is a good idea at all to simplify the GUI - they could leave things just as they are by Default.

And a clarifying addition to my first Reply: In Photoshop on can hold Ctrl while accessing a Menu to get back all default entries.

Permalink Reply by Vicente Soler on April 18, 2011 at 4:56pm

I personally don't like the expert toggle the guys in Finland added to Brazil and the render tabs (except for maybe the icon). I don't think this is a good idea. I remember Photoshop used to hide advanced functions in the menus, they don't anymore by default. I'm just guessing but maybe they realized it was a bad idea too.

I'd vote for a more hierarchical approach to simplfiying the GUI.

Permalink Reply by Holger on April 19, 2011 at 9:12am

Hi Vicente,

Adobe has just switched to a more intelligent mode. Now users can hide stuff which isn't relevant for their work.

Permalink Reply by Tuan N. Tran on April 18, 2011 at 5:12pm

In my teaching experience, it doesn't matter how slow I go. There will be students asking "Where did you get that component from?" Perhaps the Beginner mode is something like "Learning" mode. I wish for the ability to 2x click on the component while holding down Ctrl + Alt and have the component flashes or hi-lites for 2 seconds.

Permalink Reply by Tuan N. Tran on April 18, 2011 at 5:39pm

I should clarify that the component being clicked on is already on the canvas.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on April 19, 2011 at 5:10am

So you double-click on an object while holding some arcane combination of modifier keys and Grasshopper will draw a big arrow on the component tabs indicating where it came from?

Wouldn't it be better to draw the arrow while you're holding the mouse button down (and control and alt). That way you can keep it on screen for as long as you want.

If I need to switch Tabs in order to highlight the icon, should I switch back once the highlight arrow disappears, or should I stay in the current Tab?

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on April 19, 2011 at 5:27am

Why not have an option on the context menu "Locate Component" (or something similar) and take over control of the mouse from the user to navigate up to the Ribbon click the Tab and then proceed to Find the component

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on April 19, 2011 at 9:56am

Because it would add yet another entry to the menu for something most people would never use. If this feature is to help teachers explain where to find certain components, it makes the most sense to me to draw a big red cross on the screen after some arcane key+mouse incantation.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on April 19, 2011 at 10:47am

First working concept.