Changes

introduction

This page lists the problems with the current menu structure and proposes changes. There are some restrictions on the changes I would like to make. For example, the menu system and hotkeys are described and used in the Blender tutorial books and the manuals.

problems

The following is a list of remarks I composed after studying the menus in Blender:

hotkeys

The toolbox menu items do not show the actual hotkeys used to activate the items (e.g. "Ctrl+S" for press the Control key and the S key together). Instead, they show a cryptic key sequence (e.g. "c|s").

Case of hotkeys is not consistantly used in the menu items (e.g 's' and 'S' for the same S key). This can be confucing for users since they cannot infer whether only the 'S' key should be pressed or Shift and 'S' key when 'S' is listed as hotkey.

menu locations

Menu locations on the main menu bar and in the toolbox do not correspond.

menu item names

Names of items on the menu bar and in the toolbox do not correspond.

menu contents

Not all commands are present in the menu bar or in the toolbox.

Submenus are not implemented in the main menu system. This is necessary to allow the main menu and teh toolbox to be synchronized.

menu dynamics

The main menu bar currently does not allow a user to switch open a new menu once a menu on the menu bar has been opened. In general, menu bars allow users to click a menu on the menu bar and search for an item. When it is not found, the user can open another menu without clicking it.

New functionality

New menus and/or menu items should be added for new functionality.

Game menu

When starting the game engine from within Blender, it is not possible to pass parameters to the engine. Currently parameters can only be passed to the game engine by restarting Blender with new command line parameters. This is awkward and therefore a game menu should be added to set these parameters. This can be combined with a menu item to start the game because currently, the engine can only be started with the hotkey 'P'.

Help menu

Blender does not have a help menu commonly found in many applications on different platforms. The help menu should contain links to the help system, the Blender web site and an about box. A help system is currently not available in Blender but as a start a link to the Blender web site with tutorials could be provided.