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Dials - was Wheel of Tools


dast

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[Edit - Note: this thread should be located in the "Programming - C++" section of the forums. It ended up in the "Python" section by accident during one of the forums reorganizing sessions]

 

 

While working on a plugin I got the idea of making this small utility: Wheel Of Tools.

It allows the user to set up a list of most used tools, which are presented as a circular palette to select from.

Available directly within the viewport.

Current state of the plugin is only a concept, and I am mostly focusing on the actual tool selection.

The part where user does set up the tools still needs to be worked out.

 

For those familiar with PolyGnome, you probably already understand where I will be heading to ...

Wheel Of Tools, once fully implemented, will be the base for a new way of interacting for the main part of the PolyGnome plugin.

 

 

Edit:

While many have seen in this plugin what they expected it to be, this is NOT a radial menu plugin.

It merely represents a list of tools in a circular way.

 

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9 minutes ago, Coldsteel said:

something i tried to do myself, nice and good work! 

Thanks.

I assumed I wasn't the first one to come up with this idea. But as far as I know, there hasn't been any plugin available which provides this functionality.

I am still wondering why this is?

To be honest. This idea had been in my mind for a long time now. It's only recently that I was able to implement it.

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Perfect job Daniel,

Could be implement option for "disable" plugin by pressing same shortcut as call/enable plugin?

(currently need to use/select some of tools in wheel. //or add "closing" icon into radial wheel as default for cases when plugin is called by user mistake/accidenatlly pressed shortcut)

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Spend quite some time to turn the concept plugin into a usable one.

It's always the little things that take the most time to do, so getting a release-ready plugin required many things to be polished-up from the concept version.

With that out of the way, I sat down and started designing the configuration part of the plugin.

I envisioned a full graphical, drag-n-drop user interface ... but as this would require some time to implement, I went instead for a very low level and less time consuming solution.

While not being a fancy nor state of the art configuration window, the user can now specify the tools to be made selectable.


I hope the configuration window is self explanatory, but if needed I will provide for a short tutorial video, showing how to set things up.

(in the meantime I did a short video ...)
 

 

Tested on R16 and R19 only, but I expect no issues with R17 nor R18.

While in theory every available (native) tool in Cinema 4D could be inserted in the Wheel of Tools, I have only tested some selection and modeling tools.


I might expand the functionality of this plugin in a later version (provide "double" wheels, extra "layers", options, presets, ...) for now I will leave it as is, and see what the general response will be.

And may even rename the plugin into "Toolbelt".

 

Earlier today, I had posted this message, and had provided a first beta.

While making the demonstration video above I realized the plugin had a major fault. As such, I removed the download as well as the whole post. It didn't make much sense to report anything without the actual (beta) plugin being available.

So, I took the time to fix some things, re-record a demonstration video, and upload the whole thing all over ... as beta 2:

 

(anyone having downloaded previous beta, do yourself a favour and throw it away ... download this one instead)
A "first" beta version (windows only for now):

 

<obsolete file removed>

 

On 6/24/2018 at 9:27 PM, bezo said:

Perfect job Daniel,

Could be implement option for "disable" plugin by pressing same shortcut as call/enable plugin?

(currently need to use/select some of tools in wheel. //or add "closing" icon into radial wheel as default for cases when plugin is called by user mistake/accidenatlly pressed shortcut)

 

Just press the "ESC" key.

 

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I have 2 suggestions, to what otherwise is an awesome tool.

 

1) shortcut key that brings it up, should also hide it upon a second press

 

2) sticky key functionality. 
ie, if i hold my key, "Caps lock" for example, it'll pop up while im holding the key, i hover over the tool i need, let go of caps lock and that tool gets selected. 

 

 

ooh and a bonus function
3) have a copy of the plugin, which just displays recent tools from this menu :

8lfMWvA.png

 

this shouldn't be part of the core plugin, since i'd want this on a different shortcut. 

 

 

Otherwise awesome plugin!

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4 hours ago, Vozzz said:

I have 2 suggestions, to what otherwise is an awesome tool.

 

1) shortcut key that brings it up, should also hide it upon a second press

2) sticky key functionality. 
ie, if i hold my key, "Caps lock" for example, it'll pop up while im holding the key, i hover over the tool i need, let go of caps lock and that tool gets selected. 

 

ooh and a bonus function
3) have a copy of the plugin, which just displays recent tools from this menu :

this shouldn't be part of the cor plugin, since i'd want this on a different shortcut. 

 

Otherwise awesome plugin!

 

Nice ideas! Thanks for suggesting them.

I very much like the bonus function actually. I don't recall the tool history to be available via the SDK. But then again, none of my plugins are simply making use of the SDK and are always based on some twisted ideas or design. So, I am looking forward to implement my own history.

 

As for 1) and 2), while these seem obvious and simple to implement, there are some side effects involved that might actually make it tricky.

But it's a challenge like another. A tricky sticky, and a woggle toggle ... let's see what we can come up with.

 

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As I expected, implementing the bonus function as a separate History Dial was a piece of cake.

The shortcut toggle and sticky key functionality on the other hand, not so.

Usually, when people talk about shortcuts its a single key shortcut they're visualizing, but with most keys already taken up by Cinema 4D's native tools, I looked further and wanted to support multi-key shortcuts. Cinema 4D allows shortcuts with up to 4 keys (+ shift/ctrl/etc, per key)

 

Unfortunately, while experimenting with shortcuts I encountered a problem with Cinema 4D, which has been confirmed to be a bug by the fine people of MAXON SDK support.

As such, I am currently skipping any further development related to shortcut toggle or sticky keys.

 

Latest version containing Wheel of Tools and History Dial (single plugin with two entries).

 

<obsolete file removed>

 

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Really cool Daniel!
I guess Mac support will follow at some point as I use Mac as well, but I can play with it on Windows for now.
It would be nice being able to change the radius of the wheel or even have two options: One auto - adapting to the amount of entries with a defined spacing by you - and a manual one, where the user can set it.  History dial, great add on! Same here regarding radius plus an option to set the number of tools would be cool. Esc for closing works of course, but I also like the idea to use the same short cut to escape the wheel. Could the wheels auto close when clicking anywhere than onto an icon? That would be fantastic.
Thanks!

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