[wish] less ambiguous connect-to context menu

I think the connect-to context menu has some usability issues (besides the fact that when you've got 100 animated tools it becomes a bit unwieldy...)

For example, I have connected a probe to the red input of a color control. I need to connect green and blue to the probe's other outputs as well, but the order of items in the context menu is making things difficult.

inverted_input_order.png (46.22 KiB) Viewed 2179 times

For one, it seems to be reversed. But it would be even better, if "Green" was some kind of default when I have opened the context menu by right-clicking on the green slider. Either it could be the first item (maybe separated by a line). Or you could click on "Probe1" to auto-connect all the red, green, blue inputs of the color control that aren't connected to anything yet. Or there could be something like in Nuke where the context menu opens in such a way that the most recent (or in this case the ideal - i.e. "Green" - menu item) is located automatically where the mouse cursor is.

Next thing: I've got this Fuse that has 4 color controls. Their IDs are all numbered (Red1, Green1, Blue1, Red2, Green2, ...) but the connect-to menu is ambiguous as you can see in this screenshot. The issue is made worse by the fact that the first "Blue" menu item isn't the first blue slider of my Fuse.

connect_to_ambiguous.png (116.1 KiB) Viewed 2179 times

Maybe the actual ID that will be connected to could be printed somewhere. I can understand that it's good to have just the input's label in that context menu. Maybe the actual ID could be printed in the status bar where the input names are displayed when you mouse over an input in the tool panel?

This is connected to another ambiguity: There's no way to find out which output a control is connected to because the context menu only contains "Remove <toolname>".

steady_or_unsteady.png (32.15 KiB) Viewed 2179 times

Without a text editor it's impossible to find out whether this transform is connected to Tracker1's steady or unsteady position. Or whether something is connected to a probe's red, green or blue output... Maybe this connection could be revealed in the status bar as well.

For one, it seems to be reversed.

To me, it looks more like alphabetical order. Not that that's very useful in these examples, just saying that's what it looks like.

<slaps head> you're right! what a coincidence that the logical order for rgba is just the reverse

Alphabetical makes sense when you have a large list of well-named entries, though. While I agree that matching things like "green"->"green" would make sense, when you have a lot of possible matches that include "green" I'm not sure how you would want that handled, especially since there's no user-recognizable order other than say, alphabetical. I like the idea for the most recently used, though.

Wasn't there something you could add to the Fuse inputs or outputs to group them together, so like when you modify a color or transform it does all 3 components? Like if you right click on a Red in a color group, you can modify with CoordTransform Position, and it sets RG and B all at once? I know I looked into this before...

Also, are you hosting SparseColor somewhere? I went to use it last week and couldn't find it.

Alphabetical makes sense when you have a large list of well-named entries, though. While I agree that matching things like "green"->"green" would make sense, when you have a lot of possible matches that include "green" I'm not sure how you would want that handled, especially since there's no user-recognizable order other than say, alphabetical. I like the idea for the most recently used, though.

Yeah, alphabetical is a good default. But any solution that makes connecting the other color sliders to the same modifier or tool faster would be welcome (or the Y and Z translate inputs after you have already connected Translate.X)

Wasn't there something you could add to the Fuse inputs or outputs to group them together, so like when you modify a color or transform it does all 3 components? Like if you right click on a Red in a color group, you can modify with CoordTransform Position, and it sets RG and B all at once? I know I looked into this before...

I think you needed API functions that aren't supported by Fuses but maybe someone from BMD can chime in on this...

Also, are you hosting SparseColor somewhere? I went to use it last week and couldn't find it.

It used to be deep inside Pieter's vfxpedia backup but here's its new official home on wesuckless.