Many thanks to Brecht for the review!
* You can now drag-resize uiLists (in default or grid layouts).
** Note about "default" size: when you drag below minimal size of the uiList, it will automatically reset to automatic sizing (i.e. size between rows and maxrows, depending on the number of items to show). This often means (e.g. in Materials list with many mat slots) that the list will grow again to maxrows!
* Grid uiLists now have a customizable number of columns (previously it was a fixed value of 9), and they will respect the rows/maxrows settings as well (i.e. show a scrollbar when needed), instead of growing indefinitly!
having to go to the main area for changing socket values.
This patch should be considered a temporary solution. The Active Node panel is a horrible mess and needs to be split up and cleaned. It should probably be moved to python as well.
When nodes are loaded from a .blend file they can potentially have undefined types. This can happen if a type has been deprecated and removed, or if node types were defined in a python script that has not been loaded correctly. Previously all such nodes would automatically be removed from a node tree, assuming that their types were deprecated and no longer in use (more commonly caused by loading new nodes in an older Blender version). Due to the possibility of dynamic registration it is no longer feasible to simply delete such nodes.
Display and handling of node trees was simply disabled before this patch, so that a node tree where any node or socket type was undefined would not be displayed at all. To give more information and avoid problems caused by necessary checks for the typeinfo pointer, there is now a 'Undefined' fallback type for trees, nodes and sockets. These types are used as placeholders in case the real type is not registered and can provide useful visual feedback on undefined nodes.
PyNodes opens up the node system in Blender to scripters and adds a number of UI-level improvements.
=== Dynamic node type registration ===
Node types can now be added at runtime, using the RNA registration mechanism from python. This enables addons such as render engines to create a complete user interface with nodes.
Examples of how such nodes can be defined can be found in my personal wiki docs atm [1] and as a script template in release/scripts/templates_py/custom_nodes.py [2].
=== Node group improvements ===
Each node editor now has a tree history of edited node groups, which allows opening and editing nested node groups. The node editor also supports pinning now, so that different spaces can be used to edit different node groups simultaneously. For more ramblings and rationale see (really old) blog post on code.blender.org [3].
The interface of node groups has been overhauled. Sockets of a node group are no longer displayed in columns on either side, but instead special input/output nodes are used to mirror group sockets inside a node tree. This solves the problem of long node lines in groups and allows more adaptable node layout. Internal sockets can be exposed from a group by either connecting to the extension sockets in input/output nodes (shown as empty circle) or by adding sockets from the node property bar in the "Interface" panel. Further details such as the socket name can also be changed there.
[1] http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Phonybone/Python_Nodes
[2] http://projects.blender.org/scm/viewvc.php/trunk/blender/release/scripts/templates_py/custom_nodes.py?view=markup&root=bf-blender
[3] http://code.blender.org/index.php/2012/01/improving-node-group-interface-editing/
With the view3d 'Render Only' option, grease pencil wouldn't draw, but for OpenGL render it did.
Since grease pencil can be very useful in opengl renders, enable grease pencil drawing with 'Render Only' option in the viewport,
and add a checkbox in the grease pencil header not to draw (unchecking each layer is annoying and applies to all spaces).
* Made the new custom theme options a bit better and more compact.
* Added a few separators to better distinguish these settings from the actual node buttons.
For an detailed user-level description of new features see the following blogpost:
http://code.blender.org/index.php/2012/05/node-editing-tweaks/
TL;DR:
* Frame node gets more usable bounding-box behavior
* Node resizing has helpful mouse cursor indicators and works on all borders
* Node selection/active colors are themeable independently
* Customizable background colors for nodes (useful for frames visual
distinction).
* Removed the struct_type identifier from sockets completely. Any specialization of socket types can be done by using separate collections in RNA and customized socket draw callbacks in node type. Sockets themselves are pure data inputs/outputs now. Possibly the sock->storage data could also be removed, but this will change anyway with id properties in custom nodes.
* Replaced the direct socket button draw calls by extra callbacks in node types. This allows nodes to draw sockets in specialized ways without referring to the additional struct_type identifier. Default is simply drawing the socket default_value button, only file output node overrides this atm.
* File output node slots now use a separate file sub-path in their storage data, instead of using the socket name. That way the path is an actual PROP_FILEPATH property and it works better with the UI list template (name property is local to the data struct).
* Node draw contexts for options on the node itself and detail buttons in the sidebar now have an extra context pointer "node" (uiLayoutSetContextPointer). This can be used to bind operator buttons to a specific node, instead of having to rely on the active/selected node(s) or making weak links via node name. Compare to modifiers and logic bricks, they use the same feature.
* Added another operator for reordering custom input slots in the file output node.
* Drag'n'drop translation in Outliner
* "Execute" button in file window
* "Labels" of spacing elements, in multi-column enums
* A glitch with nodes "Value to RGB", they where called "ColorRamp" in node_type_base() call. This is not definitive, though, as it appears that UI node names are determined by this call, while it should be by "defines" in rna_nodetrre_types.h, I guess... Anyway, not good to have such things in two different places!
Also moved default context name under BLF_translation.h, much better to have those all in one place, accessible from whole Blender code!
* Improved checks for Grease Pencil and Active Node panel, so the panel only gets shown when there is valid data, rather than showing the empty panel.
Thanks to Lukas Tönne for some help! :)
* Remove some non used *_button_register functions, panels are done in python.
* Remove do_node_region_buttons, was not used anymore.
Fix:
* Only show Grease Pencil panel in the Node editor, when there is a valid nodetree.
to be used by cycles. For testing there's a panel in the node editor if you set
debug to 777, didn't enable it because I'm not sure it's very useful there.
This branch adds mostly organizational improvements to the node system by renaming the node folders and files. A couple of internal features have been added too.
Detailed information can be found on the wiki page:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Phonybone/Particles2010
===== Situation before this patch =====
in the current situation inside the node editor there is a properties panel (press 'n'-key). This pabel displays some information about the node, backdrop and grease pencil. The UI of the property panel is typically vertical oriented. Nodes in the other hand are not oriented in a direction. Both area's are draw via the same draw function.
With some nodes this will create not user-friendly UI. Try the color-balance for instance). The 3 color circles are drawn next to each other, it would be better to draw them below each other.
When creating more complex nodes you don't want to display all handles in the node-panel and in the properties panel. For instance fine-tuning handles you only want to appear in the property panel to reduce place in the node itself.
===== Situation after this patch =====
This patch separates the draw functions of the property panel and the node panel.
When no special draw function is created for the property panel, the draw function of the node will be used as 'fallback'
===== Impact =====
==== BKE_node.h ====
add a new uifunc (called uifuncbut) to the bNodeType struct. The definition is the same as the uifunc.
==== node_buttons.c ====
if the uifuncbut is set, call it. currently calls the uifunc method
==== drawnode.c ====
static void node_composit_set_butfunc(bNodeType *ntype). set the uifuncbut function where needed. When at the end of the method uifuncbut is still empty, set uifuncbut to the uifunc.
===== Final note =====
! PS. this is not limited to the compositor it also works for Materials and Textures !
! PPS. For other branching creating their own node-tree. Please make sure that your uifuncbut is set NULL or a valid draw function !
C functions and python used different argument order, this relied on mapping non-keyword arguments to 'REQUIRED' arguments but meant that you could not have an optional, non-keyword argument.
next commit will make order of arguments consistant (currently only changed order that rna wrapped).
(commit 27674 and 27683 by Campbell from render25 branch)
Only source/blender/editors/ dir, should not give errors on different platforms
Only removing: UI_*.h, ED_*.h, WM_*.h, DNA_*.h, IMB_*.h, RNA_*.h, PIL_*.h
* Fixed a nasty bug which meant that it was impossible to set an active node. Was caused by ntreeCopyTree() getting called when compo updates were done and clearing the active flags. The active flag clearing is only really needed for the "internal_select" case which is only used for duplicating selected nodes (from Shift-D duplicate).
* Recoded click-selection code. Was a mess of old code, bad exceptions from the old code half ported, duplicate operators, unnecessary flags/modes.
* Fixed bug #19927: compositing node groups can't be access via "tab" or ungrouped via "alt+g". Was probably related to the active group not being able to be set.
* Made resizing nodes work again. Again, this was due to the active node bug.
* Made adding a new group with Ctrl-G correctly update the views
