UI: Search All Menus with Space Bar #113299
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Reference: blender/blender#113299
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Delete Branch "Harley/blender:SpacebarSearch"
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Allow initiating the search of any named menu by pressing space bar.
This seems like a simpler, and less invasive, alternative to #112925 since this does not remove the use of accelerators.
This PR removes the menu option SEARCH_ON_KEY_PRESS and the SearchOnKeyPress MenuTypeFlag, allowing search for all named menus by pressing spacebar while the menu is open. By "named" I mean that the menu has a name, like "VIEW3D_MT_object_context_menu" for example. So this works on pulldown menus in the Top Bar and elsewhere, context menus, "Add" menus, etc. This also works in the File / Open Recent list if you press spacebar while that menu is open.
This shows "Press spacebar to search..." in the status bar, but otherwise there is no other indication of this feature. The thought is that this is likely to become known over time since it applies to all menus.
Note that this doesn't work for unnamed menus and those that are enum lists. So not from the Editor selection menu or Mode Menu. It works for "Frame Rate" but not for "File Format". It works great for the "Add Modifiers" menu.
I think for this to work, the search should take into consideration which menu is under the mouse (where the active item is), not which (sub-) menu is open.
Right now:
That means if I happened to mouse over an enum, I can't even use SPACEBAR (since anonymous menus are not supported):
Even worse is for menus that have mostly sub-menus (e.g., Geometry Nodes add). There I need to mouse the mouse to the "Title" of the menu in order to get search to search all sub-menus.
Requesting changes ...
@ -565,10 +564,6 @@ class NODE_MT_context_menu(Menu):
layout.separator()
layout.operator("node.find_node", text="Find...", icon='VIEWZOOM')
Any reason for removing this?
Find
is different thanSearch
.Search
adds new nodes whileFind
looks up the tree for matching node names (or custom labels even).To make the text in the status bar more prominent and at the same time consistent with the rest, the text could include the space bar icon and
Press to search in menu
or simply a description of the operator, likeSearch in Menu
.Maybe now is also a good time to add a help text mentioning accelerator keys?
Press the underlined key to trigger item
or something along those lines.It does exactly that now.
Sorry, I put that back in. I only removed it by misunderstanding your comment about "No menu entry to indicate/trigger search". This was the only existing thing I could find. I realize now you were talking of some of our proposals to add such items, not about existing items,
Unfortunately this type of status text can only contain text. The kind that shows icons is something that is generated from keymap data and we can't create that explicitly. Interestingly I did once propose being able to use our icons within ordinary text strings, but there was some limitations with it. https://archive.blender.org/developer/D8993
I didn't do this (yet), mainly because I couldn't think of text I liked there and wanted to update this PR. Some text I tried also seemed to give an impression that the second sentence relates to the first. Like there are two steps to searching:
"Press spacebar to search. Press underlined letters to activate items."
@blender-bot package
Package build started. Download here when ready.
I just made a small adjustment to this. Hard to explain in words, but simple in practice. The last change could be described as "search the parent if a child menu is open but not active". This PR now alters that to add an "or if the child is not searchable".
In a nutshell this menu searching feature works on menus that have names and therefore can be individually identified and found. Enum menus can't be individually searched, but their items can be seen when searching a parent. So when hovering over a child enum menu, search the parent.
In case I have not explained this well, in the earlier version of this PR you could open the 3D Viewport "Object" menu, then open "Set Origin". That submenu cannot be individually searched, so nothing would happen. With this PR now, pressing spacebar will search the parent menu and therefore you can still search for, and select from, the items on the submenu.
I think this is a good compromise, a bit inconsistent because from the user's point of view there's no visible difference between a menu like
Transform
and an enum likeSet Origin
orEditor
dropdown. But usable nonetheless for the time being and miles better than what we have in main.Thanks for working on it! From my side I think with this last commit this feature is ready to go.
Is there any concern that because the spacebar is a default hotkey for "play animation" - and relatively easy to even hit by accident, that a user is going to misplace their cursor when attempting to search? This can cause large problems, when dealing with frame-specific edits.
Why is the above concern about Spacebar being used for animation playback not being addressed? There’s nothing in this PR or on dev talk about how this shortcut interacts with that functionality, is this just an oversight? This needs to be addressed, ASAP.
Hiding the ubiquitous search function under spacebar instead of typing right away is horrible. Multiply this by 100s of times a day.
This change is still pretty confusing... we already have confused people reporting it like #113528 :/