I'm an old-timer who still likes to view some nodes as lists… shaders and rops for example.

Is there a way to re-order the nodes in list mode?

Also… it was convenient being able to rename the nodes in H8 while in list mode. Can't seem to do that in H9.

For re-ordering, RMB on the header cell at the top of the table list. You should get a submenu for Sorting in the popup menu.

I can rename nodes in the list Floyd. Perhaps it's a build problem, I'm using 9.0.768 at the moment.

Thanks guys.

Found I could re-order individual nodes using LMB when list order is set to “User Defined”. (Have to remember to try ALL the buttons when attempting to replicate H8 functions.)

Will try newer release for “renaming” nodes.

fgillis
Thanks guys.

Found I could re-order individual nodes using LMB when list order is set to “User Defined”. (Have to remember to try ALL the buttons when attempting to replicate H8 functions.)

Will try newer release for “renaming” nodes.

Renaming nodes in list mode is a little more difficult now. You have to be sure to click on the text and you have to make sure your double click is fairly slow. If the double click is too fast you'll enter the node.

Actually this is one of those really annoying things for me. Personally I'd like it if you had to double click on the icon to dive in(and I use list mode too!). Double click on the text should only allow you to edit it. At least as an option.

Cheers,

J.C.

Not to say it's necessarily “right”, but this behavior of two single clicks to rename vs. one double click to dive in is the same behavior that Windows explorer has (and I'm sure that many Linux file browsers have adopted this same convention). To be fair, I sometimes find it annoying in that context too. But at least the current behavior should be “familiar” to many.

Mark

mtucker
Not to say it's necessarily “right”, but this behavior of two single clicks to rename vs. one double click to dive in is the same behavior that Windows explorer has

Which is exactly why I always use F2 to rename things with Explorer.

(Sorry I just had to share that, I hate that feature in Windows too.)

Yes, please, if just for this, it would be *so* nice to do something that's actually *good*, than something that's “familiar but stupid”. I see no good reason to be mimicking behaviour for “familiarity”. That's only something you need as a beginner. Hmmm, wait, deja vu…:evil:

Besides, I take issue with the notion that a node of data in a 3D FX program has a single thing in common with a file browser on an OS! We might as well start coding in Java instead of Python if that were true.

J.C.

If the Windows Explorer behaviour is to be mimicked, then I expect F2 to allow me to rename a node. I'll hit F2 sometimes & wonder why the node's name is not highlighted. This works on Linux file browsers too.

Like Wolfwood said, renaming nodes in list mode is more difficult & annoying than it should be.

Cheers!
steven

Good idea. F2 is a good RFE for renaming.

…waiting for sarcasm emoticon….

J.C.

No need for the devil face Mr. Coldrick. As I said, I agree the current behavior isn't great (AKA it's very annoying). But in the absence of a better solution, the familiar solution is usually a good way to go. Not just because it is familiar and can be picked up by new users, but also because it has become familiar for a reason. In this case it is familiar because it is the solution that both MS and the Linux community decided was the best solution in the context of a file browser. I'm sorry to use the file browser metaphor again, but I can't count the number of times that I've heard Houdini's node hierarchy compared to a file system, so I don't see why we wouldn't want to apply some of the UI approaches developed in that domain to tackle similar problems in our UI.

Unfortunately we don't have a better solution right now. Wolfwood's suggestion of using the click position would be one approach to explore, though my personal opinion is that it would have its own serious problems (particularly when you have long node names). Maybe a separate little “rename” button could be added near the node icon, though that eats up real estate, which has been known to cause much yelling.

As for the F2 hotkey that has been mentioned, you can currently hit Enter to edit the selected node name. This hotkey can be found (and changed to F2) under “Generic Tree Controls”->“Edit” in the Hotkey Manager.

Mark

I'm curious why you see long file names in a list as a problem? You double click on that icon…done. You seriously see that as something that eats up more time than constantly accidentally not timing your double click “just right” in order to edit it?

I'm lost as to why this is even being discussed. Why do I click on text? To edit it. I'd love to meet someone that would be confused by that,especially someone that uses lists extensively.

J.C.

mtucker
Unfortunately we don't have a better solution right now. Wolfwood's suggestion of using the click position would be one approach to explore, though my personal opinion is that it would have its own serious problems (particularly when you have long node names).

As to long node names, I don't see that as a huge problem. I can easily fit 20 character node names in my list view and still have “non-text” space to click on. (Not to mention the actual icon and the area to the left of it.)

Besides, I see VERY long names as more of a special case. In these situations I would happily hit the “Enter” or “i” to dive inside the network.

I thought that diving in would be a more common operation than renaming, in which case making the “dive in” target be just the icon (due to a long node name) would make this kind of browsing rather challenging. But like I said this is just my opinion. If renaming is the more common operation, or long node names are rare, then my opinion is without merit and can be safely ignored.

Mark

mtucker
But like I said this is just my opinion. If renaming is the more common operation, or long node names are rare, then my opinion is without merit and can be safely ignored.

Indeed, hopefully we can get a good sampling of usage.

Me:
My main workflow is based around the Network View. However I use List Mode when I need to do a lot of renaming and adding/removing nodes from groups and bundles. My node names are rarely longer than 20 characters. They typically follow a scheme like XXX_YyyyYyyy_ZZZ
X are some prefix that define general purpose.
Y the actual name of what the thing is
Z some suffix that provides some further info or deviation.

Well for us its the complete opposite. A lot of our names are quite long due to the nature of the subject matter, but they follow roughly the same naming convention XX_YYYyyyetc_ZZZ just with a lot more need for Y's, we work almost exclusively in list mode because we have so many objects in each file.

Our workflow is to almost never to rename nodes, since all the names are predefined in a script and we use the list mode to navigate in and out of modelling mode all the time…

Having said that, personally I tend to select the node by hitting the text part then use enter to go down into modelling mode. To rename I would expect to just click again on the text just as you do in H8 which seems to work perfectly. Its also consistent with the take list etc. (unless that has changed in H9 too)