This may seem small but….

I notice that in houdini, when you pull an output wire off a node, then press tab and choose a node type to create and auto connect, you have to then specify where to drop the node.

Although I have gotten amazingly fast, is there a workflow that allows me to quickly string together nodes without having to specify where to drop them (i.e. press enter after picking a location?). I would love to be able to simply skip the last step of specifying where to drop the node, and simply have the node drop right where my mouse was when I pressed the tab button (or if right clicking on an output plug to pick a node, it simply locate itself a few units below the node)

Has anyone come up with node dropping workflows that I am not thinking about?

I thought that's what the “Place New Tiles Immediately” preference under the Network Editor preferences should be. But that seems to be broken. Please log a bug.

I submitted this on Sep 16, 2012: bug #51118 (:

I wish it worked because I would really love to skip the node placement step.

For all the most frequently used operators, I bypass the TAB menu altogether using hotkeys that immediately creates an instance at the current cursor location, and even wires if a node was selected.

I get about 60 hotkeys per context. For example for SOPs:

F - Fuse
G - Group
S - Switch
L - Line
V - VOPSOP
C - Copy
T - Transform
…

Saves me a great deal of time as creating nodes is one of the most frequently performed action in Houdini.

I really wish we see some enhancement in this area for H13.

Ah thank you for that info guys! In anticipation for the bug to get resolved, I will go the hotkey route. Thank you!