Nick Pyner wrote:optional only please.
Of course optional, for now. It would shell shock too many to ditch it completely all at once. I personally would like ditch the menu now by way of adding the last few existing layer features and future advancements into the manager. Trying to put future improvements into the menu system is only going to slow things down, because new features would have to be buried under Scroll Fwrd buttons & More... buttons. Microsoft suffered from this same type of issue. Before they came out with the Ribbon toolbar the dedicated a lot of time into researching users trying to accomplish tasks. The users selected were considered to be proficient in the Microsoft Office Suite. They used eye tracking software and user surveys to ask them about what they needed or perceived they needed to complete the tasks. Approx. 80% of the feature / tool request from users already existed within the program, but were lost within the menu structure. Exposing commands over a greater graphical area helps. The ribbon is far from a perfect system, but the idea behind it has definitely increased my exposure to features with in the program and makes things more accessible. The menu structure has served very well for it's intended purpose, but was designed around 30 year old OS constraints. How many times do we right click in a day to get in and out of menus? Their has to be room for improvement and growth in every aspect of the program or eventually it will die. Maybe the answer is in expanding the current menu system or upgrading it somehow and make it more dynamically smart like the context toolbar? All I know is in it's present state, it is starting to limit program growth & speed.
Nick Pyner wrote:The layer menu is for routine operations, and the layer manager is for managing layers.
Hmmm, if you mean routine operations as in everyday tasks, I'd say this statement is incorrect since all the major commands are in the layer manager. If you mean as in the ability to program routines via the F#'s then I'd say that's correct and another reason why the menu as it exists should stick around awhile.
Nick Pyner wrote:There aren't that many of us running three screens and, if the manager replaced the menu, those with only two are likely to want DataCad to reorganise their screen layout every time they press the L key. Not likely to happen.
I only run two monitors, albeit widescreen, and layer manager is far from taking up to much space. The cost for a pair of widescreen monitors is far from restrictive, and should be at the top of any serious caders investment list.
REX PEET wrote:It is so easy now to have only one layer active (Alt-Q) or turn layers on or off (Alt-L).
No need for that to change.
REX PEET wrote:so that you need not endlessly ScrlFwrd to find a layer to on or off.
Layer manager can help alleviate that pain now. I can see 45 layers at a time vs. 15 from the menu, but adding the feature of having the layer list auto sort on layers to the top while switching GTV's still gets my vote for those who may work as you do.