furti wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 6:14 am
I like the filter approach. But i dont think a "Filter: Core" makes much sense here. What is the point of having "Sketcher" in the list but not "Part" or "PartDesign"? I think this will confuse newcomers even more. Now you can draw 2D geometry but no way to create 3D geometry out of it.
Whose list are you talking about? I didn't mention Part but I would definitely say Draft, Part, and Sketcher should 100% be considered a core workbench. Part Design I'm not so sure, since although I'd like it to be "premiered" in this way, knowledge of how to use Part Design requires knowledge of Sketcher, so it's less foundational in that sense. Similarly for Tech Draw, since it is a consumer of something produced either in another workbench or another program, and for Path, as well.
vocx wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 6:31 pm
As yorik said in his previous comment, I think introducing these generic classifications isn't such an enormous task, as it would only affect the graphical user interface; the underlying operation of FreeCAD would be the same. It may not be a "silver bullet" and solve all problems of documentation and discoverability of tools, but I don't think it requires investing much effort, as you say.
I think a lot of these categorical classifications would be better as tooltips when mousing over a workbench in the workbench dropdown.
furti wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 7:45 pm
Why should a filter be aware of that? When the user has installed the flamingo tools and it is tagged as "arch" then it could be shown in the "Arch" filter. As easy as that. If it is not installed it is not shown in te list.
A filter can be aware of any classification it wants to discriminate on, why not? There's no way currently to see which workbench in the list is a 3rd party workbench, so I think it'd be useful enough to include as a default filter.
An Architecture and other purpose-built filter would also be good to include but if there's only 1 or 2 workbenches in it, it doesn't seem all that helpful to include by default, but if one wants it, it can be added dynamically. Otherwise we're just trading one long dropdown for another.
Another option, though, would be to add these filters but have them disabled in a preferences menu, with the known 3rd party workbenches for that filter being shown as missing and possibly installable. That would be nice, but probably better as a later feature.
sliptonic wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 7:16 pm
Now, if you want to gather real empirical data, you'll have my attention. Analyze forum posts, poll users, Do AB testing if you can figure out how. I don't care. Decisions made that way are almost always an improvement.
I think the vast majority of project decisions aren't made that way, and I think that's an excessive requirement for something which in its proposed form would mostly only double the width of the workbench toolbar by adding another dropdown and practically not affect people who aren't interested in it.
chrisb wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 6:32 pm
The set of workbenches in the dropdown can be customized. So we don't even need an additional filter, if we can provide additional help for different preselections.
I'm not sure I quite follow, but I would say: customizing requires you to know what you want, but this tool is not so much for those people, but for those who might know what they want with a little guidance.