Object Insertion Workflow Improvements [Live!]

Hey everyone, it’s me again… again. I’m just here to let you know that we have now released our improvements to the object insertion workflow for everyone.

The feedback we received on the first and second round of testing was incredible and we worked on making the changes needed to push this to all of you. Just because the beta testing period is over does not mean we are going to stop working on it. We still want your feedback!

Below, I have compacted a list of improvements we made:

  • Object insertion workflows now share the same UX. This should hopefully prevent absolute system shock if you ever try to change your workflow.
  • You can insert anything, anywhere. We made this for all of our heroes out there that still use Lighting to store things. Yes, we know who you are.
  • Frequently Used will show you the most used objects that belong in the selected parent. This list has a weighting system that will subtly re-weigh over time. When you don’t have an object selected, it will just display your Top 7 most inserted objects.
  • Expanded View is here! For everyone that wants more content for their screen space. (screenshot below)
  • Added two options for people that want to change the default experience. A dropdown arrow on the widget next to the search bar will show you two options. Recommended Objects is a toggle to hide or show objects that don’t belong in the selected parent. Select object after insert will… well, I think it’s self-explanatory. These options can be changed anytime through the dropdown on the widget.

Screenshot: Compact / Single Column View

Screenshot: Expanded / Multi-Column View

Screenshot: Options

Appendix
Once again, thank you to everyone for your feedback during the beta. I believe we iterated well and came out with a great solution. We are still looking for feedback! Please post below, as we will be reading this post and keeping an eye on it.

I just want to give a huge shout out to @PoshKiwi for single-handedly crushing this project. It was awesome!

139 Likes

There should be an #epic-announcements category for this anouncement.

Jokes aside, I’m so glad to see this feature go live! Its a great one for sure!
I really like the design, and the feel of the process for inserting instances, it feels natural.

The only thing this is missing (in my opinion) is a size dragger in the corner of the “Expanded View”
I would like to have just a little more control over how I see everything.

It also would be nice to not have to see headers for groups with no shown elements.
image

Also I noticed what I think is a bug? If you click and drag in the “Expanded View” it will move everything sideways, however there is never enough content to require this. Is this intended? If it is not intended I will make a bug report if one hasn’t been made yet!

Overall, this update is EPIC. Thanks @PoshKiwi, as well as anyone else who helped on this update!!

11 Likes

Is this gonna be added to advanced objects anytime soon?

4 Likes

Oh yeah, this is epic, thanks for giving us an awesome new feature! This is going to improve my developer experience! Thanks!

1 Like

This is going to be very useful, I like the addition of adding anything anywhere as it can make storing stuff a lot more easier, Not only in lighting for the people that use it but in other places too, like children of an object. The expanded view is also a nice touch because it allows me to look at everything at once and view the things I can use.

1 Like

This is fantastic! I can definitely see this being useful for developing games.

One thing I’d like to point out however, is that I feel like the “Scripting” section is disorganized. LocalScripts and ModuleScripts are at the near top, and Server Scripts are at the very bottom, and Bindables and Remotes are separated from each other, which, in my opinion, doesn’t really look right.

6 Likes

Small critique, but the highlighting when you mouse over the different elements seems a little unresponsive, as though it has to wait an extra frame to render the input of you hovering over things (If I had to guess at why, it’s either because of Rodux’s internal update throttling, or because tweens are being used for these highlights). Clicking and dragging the scroll bar also has the same issue, where it feels unresponsive to your input.

Recorded examples:

Watch how this follows my mouse. It doesn’t directly follow the Y position of my mouse, and seems to smear my input across multiple InputChanged events:

Example of highlighting being unresponsive (most noticeable above 30 FPS):

Also, the animations when you scroll up/down on the mouse wheel, where it bounces a bit when it hits the top/bottom, as well as the momentum it retains when you finish scrolling is cute, but ultimately it tries my patience. I have to wait for these animations to end before I can use the dialog at all. This slows down my workflow unnecessarily.

This dialog feels laggy and slow to use in general, as I have to wait for the animations and slow state updates before I know that I’m clicking on the right thing.

9 Likes

This was super helpful in beta. Glad to see it’s finally been released.

Is there any reason some classes (that is, RenderingTest) don’t have summaries, though? If it’s completely internal, I don’t know why it would be in the menu at all. It should have a summary saying it’s internal at least.
image

6 Likes

Overall a nice addition but there is a minor mistake in the description of Part as it is labeled to be a component of “ROBLOX” rather than the new branded name of “Roblox”

3 Likes

I love the new functionalities, but dislike the additional clicking.

Would it be possible to get a hybrid combination of the expanded view and the single column view (similar to the old one)? Like 1-3 columns based off of width?

image
Feels like there’s a lot of underutilized space here.

I’ll never open the expanded view because it’ll take too much time, and the single column is a bit too long to be as fast as the old way (minus the search option).

4 Likes

This is great, I have never seen something so small, but so productive! I think this will really increase the amount of management I have when needing to know where things are. Which I am not good at finding where they are.

This update is going to be great for my workflow, especially when I try to work with speed. If this is an action I could keybind, then that would be the most greatest thing ever! Just to [TAB] and just type away!

Can we have an option to enable Mouse Over pop up?

I’m more used to doing that, and while this feature is nice, needing to click the Button in the context menu isn’t the best, mainly due to muscle memory.

Thank you!

8 Likes

This just gave me some serious nostalgia

5 Likes

This makes me incredibly happy! I no longer have to search up mesh parts, and I now can just click on them. Kudos to @PoshKiwi!

This is a great update, but will there be an option that lets us simply hover over the insert objects button to open the menu?

9 Likes

I’m a bit divided on this change to the Advanced Objects Insert Object menu.

On the one hand, it’s nice to see that it’s been updated. The categorization of various elements does help when looking for specific objects with similar purposes.

On the other hand, forced smooth scrolling is not cool. The smooth scroll as part of the Insert Object menu doesn’t feel good. It feels sluggish. Not only that, the smooth scroll isn’t part of any other piece of the interface. This makes the Insert Object menu feel incredibly slow and frustrating to scroll through.
Another gripe I have with the new Insert Object menu is that in the old Advanced Objects menu, I didn’t need to scroll as much if I was looking for something. With how much padding this has now, in my workflow, I have a greatly reduced amount of objects I can look through. I’m forced to increase the size of the panel in order to really see what I’m looking at/for.

In short: It’s pretty much there, but please get rid of smooth scrolling and reduce the size of elements.

8 Likes

I mean I appreciate some of the new features but the new UI just feels awful to use.

  1. Smooth scrolling
    When I scroll I want to get to something RIGHT NOW, not have to wait for over a second for a scrolling animation to finish. This was a single mouse scroll;
    https://gyazo.com/076b15e80f649621a4bbc529d2c41c26
    Scrolling through normally as well is just so slow compared to everything else it feels awful to use:
    https://gyazo.com/2eed5012acc542c5a3733afee5388f0e

  2. Everythings 25% bigger than it should be
    Just compare how much space is wasted vs the explorer;
    image
    Wastes my time having to scroll through all the items, compounded by the second long scrolling animation. Even the scroll bar is wider than any other scroll bar in studio, which is strange considering its the same one as the toolbox just wider for whatever reason.

  3. No indication for when you have something selected
    Theres an indication for when you have hovered over something, but not when you have it selected. Its such a minor thing but you notice when it’s gone, espeically when you have to double click on everything anyway.

Since the options menu is already implemented these 2 options really need to get added to it;

  1. Smooth Scrolling - Toggle between the current scrolling system and normal instant scrolling like everything else in studio.
  2. Compact View - Make everything the same size as it was before, like the explorer.

I would also suggest an option to hide the headers, for making it even more compact, and an option to hide frequently used, as I find it quite jaring with new options currently poping in and out as I select different objects. Those last 2 could just be because I’m not used to the new UI yet but the smooth scrolling and compact view options have to get implemented.

11 Likes