Make the command to show a hidden item always make it visible.
Currently if I have a body in a component, nested in another component and I want to make it visible I have to start at the top and make all containing components visible from the top down and then make the bodies container visible and finally then and only then I can make the body that I want to see visible. This is extremely inefficient and slows down the flow of design. (I am constantly clicking on the eye, having nothing seem to change, and then remembering that I have to start at the top and click my way through the browser tree to make all parents visible.)
Fusion 360 designs can be very complex and require quickly accessing items in various locations. Some features that help are "find in window" and "find in browser". Being able to control visibility easily is just as important. From the browser there are context menu choices to "show all bodies", "show all components", "show all" and "show/hide".
The way they work is
- not obvious
- not ideal
They are always enabled, even when the currently selected item is contained by a hidden item.
They are truly enabled, and clicking on them changes the state of the selected item, even thought that change will not be visible until at some time later you change the state of all of the containing items in the hierarchy to make the change visible. This serves no real purpose and just allows changes that you cannot see.
It is good that the state of hidden items is retained. I might have multiple bodies in a component visible and when I hide the component the bodies are hidden, but I can show the component and see the same bodies. This is very useful.
Show/Hide is a toggle that works for the current item. In contrast show all bodies doesn't also hide all bodies. Why isn't it a toggle also.
In most software menu items are disabled when they are not available. It this case they are available and not disabled but you have no way to see what they are doing. Also, it is also common to change the menu item text when the related action changes. So "show/hide" would be show if the item is hidden and hide when it is visible. "Show/Hide" works, but "show/hide all components" would be a bit much.
Suggestions
1. Make "show/hide" (clicking the eye icon) propagate upward on show so that show actually make the item visible. Hide should just hide the item, and not propagate up, because that would requiring maintaining multiple visibility chains to put things back the way they were.
2. Consider making the other context menu items that show groups work as toggles.
(FYI, I have been a software engineer for quite some time and that both makes me notice this kind of issue and want to help make the software better.)
