Fusion
Parameters dialog is bizarre. It is a dialog, but not a dialog. It is a window, but not a window.
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I have written several other posts about the parameters dialog. I call it a dialog because it is "modal" and has an Okay button.
I have already requested that the parameters window be made completely non modal. That was before I realized that it is a completely independent window that is not contrained to be located in the Fusion 360 application. I found that I can have F360 less than full screen and position the Parmaters window outside/next to the F360 window.
The parameters window is a strange combination of modal and non-modal at the moment.
A true modal dialog will not let you do anything else while it is open. But with the parameters window open I can do many things. I can change the visibility of items in the browser. I can change views. I can move bodies in the workspace. I am not going to try to create a complete list. But, this implies it is not modal.
I cannot right click on an item in the browser an open the context menu. I cannot edit with parameters open. There are many things I cannot do. This implies it is modal.
There is even a third case. With the parameters window open, if I drag the history timeline marker it moves, but the parameters window closes. At least it doesn't throw away changes that I have made with auto update off. It shows the apply parameters dialog.
When I ask myself "why is the parameters dialog not completely modal?" and "why would they design it that way?", I can arrive at a reasonable answer, or several. It is extremely helpful to be able to see the item that the parameter changes affect and see the effect while modifying the value as a way to quickly determine the exact value that you want. This is equivalent to showing changes previewed when a command dialog is open and its parameters are being changed.
When I ask myself "why not just leave parameters open all the time, so that it can be referenced while making design changes?", I only come to one conclusion which is that there is some case where keeping the parameters shown in the parameters dialog in sync with the parameters being modified in the workspace/command dialogs is a little bit difficult.
One might claim that with auto-complete you don't need to be able to see the parameters dialog while modifying the design. While auto-complete is great, I can think of many more cases that having the parameters being available would be of benefit.
So, I am going to make my case for the fully independent non-modal parameters window.
- Fusion 360 is already even driven so when a parameter changes in a command dialog having it change in the parameters window should not be hard.
- similarly the revers is true
- often I am creating a sketch and decide that I want to use a parameter for some value. I can use the ability to name the parameter in the entry field for the value. The problem with that is then it is a feature parameter and cannot be converted to a user parameter, or at least not without some effort and too many steps. Being able to just switch to the already open parameters window and create a user parameter and then back to the sketch and use it would be so much easier.
- There are times in a large design when using auto-complete doesn't work because you don't remember the name you are looking for.
- the case I just went through trying to track down an issue required me to open and close the parameters window about 50 times in ten minutes, because it is partly modal.
I am sure there are many other cases I could think of give some time, but I need to get back to working on my design.
Shifting to the non-modal window for parameters really would not take much in the way of visible changes.
- Change the Okay Button to Close.
