UX/UI suggestions for LTE

[Consue]

Since alot of work is being put into overhauling the look and feel of WM I thought I would post my suggestions here.

Most of these suggestions come from Substance designer, another node/based program for procedurally generating and modifying textures. You might find other examples in other node-based programs like Houdini.

Spacebar for node search- Basically you press the spacebar for a list of elementary/favorite nodes and a search bar to look up specific nodes, once selected the node plops in where the cursor is and automatically attaches itself to a wire if hovering over it. This makes node creation so much faster and more convenient, especially if your macro library becomes large.

This can also be modified/used to quickly swap the position of nodes, Ie if node A combes before B, to swap the positions you would have had to make 3 separate graph adjustments

Ctrl/alt/shift-click to move drag outputs and inputs- Basically, if you have one node feeding data to two other nodes and you want to change the feeding node, just click-drag the output of one node to the other. This makes rewiring easier, especially if nodes are far apart.

Ctrl-click to copy a link from one input to another- again this makes rewiring so much easier

X to swap input links

H to align nodes horizontally and V to align nodes vertically

D to dock and undock nodes, this makes one node, like a clamp stick/dock to the input of the following node without a wire in-between and makes it into a mini bar, moving the main node also moves the docked node. This helps cut down on the clutter of clamps/expanders ext before important nodes while still retaining full control.

I also have a few original suggestions

Auto rename based on settings- This is especially important for combiners, where you can simply change the combing type and the name of the node will change for you, that way you always know what it is doing without having to check every time. This could also apply to nodes taking on present names, that way you don’t have 20 advance perlin in your lists that you don’t know what they do.

Make certain wires thicker- this is so you can keep track what is your main chain, and what chains are modifiers.

[Stephen]

I like these!

Some of them are already planned for LTE. The quick-add/search feature in particular is highly requested!

An interesting idea of having some devices auto-name based on their settings. It’s certainly not applicable to all devices, but a few of the fundamental ones like Combiner would make sense. And it would even fit into the current system well, where if you assign a custom name it will show that, but in the absence of a name it would default to ‘Add (Combiner)’ or something similar.

[JakBB]

Great suggestions!
Another very useful feature would be copy/pasting while keeping the input wires, maybe by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+V, sort of like copying text with or without formatting.

[Stephen]

Hi JakBB,

If I understand your suggestion, this is already implemented! You can “Paste Settings” in World Machine with Ctrl-Shift-V. It copies settings from one device or set of types of device to another.

[JakBB]

Oh that’s near to know, but it’s not what I was suggesting, I want to be able to copy and paste devices and let them keep the same inputs from other not copied devices.

For example in this pic I copied the devices from the left side on the right, but have to manually plug all the inputs back together.
With my suggested feature the pasted devices would just keep all the input wires connected

[JakBB]

Another similar feature I’d really like to see implemented is a Randomize Selected, where you can select a number of devices and have the seeds of those devices be randomized (the dice roll), instead of having to go into each device manually.
Maybe also have the same feature for Groups

[Stephen]

Ah, I see now - “Copy attached” or something similar.

The randomize selected is a great idea - It hasn’t changed since the very beginning of WM and is usually too heavy-handed - you usually want to just change some of the world, not all of it. There’s no reason why that can’t be the default behavior in LTE.