Actually there is a conflict between UI lenience and problem abstraction. In terms of design, there is the texture 'image' and the texture 'mapping'. Image is material independent state but mapping is not. Mapping does not make sense out of the context for which it is used -brushes, world mapping, material mapping, displace modifier, particles- that's why old blender 2.4x had a logical separation between the two. But in terms of UI lenience one usually wants to be able to tweak all the texture parameters, both image and mapping together. That's why the current blender UI does have some sense behind its design. The problem arises, in my opinion, from the fact that it's the same button that gives access to this varied functionality and this can be frustrating to the user. It's not only a problem of user interaction. The panel itself must change its context if, for example the user selects a texture brush from the excellent(in my opinion) new menu in the sculpt tools. So it follows that there is a 'hidden' context within context, which ends up to be cumbersome for both user and programmer, who must always remember to notify the very same context(texture panel) to change its sub-context, depending on the operation. BUT! remember that the mapping part is actually tied to the material/world/etc and that images can be fully controlled in the image editor. It follows that a possible solution might be to move all texture settings to their context(material, world, brush) with the disadvantage of more bloated menus in these contexts(It is already cumbersome to scroll through all material settings). No texture panel at all(Sort of like 2.4x or 2.5x in reverse)! Anyway, judging from the development of 2.5x so far, I think a more robust solution is called for. There have been quite a few bugs regarding the texture panel, which is to be expected under the circumstances. Furthermore, in view of the forthcoming node system for materials it may be wise to wait and see how textures fit in the new system(I hope better than in the old 2.4x system which was, in my opinion, a little obscure).
That's my 2 cents anyway! _______________________________________________ Bf-committers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
