Sandbox Tool improvement

[Rubat]

[t]http://i.imgur.com/GwvOxIO.jpg[/t]

I am making this thread to get some feedback on the changes that will be coming in the next Garry's Mod update for the default Sandbox tools.

The picture above represents the updated tool UI that will be available in the next update.
The reason for the UI changes is to improve the usefulness of the "Toolgun Help" UI to be actually helpful.
It now displays what key will do what action at what time.
It also uncovers a few previously hidden and a few brand new features in the tools.

Now, English is not my native language, so I have to ask for help from the community.
I ask you to look through the picture above and point out any weird or incorrect wording that the picture may have before those new lines are put onto the translation server.

I also would be grateful if you'd provide your feedback, if any, on the following changes to the default/vanilla tools.
If you have any suggestions/ideas for the default tools, like new functionality for existing tools, please do tell.

List of improvements/changes to the default tool set that are planned:
* Improved Inflator tool to scale adjacent bones properly - No longer scaling an arm or a leg scales the chest of a character, etc
* Muscle Tool - Fixed "Start On" not doing anything
* Improved Faceposer Tool - Now usable on prop_effect entities & other minor improvements and bug fixes
* Paint Tool got a new Reload action - Clear decals on selected entity
* Whitelist to model convars - this is to stop malicious players to bypass prop blacklists on servers. This may break duplications that use custom models however
* Many improvements to Spawnmenu UI to be less laggy, better scaling, ability to manually resize spawnmenu parts, etc
* Paint no longer applies the decals twice on client and it no longer plays the sound twice in multiplayer
* Inflator Tool should no longer spazz out on high latency servers

Possible new features:
* Infiltrator working on players
* Copy feature for Color & Material tools for the right click, move reset functionality to the Reload button for consistency with the rest of the tools - my concern is that people are probably too used to right click being the reset button for these tools

[man with hat]

Hydraulics

It says "Create an hydraulic controller". Should be "a" instead of "an".

Material

It says "Changing the material". Should say "Change the material of an object".

Remover

It says "Remove selected object and all constrained to it objects". It should say "Remove selected object and all objects constrained to it".

Hoverball

It says "Creates hoverball". Should be "Creates a hoverball".

No Collide

It says "Make an object have no collisions with anything but world". It should say "Make an object have no collisions with anything but the world".

Pulley

It says "Select a position for x anchor point". Should say "Select a position for the x anchor point".

Dynamite's description would sound a bit more natural if it read "Creates some dynamite".
Paint's description should be "with a fast fire rate" and "with a slow fire rate". Paint also says "Paint the world with decals". That sounds like some diabolical plan. "Apply decals to surfaces" would sound better and more natural.

[MysteryPancake]

With the Material tool, it says 'Reset the object's material', but for the Trails tool, it says 'Clear an objects trail'. I'm not quite sure whether you need a ' or not, but it seems odd to have one for one thing and not for another.

Also, "Select an object for Elastic" sounds a bit odd, you should probably put constraint at the end of that

[man with hat]

[QUOTE=MPan1;50720512]With the Material tool, it says 'Reset the object's material', but for the Trails tool, it says 'Clear an objects trail'. I'm not quite sure whether you need a ' or not, but it seems odd to have one for one thing and not for another.[/QUOTE]

Yeah it should have a ' since it's possessive.

[Oldrid]

Ye b'wise t'not miss out th'good ol' pirate lingo matey.

PS:
[QUOTE]Many improvements to Spawnmenu UI to be less laggy, better scaling, ability to manually resize spawnmenu parts, etc[/QUOTE]

please give an option to enable GMod 10's spawn menu

And about the color/material tool - A lot of builders use Colormater for their contraptions, which has the keybinds just as you plan them for the default tools there. So go right ahead, it'd be a good change. If there's autists complaining instead of getting used to that, leave them be.

[Rubat]

[QUOTE=Oldrid;50720543]please give an option to enable GMod 10's spawn menu[/QUOTE]

Go right ahead and put yourself into a corner, the current spawnmenu is superior to the old one in literally every way, but thanks a lot for the feedback!

[noruzenchi]

[QUOTE=Oldrid;50720543]And about the color/material tool - A lot of builders use Colormater for their contraptions, which has the keybinds just as you plan them for the default tools there. So go right ahead, it'd be a good change. If there's autists complaining instead of getting used to that, leave them be.[/QUOTE]

i was just gonna post this, but i'm more worried about colormater getting phased out since it's still able to select your own material (a feature removed so idiots don't use pp/copy or any other unlitgeneric)

[kaze4159]

I'm not sure if it was ever explained why it was removed, but is it possible to get Adv. Ballsocket back? Or at least merge the functionality of it back into the tool somehow

[Ott]

Where's leaf blower?

[Grocel]

[QUOTE=Robotboy655;50720474]
* Copy feature for Color & Material tools for the right click, move reset functionality to the Reload button for consistency with the rest of the tools - my concern is that people are probably too used to right click being the reset button for these tools[/QUOTE]

I think that is a missing feature and should be added. I don't like that you couldn't copy color/material.

Consistency also plays a huge part on usability and of getting used to something. Don't make things different just because of that.

They need to get used to it.

[Rubat]

[QUOTE=kaze4159;50720891]I'm not sure if it was ever explained why it was removed, but is it possible to get Adv. Ballsocket back? Or at least merge the functionality of it back into the tool somehow[/QUOTE]

The official reason provided by Garry a long time ago is "because it is a job for mods/addons". I am not currently looking for feedback on what tools should be (re)added.

[shadowscion]

I like the UI changes.

Can't say much about the 'tool improvements', as no one uses the tools you mentioned.

Would it be possible to get a [I]right click -> copy material path to clipboard[/I] in the material tool selection panel?

[Oldrid]

[QUOTE=unrezt;50721497]Would it be possible to get a [I]right click -> copy material path to clipboard[/I] in the material tool selection panel?[/QUOTE]

Looks like someone regrets giving his materials such long path names, eh? Completely agree though - Because of rather long paths of some materials, I made myself an E2 that pastes the material I apply to the chip in my chat. As nice they may look sometimes but if you work with more than one at a time or just have a terrible short term memory, typing out the paths kinda breaks the workflow.

If only E2 could smack stuff on the clipboard directly without any cores, extensions or stuff like that...

And Robot, you have a point on the spawn menu of GM13. It is superior to GM10's menu but not in literally every way. It's design is the problem.

[Rubat]

[QUOTE=Oldrid;50721987]And Robot, you have a point on the spawn menu of GM13. It is superior to GM10's menu but not in literally every way. It's design is the problem.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, you are right, this looks sooo much better than the current one.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Q2l7Asx.png[/img]

[c👌de_g🎷]

[QUOTE=Robotboy655;50722076]Yeah, you are right, this looks sooo much better than the current one.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Q2l7Asx.png[/img][/QUOTE]

I personally like the grey design more (except those prop icon backgrounds), however, most of that preference comes form my terrible eye sight and sensitivity to bright colors -- full white/light blue just irritates me after a while. It'd be nice to have that theme back as a GWEN skin or something, but it's not game breaking to not have it.

[karbine]

[QUOTE=Robotboy655;50721045]The official reason provided by Garry a long time ago is "because it is a job for mods/addons". I am not currently looking for feedback on what tools should be (re)added.[/QUOTE]

Adv ballsocket has always been a default tool. It's a constraint used by ragdolls to limit articulation of bones in default form.

[Oldrid]

[QUOTE=code_gs;50722170]sensitivity to bright colors -- full white/light blue just irritates me after a while[/QUOTE]

Same here, although I'm sensitive to pretty much anything bright, including sunlight (Yes, I also sleep in a coffin, I hate garlic and I double dare anyone of your throwing a holy cross at me.), so having it as an optional skin would be great.

Also, your sarcasm fails on me Robot, because I fully agree with you on that part of it looking so much better than the current one. It indeed does.

[zerf]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/28fNkVz.jpg[/img]

This should be made uniform

[Oldrid]

And while you're at it, could you please add a piece of code that removes the default Duplicator tool? Vanilla fetishists or not, that tool really is one of the worst inventions given how the GMod community has evolved.

[shadowscion]

[QUOTE=Oldrid;50723425]And while you're at it, could you please add a piece of code that removes the default Duplicator tool? Vanilla fetishists or not, that tool really is one of the worst inventions given how the GMod community has evolved.[/QUOTE]

just remove it yourself...

[Dan41550]

When is the next update

[JennyC6]

[QUOTE=Robotboy655;50722076]Yeah, you are right, this looks sooo much better than the current one.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Q2l7Asx.png[/img][/QUOTE]

I genuinely think it does, but then again I'm one of those nutsos that has the classic Win98 theme active on Windows 7 and loathes the bubbly modern design of pretty much every program written in the past ten years or so.

[lorde banana]

In all honesty I think that the old menu is better simply because it didn't melt my eyeballs and all of the colors complimented each other very well. Things were easier to read as a result. I also preferred the spawn lists at the top instead of the side.

Not to get us too off-topic. Just my 2 cents.

Adding "copy material" to the material tool would be wonderful, it's a bit silly to either have to memorize it or select it and enter "material_override" into the console and copy what it outputs.

[lavacano]

[QUOTE=Robotboy655;50722076]Yeah, you are right, this looks sooo much better than the current one.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Q2l7Asx.png[/img][/QUOTE]

If I could get that color scheme on the GM13 spawn menu (are we still on 13?), I'd be a pretty happy camper

Are user skins still a thing? They really should be.

[editline]16th July 2016[/editline]

also regarding the UI strings, which you were originally talking about:

you seem to switch between "select" and "click on" a lot, this might confuse people into thinking that selecting is a different action somehow

[LegendofRobbo]

[QUOTE=unrezt;50721497]I like the UI changes.

Can't say much about the 'tool improvements', as no one uses the tools you mentioned.

Would it be possible to get a [I]right click -> copy material path to clipboard[/I] in the material tool selection panel?[/QUOTE]

you can just look at the object in and type this into console (if your in singleplayer or the server allows lua):
lua_run_cl print(LocalPlayer():GetEyeTrace().HitTexture)

[editline]17th July 2016[/editline]

[QUOTE=Oldrid;50723425]And while you're at it, could you please add a piece of code that removes the default Duplicator tool? Vanilla fetishists or not, that tool really is one of the worst inventions given how the GMod community has evolved.[/QUOTE]

or better, add a convar for easy access like sv_allow_duplicator (if this exists already then disregard my post)

[editline]17th July 2016[/editline]

[QUOTE=Oldrid;50720543]
please give an option to enable GMod 10's spawn menu
[/QUOTE]

I'm with robotboy on this one, the layout of the old spawn menu was shit
the one and only thing it did better than the current one is the colour scheme

[Rubat]

You always could create your own skins.

[url]http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=4000&searchtext=vgui+skin&childpublishedfileid=0&browsesort=textsearch&section=readytouseitems&admin_view=0&requiredtags%5B%5D=Addon[/url]

(Albeit those aren't exactly good, they exist )

[QUOTE=legendofrobbo;50724870]you can just look at the object in and type this into console (if your in singleplayer or the server allows lua):
lua_run_cl print(LocalPlayer():GetEyeTrace().HitTexture)
[/QUOTE]

Try "mat_crosshair" console command.

[QUOTE=zerf;50722596][img]http://i.imgur.com/28fNkVz.jpg[/img]

This should be made uniform[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I did get rid of the "s" there.

[Oldrid]

[QUOTE=unrezt;50723494]just remove it yourself...[/QUOTE]

That doesn't really help driving off the crapload of kids from Sandbox in general, so the chance that more builders stick to the game increases. Sure, a large portion of the Sandbox community might go nuts but compared to the RP faction, they are way too few.

PS: Those skins are serverside and don't appear on a server they haven't been installed on, right? If that's the case, they don't have that much of a use

[#NaN]

[QUOTE=Oldrid;50725675]PS: Those skins are serverside and don't appear on a server they haven't been installed on, right? If that's the case, they don't have that much of a use[/QUOTE]

They should appear on every server that allows you to execute clientside Lua scripts (Sandbox servers commonly do).

[shadowscion]

[QUOTE=legendofrobbo;50724870]you can just look at the object in and type this into console (if your in singleplayer or the server allows lua):
lua_run_cl print(LocalPlayer():GetEyeTrace().HitTexture)[/QUOTE]

I'm aware, and that just means it would be easy to implement.

[QUOTE=Oldrid;50725675]That doesn't really help driving off the crapload of kids from Sandbox in general, so the chance that more builders stick to the game increases. Sure, a large portion of the Sandbox community might go nuts but compared to the RP faction, they are way too few.

PS: Those skins are serverside and don't appear on a server they haven't been installed on, right? If that's the case, they don't have that much of a use[/QUOTE]

You don't revive or save a gamemode by ridding it of kids and new players. Any decent build server will have the tool disabled, and the tool suits any other server just fine, so I don't really see what you're worried about.

[Oldrid]

[QUOTE=unrezt;50726144]Any decent build server will have the tool disabled, and the tool suits any other server just fine, so I don't really see what you're worried about.[/QUOTE]

Compared to you, I'm not playing GMod for that long to compare things to how they were back in the old days but within the two and a half years I'm playing now, I haven't seen one single server where the default duplicator was not used to blindly spam and then remove a lot of dupes every few seconds, which caused hell of server lags. Be it fireworks, wooden buildings, vehicles or whatever.

Any decent build server has the tool disabled and that's for a very good reason.

If you really think that access to workshop dupes mysteriously helps getting newcomers into building more easily, then at least have adv. dupe 2 being default.

But back on topic - Does anyone else notice the size of the trails icons scaling bigger and smaller all the time when selecting the trails tool?