[GUI] contextual Edit inspector without doubleclicking

[Stooovie]

Hi, I propose a UI option to always have the Edit panel open and change context by simply clicking the node (like the Sidebar is now). Right now, there's an unnecessary amount of doubleclicking and sliding animations.

Or am I missing something? Thanks!

[knolleary]

Hi @Stooovie

this has been discussed a few times over the years. The edit lifecycle we have doesn't easily support that model unfortunately.

When the dialog is opened a node is able to call a custom function to prepare the dialog's contents. Typically this involves building whatever custom UI the node uses as well as mapping its properties to the UI elements. For example, the Switch and Change nodes have to build their tables of rules. This can be a relatively expensive operation to do - particularly if there are lots of ui components in the dialog that need building. And likewise when it gets closed, another node-specific function is called to let the node map the UI contents back to its own properties as well as trigger any actions the node requires (such as sending HTTP requests to the runtime to update some node-specific state). A lot of behind-the-scenes work also happens when the dialog is closed to trigger revalidation and undo-history tracking etc.

If the edit dialog was always open, the editor would be constantly rebuilding its contents as the user clicked around the workspace. And there would no longer be a cue for when the 'save' action needs to take place to update the node's properties.

Now, all that said, I agree there is a lot of clicking around to do when editing nodes. But there isn't an easy option to address that.

Nick

[Stooovie]

Thanks for the detailed answer!