Designer: Clipboard History

[Vhwatgoes]

A clipboard history is a way of storing parts or groups of parts, such as a hallway or a whole assembly but conveniently accessible from a window.



It will use more memory, so there can be an option to limit how many clips you want to keep in your history, not counting favourites (the little star) which will stick around beyond the limit.

There can be a small display for how much data each would add to the design (uncompressed) and give you an idea of how much memory your clipboard history is using on your computer.

This might be an easy way to build interiors quickly, and alleviate some hurdles of the new designer. Pasting things from this would operate like the "Paste At" function.

The only challenges I see with implementing this is that people should be aware of their grid center when they copy something to their clipboard, and how you'd make the thumbnail.

I'm interested in what others would think of something like this, if they feel it may help create designs quicker and a bit more painlessly or not.

[AnrDaemon]

Just save your parts into files.

[Mr. Mortius]

Would it be possible to reduce ship memory cost by saving frequently used parts, then only referencing that one object instead of remembering the faces for every instance of it? All it would need is the basic model, then the x, y, z location and rotation of where to place it.

[Vhwatgoes]

Would it be possible to reduce ship memory cost by saving frequently used parts, then only referencing that one object instead of remembering the faces for every instance of it? All it would need is the basic model, then the x, y, z location and rotation of where to place it.

I think you might need a video memory limit. The polygons are still there, but if Haxus' concern is mainly server memory, then something like this would be nice.

Just save your parts into files.

The issue I have with that is, while it does almost the same thing, it feels very tedious. That is the hurdle i'm trying to get over, because just making something like a room is already tedious. 

Instead of:

1. Make your assembly.
   
2. Save as...
   
3. Make a folder/name it (just once) and Name the file.
   

and then to use it:

1. Save your design in progress.
   
2. Load the assembly (unloading the design in progress) from windows explorer.
   
3. Select all.
   
4. Copy.
   
5. Load your design in progress again.
   
6. Paste.
   

My suggestion would only need you to do:

1. Make your assembly.
   
2. Select it.
   
3. Copy.
   
4. Click the star if you want to keep it.
   

and to use it:

1. Click it to make it active in the clipboard.
   
2. Paste. 
   

I'm trying the shave off clicks of the process. Although some tedious parts to completing a room remain, like associating all the voids and paths to doors that still need to be cut. You can keep a set of different rooms you may want around your ship and not have to keep all those on different files or scattered around your designer to keep them on-hand.

Maybe not everyone would use it. It's a feature I would personally love to have which is why I presented the idea.

Thumbnails are another idea that can be separate from this, something that i'm not sure can be added to the preview in windows explorer, but would be super nice to have because I give random designs the worst names that make no sense.

[Deantwo]

Advise before has been to just start a second designer client and using that to copy from. But yes a "paste from file" would make it easier.

[Vectorus]

Mortius, I've been hoping something like that is possible. I think we had a brief discussion in the Discord? Ikkir thought it would be possible, but not exactly trivial for Haxus to implement. It would be a pretty big help when making large ships, though, where most of your file-size cost comes from repeated elements.

[AnrDaemon]

Options are
1. Start two designers. (easily done already)
2. Implement scratchpag in the designer, where you can load model for preview and later paste. (SODS anybody?)
3. Improve small forms handling in general. (I.e. paste from file.)