Dev:Ref/Release Notes/2.40/More Features

File Selector

Adding sort files in fileselect window by extensions.

Grouped a couple of buttons in aligned blocks and changed the color of mutually exclusive options to make them clearer.

The group of four buttons are the sorting method to use. Alphabetically, by extension, by time, and by size.

The group of two buttons the first is whether to show 'long info'. The second is whether to hide .file blocks in databrowse/pop menu. This is mainly useful for scripts that generate/load datablocks for their own use and don't want to bury the user under an avalanche of datablocks he/she doesn't care about.

This adds a user pref "Hide .data" which now acts as a default value when opening a new fileselector. It is also used when creating data select pop menus.

The "ghost" button in a fileselect window is independent from the userpref. It can be turned on/off individually without affecting the userpref.

When turning the option on/off, it sometimes takes a couple of times before the pop menu registers it. Probably some caching thing. Will have to look at it. Default value is Off.

Ctrl← and Ctrl→ ... jumps between special characters (/ - [ { } ] \ etc.)

compressed files

Compressed files are back!

http://wiki.blender.org/bin/view.pl/Blenderdev/Blendgz

Usage: set the option Compress File in the main File pulldown menu. This setting is a user-def, meaning it is not changed on reading files. If you want it default, save it with CtrlU.

The longest debate went over the file naming convention. Shaul started with .blend.gz files, which gave issues in Blender because of the code hanging out everywhere that detects blender files, and that appends the .blend extension if needed.

Daniel Dunbar proposed to just save it as .blend, and not bother users with such details. This is indeed the most elegant solution, with as only drawback that old Blender executables cannot read it. This drawback isn't very relevant at the moment, since we're heading towards a release that isn't upward compatible anyway... the recode going on on Meshes, Modfiers, Armatures, Poses, Actions, NLA already have upward compatibility issues. We might check - during the next month(s) - on a builtin system to warn users in the future when we change things that make a file risky to read in an older release.