New Custom Filter Features

Much has already been discussed regarding custom filters. See these related pages for background: Lookmarks vs. Custom Filters, Compound Filter Design, Compound Filters, Compound Proxies in SM, Compound Proxies - Copies or References. The issue at hand is how to incorporate certain features of lookmarks from ParaView 2 into custom filters in ParaView 3.

Feature: Save and edit the display properties of a custom filter's internal filters

Implementation:

- Add a page to the custom filter wizard that allows the user to pick and choose what display properties to expose for each internal filter

- Add a checkbox to the first page of the custom filter wizard which, when selected, will expose all properties of its internal filters

This sounds very similar to the "lookmark" checkbox we considered in earlier discussions. When you select it, it short of short circuits the dialog where you select what internal properties are exposed, since they are all exposed anyway. The difference may be that the "lookmark" checkbox is an all or nothing: you expose it all or you expose nothing. We could otherwise have checkmarks to expose only parts. My vote: just do a lookmark checkbox with all or nothing behavior. Things get sticky otherwise.

--Ken 15:40, 16 Jan 2007 (EST)

- When the custom filter is invoked, it appears in the pipeline browser with a "+" sign in front of it which when expanded will display its internal filters in the browser. Each of these filters will only make visible the parameters and display properties the user elected to expose.

- Expand custom filter state files to support displays as well

Feature: Save view-specific parameters like camera and time

Implementation:

- Multiple views complicates the UI implementation of this. Currently when a custom filter is created, it doesn't care what the current view is. Here's what I propose. in the first page of the custom filter wizard, add checkboxes "Save Time" and "Save Camera" as well as a mechanism for specifying which view's time and camera properties to use. One idea is have a small widget that's a snapshot of the data view(s) with a red outline box around the current view which you can change by clicking on a different one.

Just use the view that is currently selected (has a red box around it) when the user first asks to create the lookmark. That is consistent with how everything else is done in PV and saves the user from having to address yet another dialog box.

--Ken 15:40, 16 Jan 2007 (EST)

- Berk, is time going to be saved as part of a display?

Feature: Option to save reader(s) as part of a custom filter

Implementation:

- The decision to save the reader will be made at the time the custom filter or lookmark is created. Choosing whether to use the included reader or attach to an existing reader in the application leads to a whole bunch of confusing UI issues. And the gain we get from the addition of this feature seems very small.

Feature: Support multiple inputs and outputs for a custom filter

Implementation:

- UI issue of when a multi-input custom filter is invoked, how to prompt user for appropriate inputs.

- Need to wait for support of multiple output filters

Feature: Create a custom filter of a given view.

Description: Now that we are saving time and camera states which are view-specific, it makes sense to be able to do this. The idea is to save everything needed to recreate that view of the data. This corresponds with the original goal of lookmarks in ParaView 2.

Implementation:

- There is screen realestate next to the split screen buttons for a button that creates a custom filter

- Go through the pipeline and find the subset of readers/filters that are used in that view

- There would be no need to launch the custom filter wizard in this case, by default it would expose all properties, and save the time/camera for that view.

This sounds like a really good idea for a lot of reasons.

--Ken 15:40, 16 Jan 2007 (EST)

Feature: Provide an advanced option (maybe in the application settings) which, when set, displays a custom filter in a new view when one is invoked

I don't like this idea. It is a lot easier to just apply the custom filter or lookmark to the current view in the same manner that it is applied to the only view in PV 2. The problem with creating a new view is that it is completely ambiguous where the new view should go, and PV will pick the wrong one most of the time (assuming the user wanted a new view in the first place). If the user does want a new view, he simply makes the new view exactly where he wants it and applies the lookmark/filter. This nominally takes only one button click as opposed to several every time PV guesses wrong (which would be every time).

--Ken 15:40, 16 Jan 2007 (EST)

Right, I guess I wasn't thinking that where the new view would go would be that important to the user, so long as we followed a consistent procedure for deciding where to create it. The use case I was thinking of is where a user has many (say 20) custom filters that he wants to browse through and compare. Something that just occurred to me: has the group considered allowing the user to reorder views by dragging and dropping them?

--Eric 00:24, 17 Jan 2007 (EST)

Improved management of custom filters: Below are some extra features involving managing custom filters. Many are taken from the management of lookmarks in ParaView 2. These are meant more as suggestions than anything. And if we do decide to implement them, may need to be pushed off to the 3.2 release.

- Provide a preview of the internal pipeline of a custom filter (similar to the one in the Input Editor)

- For the case when a custom filter is created from a given view, save an image of that view with the filter

- Save custom filters automatically to a well defined path. Loaded automatically in a subsequent session.

It is my understanding that custom filters are saved as part of the GUI state (along with window geometry, client/server connection settings, and the like), and the custom filter manager allows you to import and export your custom filters as xml files. I don't tknow if that's a good way to do it or not.

--Ken 15:40, 16 Jan 2007 (EST)

When I create some custom filters, exit ParaView, and then launch it again, the CF icons that were once in the toolbar are no longer there. Should they be?

--Eric 00:24, 17 Jan 2007 (EST)

Sounds like a bug to me. Bring this up with the group. Whether or not custom filters are saved in current settings file or in their own file(s), the team has spent a lot of time figuring out where the "right" place to put configuration files is, so they will have valuable input either way.

--Ken 17:16, 17 Jan 2007 (EST)

- Ability to rename, reorder, annotate custom filters from the ui manager