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Human factor and accidental deletion. Developers please take care

Community
#1

How many years have I been in the industry. And there is no end to this problem. Only more and more vicious consequences.

Accidentally deleting a subtool and not being able to undo this option is a very serious problem. Has this problem not yet been addressed?

Do the fundamental principles of ZBrush work so much conflict with the simple need to restore accidentally deleted so as not to lose 3-12 hours of work? It’s a matter of course in working with digital content, the ability to undo the last action.

This problem has played with new colors with the advent of the ability to add subtools to folders. You can congratulate me, but I will not be happy, today I wanted to delete the subtool, but since the folder was not opened, I accidentally deleted the ENTIRE folder with all the tools contained there. It happened TWICE. I understand that the program honestly gives a warning. But the human factor is a much more subtle matter than warnings. It should ALWAYS be possible to undo the last action while working with digital content.

The human factor does not correlate with warning windows, which slow down the workflow and are just annoying.

#2

I recently realized why working at ZBrush is so nerve-wracking. Precisely because of the unforgivably of mistakes. If in any other program you can cancel the deletion, then in Zibrash you seem to be walking through a minefield.

I imagine the face of a programmer if you tell him that he can do undo while typing code only on each line separately. And if he accidentally deletes a word, then the entire paragraph of code will be deleted! With no option to undo.

#3

Hello @Down_Limit

I understand it is always frustrating when you lose work. However, this is fundamental to the way ZBrush works, and not a bug to be corrected. ZBrush is a specialist program that works a specific way in order to allow it to do the things it can do. As a result it has to approach some things that you may think of as normal in other programs that can’t do what ZBrush does in more roundabout ways. Undo History is stored on a subtool by subtool basis, and not for the tool itself. In the case of deleting a subtool, there is no previous history state to return to.

This is why those actions come with the warning pop up, why the program can be set to autosave as frequently as you wish, and why creating an instant, non-destructive numbered save file at any time is as simple as pressing 9. But as you say, you cannot fully protect against human error. If you disable or don’t use the mechanisms in place to minimize lost work, obviously you are going to be more susceptible to errors.

If you’d like to make a suggestion or feature request for ZBrush, please do so at ZBrush Support, with the email your license is registered to. It is the only reliable way to ensure your feedback gets in the hands of the people that make development decisions for ZBrush. We do not employ the community Usage Questions forums for this purpose, and your request is likely to be missed.

This thread is off topic for the Usage Questions forums. I’m going to move it to the Community forum if you’d like to continue as a discussion thread.

Thank you for using ZBrush!

1 Like
#4

Thank you, for the link, Spyndel!

Please move the post into Community forum if it possible. Maybe this topic will be pushed by users and emphasize the importance of this problem.

The simplest solution that lies on the surface: when the user deletes a tool, it disappears from the interface, but it is not deleted, but placed in a some buffer space. When the user deletes another tool, the old tool is overwritten by the new deleted tool. the main idea is that the subtool is not permanently removed, but placed in a kind of limbo. The contents of the buffer are cleared if the user opens a new file or closes the software. The user only needs to be able to restore the last deleted tool. Is it really that much of an impossibility?

Yeah, I’m totally understand than if I delete a tool I delete all it’s history. And this is a reason of not possibly of undo deletion.

But this principle does not cancel the main argument - it is inconvenient and dangerous. It can be solved, it’s just amazing why it hasn’t been solved until now.

I am a supporter of the fact that work should be comfortable and bring only positive experience. The specialist must fight the creative challenge, not the software.

Thanks for the link btw, Spyndel. I newer use it before. Maybe it will be userfull