Foam - Configuring Bubbles

When you ctrl-click on a bubble in you open the Bubble Configuration Dialog. Here you can change all of the visual and functional aspects of a bubble. There are three main sections to the dialog, Action, which configures the function of the bubble, Appearance, which controls the visual properties of the bubble and Item which contains identification information.

Action

Each bubble performs a single action. There are several different types of action that correspond to different kinds of interaction with Blender. Each of these types has a button at the top of the Action section of the dialog. Below we briefly describe these options. They will be explained in more detail in their own pages.

Operator

The bubble will execute a Blender or Add-on operator. Blender provides most actions in its user interface as operators that can be called to make changes. Add-ons provide operators in the same way that Blender itself does so they can all take advantage of core services like undo and redo. Foam will make most of these native and add-on operators available here. This is the default action type for new bubbles.

Each operator has different parameters that affect its operation. When you select an operator the dialog will update to show these parameters.

Tool

The bubble will switch the current Blender Tool. Tools are specific modes of interaction, such as the default Box Select or the transformation tools like Rotate and Move. Blender has different tools for different modes. In most modes the available tools are listed in the tool palette (toggled with T). Sculpt mode brushes are also tools.

Setting

The bubble will display and change a Blender or Add-on setting. Settings come in various types. There are simple on-off settings like showing scene statistics or the 3D grid, enumeration settings like choosing a renderer, numeric settings like sculpt brush size.

Once you choose an action type the rest of the Action section will change to show any appropriate parameters for the action. We'll talk about this area below under separate headings for the different Actions.

Appearance

The middle section of the dialog deals with the appearance of bubbles.

Icon

You can now pick icons visually directly from the Bubble Configuration dialog. You can also let Foam find a default icon for many bubbles.

Automatic

If possible Foam will choose an icon. If no icon appears to the left of the button when Automatic is selected, Foam can't find an icon for the selected action.

Custom

choose an icon from the list or click on the icon box to select an icon. Alternatively you can use the Icon Picker) When you click on the icon box you will see a popup:

Type in the search box and hit enter to narrow the search. You can clear the search with the cancel button to the right of the search box.
Matching icons will show up in the grid below the search box. Click on one to select it and click OK to close the dialog and update the icon.
You can clear the icon and reset it to its default with this button.
If there are more matches than will fit on the grid you can select from multiple pages.

Click OK to confirm your selection or Cancel to revert to the previous icon.

Icon Path

in Edit Mode. When Custom is selected you will see the icon path and can change it. If you know the icon you want to use, choose it here. If you would rather search for an icon visually, click on the icon button to.

Make This The Default

(not pictured above). If you choose a custom icon that is different from the automatic choice you will see a button labelled "Make This The Default". Clicking this button will write the icon choice for this bubble along with any selected parameters to a configuration file so that Foam can use it as an Automatic choice in the future.

Item

At the bottom of the dialog are options that apply to the bubble itself rather than it's content or appearance. Here you can set three values:

Title

Enter text here to show as the bubble text. If you used Add To Foam to create the bubble the title should already be set to a reasonable default value. If the bubble is a setting with a numeric or enumeration value you can use the variable {value} to place the value in the bubble text. Depending on the value text the bubble title may wrap or may not all be visible. You can modify the text size and placement in --Appearance-- to make more text visible if necessary

Identifier

The identifier is an optional setting that marks the bubble for use by other parts of foam. For now this is only used by backgrounds to set template bubbles.

The value in this field will be used to create the tooltip for the bubble. A number of variables can be used to show data from the action in the tooltip. These variables vary depending on the type of action:

Variable	Actions	Description
{value}	Setting	The numeric value of a setting.
{python_name}	Operator	The python name of an operator - as shown in the last line of the default tooltip.
{doc}	All	The documentation string that Foam generates from the action.
{all_parameters}	Operator	A comma-separated list of parameters and their values. Note that only parameters that have been explicitly set for the bubble are included.
{parameter}	Operator	Each operator has its own set of parameters. If the bubble explicitly sets a parameter you can use its name here. The parameter names are not always obvious but you can use `{all_parameters}` to find them.
{path}	Setting	The location of the setting.