Something that’s not uncommon is to double-click on an input port for a node in order to set a value.
If this Node is something that can accept images, and other types, then double-clicking does nothing at the moment.
Proposal: double-clicking a port that has no type set, would automatically set the type to Real, and show the input field.
Just a convenience feature, but I bet lots of new users don’t understand that they need to set the Type—it’s a rather ‘developer-y’ way of thinking, in order to assign some numbers.
I personally use image and text data types as often as real or integer so I would rather it not default to a specific type (Real) because I think I would be accidentally setting it to a data type I don’t want to set it to which would get frustrating.
What if instead double clicking brought up a short list of maybe your top favourited data types from the long list for easy access? Then it’s a feature that can fit the individual user rather than a specific style of composition. Maybe then, if you only have one type favourited, it can automatically choose that type without showing the short list?
Yeah why I understand new users could wonder what a generic type is, converting it automatically to real isn’t automatically the best solution I guess.
Because you then have to know you can re-convert it to another one of your desired type.
More like double-clicking opens the data type list to choose from, beside the right-click, that sounds like a good idea.
Or a selected list like Chris suggests.
This is a good opportunity to clean up that menu a bit. It’s so long, that often as I reach for Real in a diagonal path, it times out (or whatever that is).
The reason I’m setting these inputs, is so that I can just assign/type in some values. Usually Real, sometimes a String. Surely this is 95% of real world use?