Just for clarity, I don’t think it “needs” to be removed given the current state of the tree-view, but changing it to a tool-tip style popup in my mind still seems like a better way to display such information.
With all due respect, @chrisb, I think we’re pole-vaulting over mouse poop.
Take the stupid thing out and if users complain (a lot) put it back in.
Better yet, take the time to understand why a user wants it and make an even better feature.
The way to have a more efficient user interface isn’t to avoid making mistakes. It’s to iterate faster!! Try stuff. Learn something and move on.
User interface shouldn’t be about avoiding every possible criticism, it should be about trying out new ideas fast and throwing away the bad ones.
You may be right with the mouse poop, and I will not insist on keeping it, because I used these fields only very few times myself. But I have seen some models here, where it was used extensively, and seeing it I thought “wow, that’s a well documented project”, of course accompanied by the less comfortable feeling that I should do more with my own projects.
(These models where not about the field discussed here and I see no chance to find them.)
So let’s tackle it from the other side: We all know that well documented (bigger) projects are good projects. The questions arising are
- Should additional information be held in the FreeCAD file?
- If so, where should it be stored.
I have for myself a directory for each project, where I may have a README file with extended information, usually not per tree entry, but rather something like the math behind, printer settings, machine setups, where to by the wood, …
Finally it may be interesting, that there was recently a discussion about adding information to individual sketcher constraints.
I often thought about the use of Label2 and description and I have never realised that the are connected. 
I would have used it quite frequently if I only knew. I’ve had a look at the Tree view Wiki page and couldn’t find description of this connection. 
Instead of removing the Description column, I’d prefer to be able to edit Label2 directly in the Tree view, a menu entry “Description” under “Rename” at least. And a better visible documentation of the connection between Label2 and the Description column in the Wiki
Edit: Wiki is updated. Maybe Roy_043 likes to fine-tune… 
Not sure if fine-tuning is the correct term, but I have made an edit.
Tell me your secrets!?
Thanks! To me it seemed like the general description would fit the Labels & Attributes section but I wasn’t sure (or if it would be better placed in some other section).
you can edit the description in the tree view but it’s not very intuitive, you have to click on that field then press F2
That doesn’t work on my MacBook
Try using whatever is the normal shortcut for renaming something in macOS
As I said before, in NX and Creo a lot of additional useful information can be displayed in additional columns of the model tree… Maybe we don’t have as much use of it now as they have but we could in the future. For me the option of moving this to the tooltip for sure does not seem as the right solution, the basic idea of this is to have this additional information visible. But it would make sense to have the option hide it.
Once 0.21 is released, i think the tooltip idea should be implemented so it can be experienced and we can test it’s usefulness. If tooltips get shot down like 98% of any other new UI/UX suggestions, and if the existing option stays, it should be hidden by default, due to its obscure use.
As a side note, can we as a community try to be more open to experimenting with new concepts and proposals in the developmental versions? Always seems like a few key voices oppose any change that may cause them to adjust a workflow. Big or small, progress isn’t made without risk. This is what development cycles should be used for. Bad commits can be reverted.
Use Enter key. You can reach the field also by selecting the normal tree item and use the “Right” key.
Enter does the job, but the arrow to the right doesn’t (this seems to be the “wrong” key)
This!
And good ideas should be contributed to the Style Guide. If some of those ‘key voices’ really wanted to make a difference, they would help improve the style guide.
Where is this preference located in the ui? I found that it should be stored in
parameter:BaseApp/Preferences/TreeView/HideColumn but can’t find where it’s accessible. Is it intended to be only set by creating the pref manually?
Looks to be here:
+1, tooltip is a bad idea, tooltips are good only for practically never used info. If there woulde be more bodies, searching one with particular description would be painful. But i would suggest another thing - user definable amount of such columns. Personallly i’m sometimes using that description, and in my case it is very handy to see all entered values at once - i’m putting there typical part number/code (name is reserved for number or name of that object in this project). But it could be that column(s) is hidden by default and user can show it/them at wish - but not burried somewhere in preferences, but by (small) button nearby.
My Freecad won’t compile so I won’t be doing any pr for this until I fix that.
So it was unexpectedly easy to do :
https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/pull/9697
The PR is +4/-5 so maybe it can get in 0.21 chennes ? 