We need a design for the editor/region where users will inspect their "node-tree" data.

• Needs inspection, not necessarily editing, but it would be nice to edit it.
• It could support non-node data as well. (e.g., to inspect a whole mesh).
• It should be able to inspect not only the end of the node-tree, but a snapshot of it (a socket or link).
• Instances are to be shown as instance- meaning, the user can use that editor to find which part of the tree is forcing the instances to be made real (e.g., by inspecting one socket at a time).

Note: There is already an experimental implementation, but it uses the outliner: D8637.

Design

It still needs a mockup.

This is a new editor that allows users to inspect the (geometry) data of the active object/node. It focus on showing one data set at a time, so there is no mixing of volume and mesh data, or even face and vertices data. It supports different filters, both to slice the spreadsheet table "horizontally" or "vertically".

Complete Specifications

Those are options based on the use case where we are looking only at geometry data. In the future this can also support multiple objects (e.g., to edit the power of different lights).

• Spreadsheet Editor - pinning supported
• Context Data - which data to show
  • Object - The active object fully evaluated (with all its modifiers).
  • Modifier - The active modifier of the active object.
  • Original object - The active object original data.
  • Node - The active node of the active modifier of the active object.
• Domain
  • Mesh → Vertex
  • Mesh → Edge
  • Mesh → Face
  • Mesh → Corner
  • Volume Grid → Voxels
  • Point Cloud → Points
  • Hair → Strand
• Vertical Filter
  • Attribute Names (bonus if it supports wildcards: MyAttri*)
  • Category (Built-in, User, Nodes)
  • Data-Type (Float, Vector) [not sure we need this]
• Horizontal Filter
  • Selected mesh
  • Attribute value (for instance a range)
  • Geometry Tag (e.g., vertex groups, but also eventually more limited boolean only tags T85369
• Decoration
  • Units
  • Color as floats
  • Vector as floats

Minimum Viable Product

What is the initial target to make this useful and master-ready:

• New Editor - "Spreadsheet".
• Read-only - no way to edit values.
• Only working for the active object fully evaluated - no active node, no active modifier.
• Only mesh data, only vertices
• Row filter: "(edit mesh) selected"
• Editor icon