I love the three-dimensional view, along with that gradient that goes from the main bubble to the bubble that is hovered over.
Thanks, it took a long time to get that gradient right. OCD at it's worst. And I'm still not 100% happy with the color but I have to wait to see it on real scenes now.
Just to clarify how this particular version is planned to operate.
The normal new control scheme will be that left click, right click, and mouse wheel all apply to whatever is held in the right hand. Holding the ctrl key will switch these to applying to whatever is in the left hand. Some things like the "build wand" are a two handed item. The wand is held in the right but it has an additional control switch in the left hand.
While the build wand is held in the right hand, the mouse wheel will change block variation (usually the rotation but for flowers it will be flower type, etc.).
Holding ctrl will open up the left-hand radial selector. This will allow you to navigate the block types tree with the left/right mouse buttons and the mouse wheel. Mouse wheel will roll through different selections. Left click will move forward in the tree and right click will move back in the tree.
The current design has the menu being no more than four levels deep at the lowest and that includes the material type level at the root. The material type level will have the most selections to scroll through but the other levels never have more than 5. Also, if you were down in the wedges of one material and "right click" back up to the material type level it will still remember where you were. If you switch to a different material and it has the same kind of shape then it will be preselected if you "forward, forward, forward". Also, I think if you let the menu close without forwarding down to the bottom then I will have it just automatically select that shape.
Here is one of my earlier quick-and-dirty mockups of the idea as I was trying to decide on spacing and stuff:
http://i.imgur.com/ODIGQTu.pngIt also shows how the next level might be indicated so it will be easy to see a leaf selection versus a category selection.