lendres

This is already the case :)We have a huge number of types of profiles, which are used in a stack like fashion; user, quality_changes, quality, material, variant, definition_changes and definition. If a user changes a setting, it's put in the user container. If the user decides to make a profile, it's moved into the quality_changes (so "update profile" actually moves settings from user into quality_changes). For the UM3 we have quality profiles based on the material. So if someone changes the material from PLA to ABS, we switch out to another quality, but with the same type (so if it was normal pla, we switch to normal ABS). The quality_changes profile is tied to the type, so that remains in place. It is not the case. Perhaps I didn't explain it well enough to make clear what I meant. As an example, if you change the "Material" under the tab for an extruder, as far as I can tell, it does not change settings under "Material." It does not update the printing temperature, it does not update the filament diameter, et cetera. (It is used for color, cost, et cetera, sure, but materials are more than that.) Which is why you have to re-enter all the same information for each profile that uses this material. If I have a PLA-PVA profile and a PLA-PLA (say for multi colors) profile, then I have to enter the print temps, filament diameter, et cetera for PLA three times, even though it is the same exact information. If I find I need to change the retraction by a millimeter then I have to do it in 3 places. This is very different from pushing settings from "user" to "quality_changes" when "update profile" is pressed. That is just moving/copying a block of data from one place to another. I'm speaking of how those blocks of data are fundamentally organized. The "huge number of profiles," as you say, is exactly the problem. If how profiles are handled was re-thought, you could cut down the number of profiles, or at a minimum, make them a lot easier to manage by reducing the amount of duplication. I understand the how and why it got built this way, and I do appreciate the number of settings and their relationships make this difficult to design, but this problem is only going to get worse as more material types are developed, Cura features added, new print cores are developed, et cetera. I can put together a small demonstration if you are willing to review it.

Like @nallath said Manual Support is something that is difficult to create UX wise. Apart from that I don't think people want to do manual support. They have to do it because automatic support isn't up to par (and we still can't print in mid-air). I want us to have auto-support that is better than manual support. That might be very difficult to achieve, but I think that if we take small steps that constantly improve our auto support (like the gradual infill in 2.7), we will get there. with manual supports I found that I used it more for getting rid of unnecessary supports. this being supports that appear in a 3mm x 10mm screw hole. I tried to get rid of them in cura but I couldn't seem to find the setting that had any influence on it. I did try a lot of settings lol This would be a great improvement (and hopefully easier to do that full manual supports?). "Just" deleting supports where they aren't really required would be ideal for me (I have no desire to tediously generate manual supports). The concept of a perfect autogenerating support algorithm is great, but very difficult since everyone's idea of "perfect supports" will vary.

First, kudos on Cura, it is a powerful slicer and improves with every release. However, if I had one wish for an improvement it would be without a doubt the management of profiles. Perhaps I do not fully understand the intended way or workflow to use with profiles, but they seem to leave a lot of room for improvement. I supposed before the UM3 this was less of an issue, but with multi-material printers you have to have a different profile for every permutation of materials. For example, you have to have one profile for a material in extruder 1 and another if that same material is in extruder 2. The settings for the exact same material are now in 2 places. Now multiply that by every material and permutation and things get out of hand. If you need to tweak a parameter, you have to make sure you change it across all those profiles. I'd rather see the profiles updated to something similar to an object-oriented design practice where the materials stand on their own and are independent of the profile. Then in a profile, the material is assigned to an extruder slot (1/2). (Print cores and global parameters like build plate temp would also be separate and then assigned to an extruder slot (1/2) in the same way). In this way, profiles would be nothing but a top level container of the classes/groups. And if you changed a material property, it would be updated across all profiles because the profiles all reference the same thing.