are we going to talk about the modifier menu ? there’s no plan to get back the old and fully functional menu ? the new one is not practical at all
The old menu is unsustainable:
There is no way to add more modifiers (including user made ones) dynamically and the categories make little sense with those. When more and more modifiers are created and all the current ones get converted into geometry node trees, the old menu just can’t work.
Still, since there aren’t that many modifiers right now, and the current ones have not yet been converted to GN, maybe the change has been done too early?
Maybe it’s time to start porting the modifiers, which are possible, to GN already?
This can easily be done by the community.
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This is probably a language/term disconnect on my part, so I’ll ask this even though it will sound as if I’ve never used the application: are there any “user made modifiers” in blender at present?
Or is “user made modifiers” referring to a GN setup? (IE, a GN marked as an asset, or something like that.)
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I guess it’s about this:
Ok, so a “user made modifier” is a geonode preset. Thank you.
Not exactly sure exactly which geo node groups etc it puts in that Unassigned submenu, but yes user made “modifiers” are put in there. Also you see the Hair submenu which is Blenders built in hair geo nodes assets, and if you yourself make a geo node asset and put it in a named asset catalog (named Stuff for example) you will get a new submenu with that catalog name. Very handy!
And tbh for me those submenus have mad it easier for me to find what I’m looking for since before it was just a big menu of seemingly unsorted stuff, while now I have to think what kind of modifier I want, if it “Generete” something or if it “Deform” etc. Yes I know it was sorted before and you had those categories on top with the big menu as well, but personally I didn’t really notice the categories the same way I do now.
Do understand why people do prefer the old one though, but seeing that all the user added node trees will populate that menu more and more I don’t see any other way than having this new menu 
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I’m not a big fan of that menu item having the label “Unassigned”.
I understand what “unassigned” means in the context of asset browsing, but in the context of that menu - it seems a poor choice of grammar & terminology.
Exactly that.
Note that the Category doesn’t necessarily need to be called “Unassigned”, as the user can categorize their own made modifiers. For example, blender comes with the “Hair” category. These are also GN trees, that are marked as assets, but placed in the “Hair” category. The user can place their GN trees in any existing category, and/or create their own.
Right, I was just making sure we’re all on the same page here for vernacular.
When I read “modifier”, I think “hook” or “displace” or "mesh cache’. IE, modifiers that are coded into the core and cannot be “made” by the user.
All geonodes are modifiers, but not all modifiers are user-made, nor are all modifiers geonodes. So, there was was a terminology disconnect that I need to clarify.
Note that all of those will be ported to GN in the future.
I just call “Modifier” anything that goes into the modifier stack.
A GN node tree can be a “Modifier”, a “Tool”, or both.
it is explained well here why it s Unassigned
check it out
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx86X7XeLsN7IV7ldDvFRzZRl5QKl3Ctwh?si=hYDP6nJWGyC8nGx1
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Yes, I’ve been reading that line for the past several months.
But in fact none of them have been ported, except by users who have created them for their own use. The application installs no basic"starter" geometry node modifiers at all, with the exception of hair.
So it’s a bit like knocking a hole in the side of my house, and telling me that sometime in the next five years you’re going to add another room… In the meantime, just enjoy the very large open window.
If the plan in the very near future is for that situation to change, and for that menu to be populated with some basic default geometry nodes, that’s pretty freaking awesome and I’m glad to hear it.
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Most of them can’t be rebuilt at the moment. Even, for example, the Array modifier, as there is no support for subpanels with checkboxes for nodegroups, for example.
Not to mention, that the patch to make subpanels work on modifiers hasn’t been merged to trunk yet.
Also, many of the modifiers would have to be their own hard-coded nodes. Like the multiresolution modifier…
Stuff takes time.
Anyway, we could open a post to create and gather community-made GN assets for general use, just like there is one for mesh assets (Human models). Since they don’t take up any space, a lot of them can come packedged with blender, just like the hair ones are…
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Completely agree that stuff takes time. I’m simply pointing out that laying the foundation, for features that don’t quite exist, creates an odd UX situation.
So my goal in this is just to be sure that such UX things are discussed, and thought out logically. (I’m not saying that automatically means that someone is right and someone else is wrong.)
As to users contributing geonodes, in a manner as the base meshes is being done - I’m completely in favor of this, and have some on my desktop that I would immediately upload. I’m absolutely confident that many people here would have even better node setups than what I could contribute (for the same goal)… But in either case, that would be better than what is currently offered to the users - which is not much at all.
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I see type to search is in 4.1 builds, but not todays build of 4.0 beta? Am I missing something? Hopefully they didn’t leave spacebar to search in 4.0 right?
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This getting fixed right now. There are problems with the 4.0 and 4.1 branches that kept @Harleya from committing everything already.
EDIT: And it’s there! Type to search in 4.0 and 4.1!!
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Yes, “Type to search” is now back in, for 4.0 and 4.1, for “Add Modifier”, “Add Node”, “Add Object”. So you can just immediately start typing to search those. Those menus also get a “Search…” item that can also be used to initiate search or can be used to add to quick favorites or set a custom shortcut. Those menus, and all other regular dropdown and context menus all still have the “spacebar to search” feature too. This seems to cover everything we wanted.
There were some nice comments directed at me earlier in this thread. Although I appreciate such comments, they are a bit misplaced. This great feature of being able to search menus is by Jacques Lucke and he deserves any and all praise for it. The UI Module just struggled a bit on how best to expose the feature, but I think we got there in the end.
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Well yes thank you to both you and Jaqcques! I really do like how this search and everything else in 4.0 is turning out ^^
Just got one more thing that I hope you guys can fix
When searching it seems that it both picks stuff that matches the submenu the node is under so for example I get stuff like “Map Range” when I search for “math”, and then it sorts it all in the order they appear in the menu and submenus, this feels quite wrong imo. I really think it should sort by what closely matches what you write first, and then the rest underneath.
So my searches that I have in the printscreens below should in the first one have “Set Material” first, the second one should have “Math” first and the last should have “Named Attribute” first.
And also nested search would be awesome So searching for “multiply” should give me a Math node set to multiply.
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Please don’t report bugs here but on the bug tracker.
The first two issues you show I solved a few days ago already. The last one is the same as #113563 - Weight of Search doesn't provide Desired Result on Top - blender - Blender Projects which I just fixed.
Not wanting to pour oil into the fire or take sides here but just a reminder that sometimes bigger changes can take some time to really be tested and getting used to before users realize if it’s actually worse than before or just feels very wrong because it countering a habit.
I know Blender, over the years, challenged me to rethink quite a few conventions I thought I liked but also won me over with a majority (not all but a good part).
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