2025-03-25 User Interface Meeting

Meetings
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User Interface Module Meeting 2025-03-25T16:00:00Z

Regular User Interface module meeting for planning and coordination. Last regular meeting was March 11th, next meeting on 2025-04-08T15:00:00Z

Attendees

  • Julian Eisel
  • Pablo Vazquez
  • Hans Goudey
  • Richard Antalik
  • Habib Gahbiche
  • John Kiril Swenson
  • Jean-Silas Moor
  • Harley Acheson

Since the Last Meeting

Meeting Topics

Review

Design Discussions

  • Habib might be able to help with RTL after his current project.
  • Pablo pointed out that region scroll bars seem to hide completely sometimes rather than just reduce opacity. This might be tied to region overlap and transparency. We want to fix this.
  • We talked a bit about ā€œviconā€-style icons, now used for the RGB buttons. We might have more uses for this. There are some uses of immRecti drawing that could be replaced with UI_draw_roundbox now.
  • Discussion of Pabloā€™s idea of coloring object types, like camera, empties, etc. We like it!
  • When discussing area resizing issues we agreed that we would rather have pill-like indication of selected workspace rather than tabs. Might help with sidebar tabs too.
  • We want to remove the shadow on panel grips.
  • Resetting themes is confusing and awkward. Blender doesnā€™t even know what theme is currently selected. Needs thought and design.
  • Move the theme text styles out of theme? That might help with accessability to separate these out. Needs some thought though as some themes might want unique text styles.
  • Timeline scroll bar hiding could consider that header could be hidden too.
  • Timeline ā€œpostā€ under the current frame could be hidden when slim.
  • Discussion of how we could move ā€œsceneā€ and ā€œviewlayerā€ widgets out of top bar, without a clear plan. Pablo will make a design document.
  • Discussion of new template for sound equalization, talk of use of dB for root-power quantities.
  • We should consider measuring all items on popovers to get accurate widths rather than having to choose width arbitrarily.
  • Can toggles on menus not close the menu?
  • More discussion of property category visibility. We want to return to earlier option of having them on header menu, and also on a right-click region menu.
  • Richard showed us VSE pivot point manipulation. Pablo would love move alignment with similar operations outside of VSE.
  • Enhance the support for IME in Windows. #132102
    • Not discussed.
  • UI Experiment: Region Scaling Edge Highlighting #136337
    • We like this and should go forward with it. We should also look at how these regions snap too, as Sidebar minimizes awkwardly.
  • UI: Changes to the Hide Region Widget #118089
    • Lots of talk of these as Harley needs something with a larger hit zone but canā€™t find anything he likes. Hans might consider the ā€œlineā€ version if it were shorter. There might be an option where closed regions are indicated with a full-height line at the edge - worth experimenting with.
  • UI Experiment: Material Symbols font #121603
    • Still not much appetite for this.
  • UI Experiment: Icons As Text #136013
    • Nice idea, but we lack any use case. Keep around as a reference and make sure not to break it.
  • UI Experiment: Area Maintenance Visible Corner Drag Widgets #134826
    • We are still hoping that area tabs will not require this and therefore having to backtrack out of this. Harley needs to work through that we can do all needed operations with editor tabs rather than entire area.
  • Compositor: shortcut to hide/show nodes
  • Would like someone from UI module to check out patch to pull sound equalizer into its own template (out of curvemapping) #136363
    • We like this and have not problems with the the code duplication.

Need Help

  • We need a mockup for a good looking region visibility widget #118089
6 Likes
2

Could you please clarify this a little bit? What is a pill-like indication?

3

Its a subtle thing. We are currently indicating workspaces as if they are tabs on a file folder. These are meant to visually connect with the selected content below them, but we canā€™t do that or they seem to be connected to the one editor below them. ā€œPill-likeā€ just means rounding the entire thing and not extending down toward the content.

So this is mostly about the rounding at the bottom of the selected tab. Following from this is usually drawing unselected items without a background. And this also allows drawing them higher, so at the same height as the menu items. In the following example the top has tabs and the bottom has pills. The bottom needing a vertical rule to separate the two types of content:

image
image894Ɨ239 37.7 KB

This sort of thing also applies - even more so - to the tabs we use on the 3D Viewport Sidebar. Because the normal usage of these are with ā€œRegion Overlapā€ the tabs are not connecting at all with the content they control, but seem to just connect to the viewport edge. The following showing those with tabs on left, pills on right:

image

6 Likes
4

Thanks, I got it now.

5

For whatever itā€™s worth, i actually like it when the tabs are completely connected to their contentā€¦ it feels more like a full panel, and notā€¦ i dunno, an app on a mobile phone.

tabby-tab
tabby-tab335Ɨ526 48.4 KB

1 Like
6

Sorry, not sure if you are advocating for a change or to keep it the same. It currently looks somewhat like your capture if you turn off Region Overlap, but otherwise there is a big gap between.

7

Ok, this took several clicks and trys to understand your question - have determined thereā€™s something theme-related with my own screenshot situation, as ā€œregion overlapā€ seems to look differently (gap, vs no gap, vs floating) depending on the theme iā€™m using.

If i use a ā€˜standardā€™ blender theme (say, light), i now see the gaps/no gaps you mention. But on the Modo theme i normally use, thereā€™s no gap there regardless of region set on or off.

-shrug dunno-

So, I guess my answer to ā€œnot sure if you are advocating for a change or to keep it the sameā€ isā€¦ it depends? (laugh)

1 Like