Blender user interface design

I could pin all addons, tools I needed to use it whenever i wanted. Then it was on my left side and I knew it was there everytime.
For example.
I pinned “Measure it”.


Its always on top. And when I press /T/, I know its there. And its fast.

Don’t know about this addon workspace.


If it’s fast and accessable without multi - clicking, I won’t complaint.
If there is some documentation, it would help me to better understand why you want it.


I suppose it would be useful (especially for beginners) to add into “T-panel” such buttons as creating a poly (F hotkey) and bridge.
By the way, what’s a practical usage of 'Add Cube" option?

It was a first test to make active tools to add all type of objects like in 3dsmax.

And again and again and again…
2.7 Tool Shelf

  • Call/hide by just T
  • Transparent - don’t eat viewport size or block viewport content ( transparent ) when it expand
  • Scalable - user can change the panel width, can change scale of panel content
  • Always expand - settings tabs after expand stay same, just press T and can at on time take a look at all u need.
  • Addons - like in vertex paint mode it was Vertex Master addon & it sit in same T panel - use it for a lot
  • All this factors together - good professional tool area where sits all the settings u need at short hand, quick to show/hide & quick to take a look at what u need. Lot of things collected at one area all on table at one time like some Airbus control panel and i like it, want to handle it all and as quick as possible.

2.8
My feelings when work with. I really try - open two Blenders on two monitors, do same things i do at work and compare my feelings. I talk about only my personal feelings with all experience behind (start learn blender year ago, slowly try to do my work on Blender and few month ago find that 99% of my work I doing on Blender instead of 3D Max inside 100% 3D Max team). I am not kind of hater who don’t like something just because don’t like it at all.

  • Tool Shelf in Properties issue - not the same. Mostly I hold on main monitor clear 3D Wievport ( all second or third role things sit on right or left monitor ). Properties on main monitor - not transparent part of viewport, can’t be quick called/hide by just T key.
  • Need to move cursor, point & click to get access to something issue. It was slow action, it need to point & click precisely so it move concentration out of work area. Example - change colors in vertex paint Palette - every time go up, click, go down click, click out of popup to hide it… I can’t no longer see all settings I need by just pressing T - need to move cursor & click, not able to look at all settings at one time, no more " Airbus control panel " for me.
  • Buttons issue - not need it at all. Hide & forget. I talk here about settings. All operators on this buttons - link to pies/hotkeys in my case. This buttons completely replace Tool Shelf i use. Why no one give me ability to swap in preference - Buttons on T or classic Tool Shelf ? It was placed inside Properties so why it can’t be placed as alternative for this Buttons?
  • You can hide it issue. In edit mode Top Bar shown mostly nothing so lot of people say " you can hide it ". But there no solid workflows. If in Edit mode it was useless - in other modes it was " no alternative ", the one & only area to work with settings. So as a result - I cant hide it, i have to look at this emptiness all the time in edit mode just because sometimes it need to use Vertex Paint or Sculpt.
  • Bottom stripe issue - Another part of display occupied mostly by " I don’t need it ", " i remember it all with closed eyes " tooltips. The only I really need is statistic. Even more than it was now. I want to see as in 3D Max - all scene & selected object(s)/ sub elements separately. But I want it as overlay text info on 3D Viewport area, not as some stripe at bottom. So it was another " I don’t need it 80% at work but can’t hide it " thing. IMHO it need to separate tooltips in stripe / statistic move to viewport.
  • Workspace tabs issue - mostly users use at work few workspaces, not 10 - 20. So it feels as another long stripe stolen workspace area just to show nothing 80% inefficient workspace using ( ~ 95 % on 4K 27’ monitor ). In 2.79 it was something like 50 % but it show statistic in " comfort to look " area ( most of tools placed on top part of workspace ). If they want to completely rework this - they can do it better.

I don’t ask to remove/rework at all/recover all back something. But give me ability to turn Tool Shelf on T panel ( with this buttons or instead of this buttons does not matter ) back in 2.8 same I use it in 2.79
Huuhhhh … I think so much description should be enough to let explain what I talk about…

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Most of what you say here is imo arguable though.

First of all in 2.7 there is not the full list of tools in the T panel but only a selection of them, also split in different tabs.
About discoverability you have to consider that both “Specials” and 3dview menus are now way better organized than before, with separate menus for V/E/F operators and fewer sub-menus.

About usability with a tablet, it is true that it’s easier to use a panel than a menu but according to the plans there will be the possibility to have favourites operators instead of the active tools (or one can assign the Q menu to a button of his tablet), also a lot of the edit operators that were in the T panel are quite frustrating to use from there (like edge slide, extrude, shrink, inset face etc) and they make much more sense as active tools.

About consistency I get your point, but if you think about it, apart from 3D View, the only editors which had a proper tool shelf were UV Editor and Movie Clip Editor, both of them haven’t basically been touched yet and it’s possible to use the same concept of 3d view for them.

So I don’t really see the need of having all of that stuff there, expert users don’t need it, 'cause they use shortcuts, new users usually learn with tutorials aka from expert users, so again, they learn shortcuts or at least the name of the operators so that they can then search and assign them to favourites if they want to.

All the part about the stability of the software and old user’s muscle memory I get it, but it doesn’t really fit what the 2.8 project is, 2.80 is for a lot of things a completely different piece of software than 2.79, so being conservative by any means in UI design is a non-sense boundary; if Ton and the other developers didn’t take risks we would never had the 2.5 design that you’re know defending (with this I’m not saying that stuff should change for the sake of it, but the same goes for the opposite).

Yep lol with all those improvements to grease pencil i guess now it will turn into 2d animation software)))

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The improvements that you talk can be done in T-Shelf and obtain better results, it stills being better solution. Also active tools are not incompatible with the old T-shelf.

You can change UV editor and other areas, breaking more the program and creating more problems in the interface and for the user, all this with no reason. T-shelf don’t need nothing of this to be better solution.

I’m a power user that use blender 8-10 hours each day and I don’t know all hotkeys for all tools, I use hundreds of tools that can’t be configure in a little menu or in hotkeys.

Making a new and functional user interface does not mean breaking the comfort zone or its user experience. On the contrary, maintaining the user experience as much as possible is the number one priority when designing an interface. If it is so important to break the comfort zone to try new things it would be good to break the one that exists with the right click by default, that we have been asking for years and so afraid that there is to break the comfort zone that exists in the BF that will invent a wizard to select it.

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Does anyone know how the # looking icon is different from they eye icon in the outliner? I can’t figure it out because the eye = hide for both collections and objects, while # means disable for collections (effects eye icon) but restrict visibility for objects (does not effect eye icon), and they all appear to be basically doing the same thing.

Also I’d like to suggest that “Use Nodes” seems unnecessary now that both render engines use nodes.

2018-08-11%2009_01_27-NotificationsForm

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It sounds like " man you don’t feel what u fee & don’t see what u see ". So many word. Tools, operators, discoverability, favourites operators, conception etc., etc. It is not about some " muscle memory ".
It is not deadly to use 2.8 as it was for now. But what the reason for so many arguments and attempts to prove to me that I don’t feel what I feel and even if I feel it’s just mirage, even if it is not no one care, instead of just letting me TURN ON same Tool Shelf as in 2.79? Same as they put inside Properties. But linked to T key, scalable, as part of 3D window & transparent. Holly shit… I don’t need f* buttons on my left. I ask for something same useble as I use right now.
Wasting time. Writing letters to the black hole.

Hi.
I’m not sure where to talk about inputs methods, but I think that what I’m going to talk about is related to User Interface. Maybe Bastien or Campbell are reading. My problem/request is basically related to this:


The issue is, very sensitive to pressure tip of pencil in 3DView is very useful, but very sensitive tip to use the GUI leads to accidental errors very frequently. At least in my case, when I set up GUI with pen of graphic tablet, I need to have the feeling that I’m really intentionally pressing to click or slide a slider, so for GUI I feel more comfortable when the tip of the pen is not so sensitive .
So, if you can not imitate MyPaint functionality, at least it would be possible in Blender the ability to choose different/separate pressure sensitivities for GUI and 3DView (or editors) from User Preferences?

I think the modifiers take too much space. If there are more than 3 or 4 modifiers on one object it’s uncomfortable to view them.
My suggestion: all modifiers are collapsed by default, on mouse over they expand.

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what if the user wants to keep it open to look at the settings?

A switch for disabling/enabling this?
The option can be disabled by default, but if you have too many modifiers - you can enable auto-collapsing.

Also, it can be useful to select a modifier’s color (for example, to mark one of the modifiers).

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I recommend you follow the Blender Developers YouTube channel. This was covered months ago when the feature was added.

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This is indeed legacy from the old system and it’s planned to be removed. However since it doesn’t really bring many benefits besides hiding a button, and there are so many other open topics it is not the highest priority at the moment.

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+1 vote for T sidebar coming back in a similar capacity as it was to house all the command tools and one click actions. Even without tool properties

I propose for it to be automatically generated from all the menu options of any given mode. Each menu and submenu thus being a panel and subpanel. Add-on developers could still use it. It should be a third different sidebar or area, different from the Active tools one and the N sidebar, or the toolbar should be split in two vertically, one side narrower for the active tool icons and the other wider for the commands.

I once said to Pablo and Dalai on stream that it would be nice to have the commands in the toolbar back as more of a “pro” option, but they replied that the real pro option is to use the keyboard. Self reflecting in the use that I make of it, it is true that I use the toolbar for commands unfrequently. However, I use it a quite more than menus themselves, particularly in weight painting. Not every command has a keyboard shortcut, particularly in the new minimal keymap, but not every command needs a shortcut or quick menu entry either.

It’s good to have more options, so the user can decide depending on the frequency of use for each command. Keyboard > Quick menu > Toolbar > Regular Menus

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What about wireframe, texture shadeless modes? (wireframe mode like old one, u hit one button its become wireframe with possibility pick up backfaces)
Now when u go into edit mode with texture on mesh it disappears.

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@youthatninja
Check this topic, where pablo responded:

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