Blender UI paper cuts

[billrey]

Thanks for all the suggestions folks!

Over the next few days, @pablovazquez and I will go over them and add some of them as tasks on our developer portal here:
https://developer.blender.org/T56950

The criteria for picking papercuts are:

• Feasibility (has to be a small isolated issue, not a huge feature request)
• Good fit (The issue or suggestion must fit with the overall design of Blender)
• Papercuts only (No bugs, glitches or full feature requests)

You are still welcome to keep posting more in the meantime.

[Znio.G]

the resize time range buttons are interfering with window splitting so often because now it’s possible to split from all 4 positions, this wasn’t an issue in 2.79 since it was from the opposite side…maybe making them bit bigger or change the shape to arrows, whatever u guys find it appropriate, thanks.

[Wazou]

Is this a one time possibility to improve blender or it will stay alive on all the developement time of Blender.

If we can keep this and continue to improve the software indefinitively, it’s a good thing IMO.

[toyshung]

moved my thoughts to a different thread

Blender user interface design

hey guys, I have some problems with the properties panel: The header does not make much sense for me. As a new user I would have absolutely no idea whats going on there. [problem_header] in the object panel is a dropdown menu where I can switch between the objects in my scene. but why? if I change the object in the dropdown, the selection in my scene does not change. [problem_object] I know the icons are still WIP but the textures tab really confuses me [problem_texture] the nami…

[youthatninja]

Flashing icons really annoying, please add the way to disable this icons.

I think they not so useful even for newbies.
Not constant info position some tools here another one there.

[kynu]

I posted about the very same problem just a few min before you, here:

Blender 2.8 user interface design

I do agree that “Zoom to mouse position” should be enabled by default: every student expect this behaviour and is a standard in all graphic software.

(because the header of Properties seems like a bigger deal than a Papercut annoyance)

[toyshung]

you are right. I moved my post

[billrey]

It’s not a one time thing. It’s meant to be an approved list of todos that are (hopefully) small in scope so that any developer can pick these up.

There’s no promise when these will be done - it’s really up to developer interest. But, one of the problems we had in the past was that many developers wouldn’t bother with any UI tasks to avoid lengthy discussions and heated debates. If we can make a nice list of small todos that are pre-approved, I hope that more developers might be interested in helping out fixing these kinds of small niggles.

[Quijx]

The F for “Fake User” in has recently been changed to a save icon. But in the name, the F is still displayed. It should be replaced by a small save icon.

Maybe instead of a the 0 for unused datablocks, there could be an icon too?

[Luis.Burdallo]

You can hide that bar the only problem is that the project and objects information will be hidden too but I think those are planned to be moved inside the viewport? I think that would be a wise move as those won’t be related to many other areas of Blender. I also think is kind of hidden down there and it could also be added as an overlay on the viewport which could be turned off too if needed.

[Wazou]

If it’s just UI fixing, I think everybody knowing python can do it.

The thing is how to make a patch and present it?

Pablo should make videos for that kind of stuff IMO.

[youthatninja]

yeah, but what about tools info like Knife, and some other info like baking progress errors, etc

[Znio.G]

possibility to show only the appropriate display for selected component, right now it kind works because you have to toggle face shading on and off each time.

working on heavy meshes makes it not very readable by default settings.

[Luis.Burdallo]

I thought the knife info would be at the top like other tools, for instance, inset settings are within the viewport. Does anyone know why the Knife info is at the bottom instead of like the other tools?

[youthatninja]

I remember that on blender today stream Pablo said that all info for tools will be at the bottom with fancy icons

[Luis.Burdallo]

I also heard him saying the info could be within the viewport window and that makes the most sense to me as the info won’t be related to any other areas in Blender where that bar could still be there and serve other purposes.

[billrey]

Well, the UI layout & ordering is defined in Python, but most things require going a bit deeper than that. Anyone is welcome to submit a patch to fix these kinds of issues.

[brecht]

There is also a guide for contributing code here:
https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Process/Contributing_Code

[a.monti]

In the Outliner there is a lot of empty space on the left side, in View Layer mode:

[ViktorJ]

Currently, in sculpt mode the cursor has two states - ‘Add’ (indicated by red cursor colour) and ‘Substract’ (indicated by blue cursor colour)

The problem - when pressing shortcut for substracting (ctrl) the colour stays red. It changes to blue after pressing the LMB to sculpt. The colour should change to blue before pressing the LMB to indicate, that substraction will happen when activating the tool.

Also, the ‘add’ icon in the header stays selected instead of changing to ‘substract’ when holding ctrl

In other words - Indicating if substraction or addition will happen when it’s already happening is useless. It should indicate before activating the tool when holding the ctrl