If you see my proposal you will see that what I propose is to use icons in the tabs of the N-shelf, and to include some improvements in the behavior of the tabs. For example that the tabs are visible when you don’t have any selected.
Also it would be interesting, although I didn’t propose it so as not to dirty the main proposal, that you can select several tabs at the same time and mix the content of both (for example if you have several modeling plugins that you want to see at the same time).
I’m not against floating and pineed popups, as an option, but I think they are a very bad solution for new users and create a real chaos in the interface, complicating it too much. I would never use it by default.
Let’s not fool ourselves, that concept is the same as the typical dysfunctional interface that end up having 200 popups on screen. Like the desktops with widgets, which everyone has wanted to implement and which have been a failure in all the OS where they have tried to put it. In the end that is impossible to use and let’s not say already for new users who only get frustrated.
It is not the same to have 1 widgets punctually because we want to have it to finish in 3 clicks with this interface…
or this
These kinds of interfaces are things of the past that have never worked. They work for specific cases, a minority of users,… But they can’t be the way to work. In the end you waste more time with the interface than with your work.
One thing is for someone to say “I’m going to use the retopo plugin for a while, I’d like to be able to put it here temporarily” and another to force the user to work like that.