And you do not have enough space to show even the most basic settings, like the “Brush” and “Stroke” options. If we talk about the popovers, then of course we can put any number of options in just one popover.
And here is an example of how header will look with a different tool selected and if we switch to the “object mode”; with a lot of unused space.
In the same way that in a vertical panel without collapsing you can’t show all the options either, I don’t see any difference. Let’s remember that all those options entered in several tabs of the T-shelf and not completely.
The only difference is that popover access is faster, direct and takes up less screen space.
For example, in my actual laptop, with panels, I only can see one panel at same time
I see a big problem with the Popovers, you do not see what settings you have now. The Popovers work well for view settings, because you will always see their effect in the viewport. For tools like brushes, it’s much more important to see the current settings, especially the ones you’re constantly changing. The panels can be rearranged and kept constantly open the ones that are important to you now. Also a side panel can be quickly opened and closed with hotkeys.
Though I see where you’re coming from (and agree to some extent in certain cases), you seem to be quite dismissive of any tweaks to your design. In fact, if there is a single thing you can point out that’s negative in other users’ tweaks/advice/recommendations, you focus 100% on that negative thing while ignoring anything positive and dismissing their ideas entirely rather than discussing their potential merits as well (and their possibility to be integrated into your own design.)
This is not a collaborative discussion – This is the tyranny of an idea trying to maintain its dominance.
That being said – maybe this discussion can be more collaborative going forward?
You can have stuff always displaying (such as the Vertex groups and Shape keys) when the accordion menus are fully-opened, but you can have those same menus be temporary popups as well (when pressing the dropdown icon just beside the arrow).
I don’t think so. In reality I didn’t like the topbar but I’m trying to keep the idea to make the proposal confortable for developers and designers.
And also that many of the ideas are not about this proposal to turn the topar into a header if not other interface proposals. That is a bigger debate that we have had on many occasions.
And as you can see in my proposal I keep asking for the return of the T-shelf to be able to have that on screen for those who need it. But I don’t consider it necessary all the time.
In Zbrush is similar, All options are not visible by default in Zbrush.
For anyone else interested (a clearer definition exists in the PaperCuts thread):
Button Soup™ is generally when groups of controls or elements (not just buttons!) sit nearby or close to one another without visually-distinct, easily-identifiable, grouping whose visual-distinction still holds up “at-a-glance” (consisting of less than half-a-second).
Again, visual-distinctiveness and also organization-according-to-functional-themes (i.e. form follows function) is really key here.
To be fair – because I didn’t use custom controls for Scenes/RenderLayers – I did actually fail at completely eliminating Button Soup™ here:
That bottom bar, for example, in the screenshot above – Can you generally tell (in less than 1 second) what their basic functions are? Nobody could – and that has nothing to do with not knowing the program. It has everything to do with the fact that none of the icons have any visually-identifiable relationship to one another, grouping or otherwise.
The tool properties “popup” is no more “annoying” than pressing the “T” or “N” key to slide out a tool or property panel.
Not really a fair argument there.
On that point, I’ll definitely agree with you.
This was just a rough, quick and dirty mockup to articulate some ideas I’ve been having for the Blender interface for quite some time.
I will rethink the tool properties, but I don’t see any issues with the other parts, save for two (which I will address in my next iteration.)
I’m really open to input though. So please blast away.
Currently we have everything together and is not a button soup, with a few improvements the problem would be even smaller. In addition that the real problem of blender with the button soup is not the header, is all that around this.
I don’t think it has anything to do with what we’re talking about. In my proposal I have included all the properties of tools in the “topbar”. In addition, they are delimited by the own positioning in the bar. It can be improved but it is already quite clear. Can be placed some separator, reorder some element … but in general is more than functional and understandable.
On the contrary, there are quite a few differences. The T or N panel are relatively unobtrusive and do not invade the work area, they delimit it. The panel that you propose if it invades the work area unnecessarily, in addition to needing to resize each tool, would be much more intrusive and annoying And what is the solution to that? Basically give it a whole row to place the options there. That is, the same as in my proposal.
If we go back to the suggestion in the first post where you mixed/rearranged the settings from the editor header and the tool settings, this version is absolutely not acceptable because it will not allow you to hide second editor header.
The only possible solution is an additional, optional second header with tool settings, for those who like a double header.
If we talk about the return of the T-shelf, it is an obvious necessity, and it does not even need to be discussed. How exactly will look and work this panel is already offtopic.
And I see no reason to completely remove the current Top Bar, this is a good place for example for the render button and the render engine indicator that many users ask for.
Because the settings are mixed. If you hide one header with the tool settings for example, you need to move the other settings from that header to another. That is, you need to have two versions of the layouts of each header.
I don’t understand how someone can be so selfish in asking to remove something that they have no obligation to use and that only damages the workflow of other users.
If the addon is a tool it should go to the toolbar, if it’s just properties and settings then it should go to the tool settings in the properties editor.
Check how the built in Scatter Objects addon by Jacques Lucke was made. Well done. You don’t have to think twice or search everywhere to find it, because the settings are where it should be. No N panel non-sense.
That addon should be a template for other addons developers to follow.
Look, the N panel should never, ever, have exclusive settings that you can’t find elsewhere, this is why Blender is an endless mess (add the redo panel to this). The N panel acts like an another properties editor, when we already have one, basically just increasing the confusion and making the app counter-intuitive. A software needs organization.
The N panel should be a customizable panel, similar to quick favorites, where you could put everything you want for quick/temporary access like panels/operators/sliders/etc, basically everything that could be tweaked you should be able to put there. But never, never should have exclusive harcoded settings. It’s just a mess.
