One thing that is overlooked in any of the sidebar discussion is how all this would work when you got multiple viewports, like in a quad view.
The inbuilt quad view mode is limited to only having three extra ortho views (okay I had a look and apparently you can change them but it isn’t saved if you go out of it and you can’t lock your custom view which could be accidentally nudged), and the toolbar and N bar floats over them.
If you want views other than this you end up replicating the toolbar and N bar with the new split viewports and making them smaller which makes using multiple viewports annoying especially on smaller screens.
I think its rather necessary that we get some improvements to the inbuilt quad view (perhaps putting the view lock in the header and storing the custom views), and get a special separate non-viewport rendering “editors” much like the outliner and properties that can hold the Toolbar and N Bar.
Something similar has been proposed within one of this year’s GSOCs as something for a custom menu. https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/User:Tempo/GSoC2020/Proposal
As for eliminating the toolbar and N bar if we got such an implementation, I don’t think that would be good for usability as they float over and take up less space.
One complication for the this though is the presence of multiple different N bars in the various views such as in shader and the image editor.
Would a separate N bar editor have to change to whatever viewport a person is using?
The point of N and T panels is the ability to access them in fullscreen.
If you do a quick research (just watch YouTube videos) and take a look at how Modo or C4D work, for example, you’ll see that there’s no problem.
You can create groups of “editors” and if you want you can maximize/fullscreen only one editor (e.g. pure 3D View), or if you want you can maximize the group (e.g. 3D View, toolbar and tool settings panel).
The main problem is that all other programs have “panels”, i.e. the interface of one program is divided into pieces (panels). In the Blender, there is also the concept of “editor” – it’s like separate programs. And as a result of this concept, you can not freely move the panels throughout the program, but only inside the editor. And that’s the reason, for example, why the global top bar didn’t work out…
You are trying to fit the toolbar, tool settings, redo-last panel, add-ons… into a single “editor” (which, for example, can only take up a quarter of the screen), while you have plenty of space around that editor.
It IS right to fit the panels, add-ons(if appropriate), tool settings, adjust-last-operation(redo-last until 2.79) panel into a single editor. You made the point, that each editor works like seperate programs. This individual editor concept is the core of Blender UI.
In a figurative sense, it would be really strange if we have to click on the Internet Explorer menu button to activate the Chrome extension, isn’t it? Those two are separate programs, which should not interfere each other.
Same here. Each editors should be able to get their job done without relying on other editors(although they can share the active item selected). I think what @1D_Inc meant by “fullscreen” was equivalent to “in its own”
In addition, this popover UI concept introduced in Blender 2.80 was to make the maximum screen efficiency while maintaining everything that editor has to keep in itself. Until now, it seems to be working pretty well.
i.e. viewport settings, overlays, transform orientations, pivot point…
I explained this issue here
You may know that modo fullscreen (num 0) is not a fullscreen, and also how laggy its interface is.
Both C4D and Modo also have top-to-bottom text alignment in tabs, which is a design mistake
that violates readability standards.
This individual “editor” concept is the core of Blender UI…
And it doesn’t work well, it limits the possibilities of the interface layout, for no particular reason. This reminds me of 20 years of “right click select”, then just made a normal “left click” and it turned out that there is no problem, everything works fine. The same with the concept of “editor”, it can be changed and only gets better.
I want to point out that you’ve been looking for a “solution” (as the title says) for two years now. This topic was started in Nov 2018, and there are still no results. Worth thinking about.
As a result, Blender have the most responsive interface in the industry, even in cross platform which is a serious bottleneck.
This is more important than floating panels, without which we do all this time well.
Also, don’t see the problem with RCS - there was ability to switch it to LCS all this time, as I usually did.
Well, it worth thinking about do we really need to redesign the entire interface paradigm to get famous industry standards UI lags. I didn’t liked them not in modo, not in 3dsmax.
Concept of editors really works well, even more than any other software. I’m not talking like this simply because I’m a Blender user. I’m used to the workflows of many other programs such as Sketchup, Rhino, Modo, CAD, and I’d like to explain why Blender’s editors are much better:
Selecting an object in 3D viewport, UV editing in UV editor
Selecting a node in Shader editor, texture painting on that slot in 3D viewport
Selecting an object in 3D viewport or Outliner, tweaking object properties in Properties editor.
Selecting an object in 3D viewport, animating with keyframes in Dopesheet editor or graph editor
Organizing and hiding objects in Outliner, Seeing the results and go on in 3D viewport.
Selecting an object in 3D viewport, applying drivers in Driver editor
Rendering in Image editor, post-processing in Compositor
are all parallel workflows that makes Blender so capable of doing so many things. While sharing selected items globally, each editor plays its strict role. Blender’s like many softwares bundled into one. Blender is now moving toward the concept of everything nodes, where this individual editor concept is going to do a bigger job.
In other softwares, they are struggling so much to make the UI capable of using nodes or simple lists, but most of them are keep failing for years and years. Blender solved this problem 10 years ago from now, which is really awesome.
Let me note that Blender is kind enough to make the user enter and quit fullscreen of the particular editor in fraction of a second(with ctrl+space) when the user feels that the editor’s a bit small to use it.
At this point, maybe we all know no drastic changes are able to happen.
Shouldn’t we at least apply the ‘popover style’(which was suggested at the start of this thread), for the sake of consistency? Current design looks really outdated. Even though tabs and all those things remain the same, the rounded sidebar still would be much better than now.
I’m talking about the difference between two images posted at the beginning(The first post) of this thread. What @anan90946105 suggested does make sense. Sidebars need rounded corners and offset from the viewport edge.
I also want to clarify that I’m not talking about changing tabs and panels. Those will remain the same. No drastic UI change can occur at the current state. However the rounded sidebar might be possible.
It makes no sense since they are scrollable. It will look like a chat widget inside Blender.
Offset also have no any practical use for Region overlap turned off.
I agree that offset has no practical use when region overlap is turned off. When region overlap is turned off, offset should be set to 0(Just like what it is now).
I do not agree that it will look like a chat widget. Rounded design is already widely adopted in Blender after 2.80. For example there are adjust last operation panel, viewport popovers, etc…
Well, if you mean adjustable setting, so why not.
Just want to say that I don’t see much practical use of it, while we are still trying to handle critical usability issues like that.
That’s more clear, thank you.
However, all those transparent gaps are pretty distracting when viewport is overloaded with details, they make the interface “sink” into the scene, so this solution definitely should be optional.
Yes, I totally agree. I also turn off region overlap from time to time. The region overlap toggle would be the solution to the optionality(of the rounded+offsetted sidebar) you just mentioned. That is, no gaps when region overlap is turned off.
Side panel is becoming an annoyance at that point. You spend more time figuring out where the correct plugin is. When you have many even at big monitors it’s a tough task to find it.
The whole logic of side panel should be revised. It doesn’t help, really. Every time I have to use it I feel miserable. Not like the rest of my experience with Blender where it’s a lot of joy working with.
I don’t see a good solutions to improve what it is right now. There are some things that helps like:
Grouping panels based on names. It does help to clean up the side panel and improve the experience a bit. The problem that it’s solely on addon developers to add this functionality and many addon’s don’t have it. It should be a native feature in Blender to organize addons in side panel.
It’s already been suggested and I agree. It should be possible to manage addons in side panel per workspace and maybe even edit mode and it’s on Blender’s developers to implement such management system.
Still the fixes above are half measures to my taste. They’ll improve the experience but not solve the underlying issue which makes side panel very rigid in it’s design.
I believe the only way to solve this is to:
Implement tabs system and…
…concept of panels or editor that is exclusively for panels. Which can be populated with needed addons/specific property panel.
To be hones I think we already have this in Properties editor. We just need to broaden the concept and make it more flexible in terms of customization.
Here is an idea that i think might work…I have ran into an issue with the addon side bar tab…I am out of room for all my addons and now is a pain to work with…Hopefully somebody can expand on this idea or implement it…thanks!
would be nice to be able to rearrange the tabs in different orders and colors or even have the tab bar dockable and undockable to put on another monitor. The layout could be horizontal or vertical. Conforms to how you drag the box it auto adjusts to fit.
