This was proposed in codequest to solve topbar problems and we never see an answer about that. Stack editors, put panels like editors, also the new status bar,…
I see that UI thing is very controversial, and there would be a better way to improve the overall usability. Yet, I wasn’t trying to talk or argue about properties editor or concept of editors.
What I wanted to point out was the problem of the tool settings. As the title of this thread indicates, main subject is about duplicated UI of the new tool system introduced in 2.80.
P.S. Now I understand that many other editors also rely on 3D viewport. Maybe integrating 3D viewport and properties editor wasn’t a good idea.
I’m not sure what you mean by large property editor
do you mean something like that?
Jokes aside…
in the previous comments my proposal is to unify the N sidebar and the propery pannels in the 3d space window, but at the same time to have options in the menu of the 3d space window that allow to hide the 3d view and make only the “sidebar of the properties” visible…
in practice the current property space window, it would become a 3d space window with the hidden 3d view and only the buttons bar and the property panels are visible.
…so you would have the exact same situation you would have now …
so those used to the old settings would change almost nothing …
but at the core functionality level the entire blender architecture would become logically more coherent.
the problem of tool settins in too many places, would disappear, or rather it would be a choice of users to have panels in more places, and not “a design flaw”
just imagine the scenario:
you will be full screen with the 3d space window, just press N and you have all the property panels available. At present you are forced to access it only when you are in “many window mode” …
this is the design flaw.
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I’m not sure what you mean by large property editor.
In such cases, there is a lack of vertical space for the toolbar and sidebar inside each 3D view. And moreover, you have, for example, two identical toolbars and they are both cropped.
That’s why I think the toolbars and N-sidebar should be separated from the 3D view.
…it would become a 3d space window with the hidden 3d view and only the buttons bar and the property panels are visible.
This of course is possible, but it will be very very strange design. I think “3D Viewport” should be a 3D viewport and contain only the 3D view settings.
Yes, I know that there were problems with switching tool settings while using multiple editors and so the tool settings were moved to the inside of the editors. But this way also does not work well and may be even worse.
You will be full screen with the 3d space window, just press N and you have all the property panels available.
Yes, of course, such capability is necessary, but this can be achieved in other ways. It seems you are thinking within the current design (editors, sidebars), while I’m talking about a completely new layout engine.
Take a look at how the layouts works in the Cinema, Modo, Maya and other 3D apps. Where the tool settings are located. How fullscreen (maximized) mode works. How they use non-modal floating windows/dialog. They all have a similar approach to each other, and obviously it’s not because they lack imagination.
Blender has always had its own operating paradigm, which has always had its efficiency in terms of workflow, even better than the others in this specific section.
So in this sense, in my opinion, it makes sense to solve the gaps in illogicality and make its personal workflow more coherent and not try to imitate dynamics that come from other worlds … it was tried with the global-top bar, and blender was close to losing her soul with the inconsistencies and conflicts of functioning that the top global bar had provided her.
edit:
thinking about it better…
with the new preconfigured workspaces of blender 2.8, just one click to switch from one pre-configured work mode to another and everything is more immediate, and therefore even more in this sense, if I had the property panels integrated in the sidebar, I could configure a 3d full screen window as one of the workspaces, something I can’t afford to do at the moment due to the lack of accessible features.
between the dope sheet space window and the graph editor space window
they have already found a truly intelligent and effective solution by creating a switch crtl + tab shortcut between the two space windows …
so in this sense I could think that they could create a similar and efficient solution between the integration of the 3d view space window and the property pannels space window.
These two spacewindows must be much more integrated each other, just to resolve the conflicts of illogicality, there are no other ways.
But at the same time, the advantages of the current forkflow should not be upset. (also in evidence of the cases you pointed out)
There was this thread talking about 2.80 tool settings UI development at the early stage. Although many of them were properly visualized, this was what made Blender tool settings overduplicated.
https://developer.blender.org/T55386
Moreover, the tool settings was also added to the N-sidebar, although it wasn’t planned earlier in the link above.
During the development, the topbar was removed due to its global characteristic, but why not the tool settings tab in the properties editor?
And why do we have to have 2 tool settings(header + N-sidebar) in a single editor? It really makes no sense.
It seems like the development lost its way in some way, especially in the last few months.
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In terms of brainstorming, there was one image that seemed pretty promising.
(This image is from https://developer.blender.org/T55386)
This might be the answer to the tool settings for many reasons, although this image was originally about redesigning adjust last operation and (sadly) never came out of the box.
- It is local(per editor), not global. That means it logically makes sense.
- It indicates whether the tool is active or not. It will automatically be hidden if the tool is deactivated.
- It is extremely simple and intuitive, since it is basically one row.
- Shape and size of the editor doesn’t matter. If the editor is too small horizontally, options and sliders might go into multiple rows. If the editor is even smaller, this might be able to shrink into a round button which user can click to see the popover containing tool settings.
- It can be equally applied to ALL editors. Consistency is preserved.
- Adjust last operation and tool settings can finally be integrated(at least in terms of design).
- It doesn’t need too many UI changes. Only little effort and coding would be required to visualize this UX.
- It can allow N-sidebar, header and properties editor to go back to what it was before. Duplicated tool settings problem can be solved.
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Because same people that complain about anything that is not a Maya&C4D copy&paste want the tool-settings there.
It have the same problems that the TopBar had.
- Info really hard to find
- Few space, a lot of operators needs 15-20 parameters, other needs hundreds, not only 2-3.
- Dynamic Multiple rows is a bad solution. A panel where you can’t figure the position of the elements is a bad solution.
- Visually is a problem because is a constant popup for users.
- Last Operation and tool settings still having same problems, active tools are not operators. A lot of inconsistencies.
- Probable it need a lot of API changes. A lot if we think that devs didn’t change simple elements like menus of scene/viewlayer because lack of time/resources and you are asking by a floating panel. When it was a main problem of blender.
- A lot of people still asking for the N-panel with tool-settings for a lot of reasons.
Try to think, what less than 10 guys think in a forum is not what thousands of user want in the real life.
I get the idea. popover tool settings definitely has cons.
Plus let me clarify that I posted completely different ideas as well and I don’t believe the ideas suggested here would be the best solution. It’s just about thinking and brainstorming how Blender could get better. One of the reasons why Blender is awesome is because there is a huge user community, and the thread within it shouldn’t be disregarded as “less than 10 guys”.
What I do believe though is that the initial post is very persuasive and the tool UI duplication problem actually exists.
Like you said, the current tool settings in the header also cannot show more than 3 parameter in some cases(for example when the workspace is divided into two horizontally like this) which is a problem. It shouldn’t be kept that way. Currently, it’s not so user friendly.
The objective of the header was never to show all the options of a tool, but to give access to the most common or important parts. In the same way that in photoshop we don’t have access to all the tool options because we want to use the brush.
It is not a problem because there is simply NO SOLUTION to this. There are addons that need hundreds of options, presets, different “tabs”… and there is no way that one row can fix this in a good way.
Currently there is only one panel that really repeats itself, which is the one we have in the sidebar and in the properties editor. Returning to the photoshop example, in photoshop you can configure many parameters both in the toolbar and in the panels to configure the brush. And nobody has died, at least as far as I know, for this reason.
Yes, some can repeat a thousand times that adjust last-operation is the same as the active tool options but it is not, no matter how much it is repeated. An active tool is not the last operator used.
And as already said, the only coherent and functional solution is to remove the property editor. Because it doesn’t make any sense, but obviously some users don’t want this either.
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Let’s add a new ‘Window’ Tab to the N-Panel that acts like any other window in Blender. It would be split-able and can house Editors.
Below is a simple Mockup…
There is no duplication problem)
During intensive/complex work the order of tools is constantly changing,
there is bevel after extrude after grab after scale (workflow-oriented approach),
not extrude after extrude after extrude after extrude (tool-oriented approach).
There are two types of tools systems.
-
The button tools system is for beginners. It allow to users to get into 3d, to make them understand that there is “extruding” and “beveling” in 3d modeling through interface. Those tools are not designed for intense work, because it takes too much time to switch between them, and they forces using gui.
The button tools represents a tool-oriented approach. -
The shortcut tools system is for advanced users. It is used by people who already know the difference between beveling and extrusion, because they have used them thousands of times, and the only thing that interests them is their quick call without a gui and widgets.
Shortcut tools prioritize quick access to a mixed order of tools during an intensive workflow.
The shortcut tools represents workflow-oriented approach.
Previously there were only advanced system in Blender. It allow to work faster than in other software, but as a system it is not obvious for new users - basically, you have to be a 3dsmax user for decade to understand its benefits (there was time when 3dsmax was showing random hotkeys on a splash screen to make users learn them. The layout wasn’t good, but the idea of using hotkeys was nice).
So button tools system was presented in Blender to lower entry threshold, as well as industry standards hotkeys which are pretty much inconsistent, but was learned by lots of people since 2002.
There are not two tool systems. There are the Tools and there are Operators. Operators are not tools. Tools however are very likely built upon operators(without looking at the source so do take that with a pinch of salt).
TL;DR Neither is a replacement over the other. And tools can have their own ‘speed’ advantages over the operators in the right circumstances and vice versa.
Well, technically, both systems are using operators.
The Shortcut tools system consists from pure operators invoked by shortcuts, which is cleaner and faster, but requires both hands, and the Buttons tool system is a special realization, that consists from operator+button+widget, which makes the use of operators compatible with one-hand working style, which is more convenient for a new user - for learning process, lowering the entry threshold.
Yes, Button tools can have speed advantages, but in very limited cases, because widgets that initially provide visual feedback start to distract as your overall speed increases, and you stop needing them at some point.
This is not operator vs tool thread. In this context, tools means both operators and toolbar tools. The point here is that both have 4 separate places for their settings which all can be displayed at one time, and all of which display the same set of settings in different UI layout arrangement.
Yes, we know that.
I answered specific post about tools systems.
In fact, only Button tools have 4 places, while Shortcut tools have single placement (operator).
I think Button tools was placed to 4 places to provide the ability to access for different approaches.
N-panel is for fullscreen (useful, for example, for sculpting), properties placement is used when N panel is used for Item tab (useful for modeling), topbar placement is for hotspot settings only, since it is incomplete, and operator is for an actual operator, for realtime control.
I guess it was made to provide to user the ability to chose the best way that fits workflow requirements.
I am confused. Why are you replying to my response to megalomaniak’s message? I wasn’t replying to you. Not directly nor indirectly.
Its all started because I answered to temeddix post here
Megalomaniac answered to me, but site didn’t shown that.
That happens pretty often.