Turn on "add image as plane" addon by default?

I just added this bug, as I think it is a valid bug, but got it invalidated right away.

https://developer.blender.org/T81152#1022921

Wouldn’t it be overdue to turn this on by default in the next Blender release? What are the draw backs that keep it disabled?
This is a great functionality for many newbies that should not have to be enabled every time, this will also cause problems, forum posts when people can’t find the functionality that should clearly be part of mainline Blender functionality by default.

While I don’t disagree about enabling this by default, I wouldn’t call this a bug, but a feature request. I’d think the bugtracker would not really be the proper place to discuss this. Maybe better to put it on rightclickselect, where there’s more feedback from non-developers.

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I don’t think this can be considered a feature request: The addon has been included in Blender for a long time, it was just not enabled. I understand that is done for safety, to test it. But that test has passed long ago, the addon only has positive effects and should be enabled, the feature to import images as planes has long ago been approved and included in this addon. Now it is time to finish this and turn it on permanently, so all Blender Users can benefit from it, not just the ones that dig through addons and turn interesting ones on (or people that already know about this feature. A lot of newbies can benfit from having it available in the add menu)

Why not just drag and drop images unto blender for images as empties? It seems superior method for references for most cases: no need to use clunky blender file browser, proper shadeless drawing without texture shimmer when orbiting, proper depth and overlay drawing settings. Only case where images as planes are better is if you use these planes for modelling.

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Which is something I do quite often. Depending on the project sometimes more often than using images as references. Not that I care very much either way. Enabling the add-on is easy enough.

Well, it’s not really a bug either. As in it’s something other people than developers might care about. And it’s not really something which specifically needs developer attention.

I don’t really know yet what the accepted etiquette is here as I’m new here, but I’d think it would fare a lot better in rightclickselect since that’s made for this sort of requests.

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I was the one who closed the bug report and suggested continuing the discussion here at devtalk.

I have always hated that INVALID status because it sounds so harsh given that someone has taken the time to file a bug report, something that is integral to the open source development process.

But this is not a bug because Blender is working as intended. And it is not a feature request since Add Images As Planes is already part of the standard Blender distribution. Basically, it is a design choice and often good design is as much about what to leave out as what to put in.

Some add-ons are enabled by default. They mostly seem to be Importers/Exporters. This may be a historical artifact since some of them are/were written in C/C++ and were part of Blender no matter what. I don’t know.

I do know Blender is used in a number of roles - animation, modeling, texturing, tracking, compositing, video editing, etc - not all of which need Import Images as Planes. But it is there if you want to enable it. Otherwise, no sense in cluttering up the menus with things you will never use.

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What could be easier than activating an addon?

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not activating an addon

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Maybe solution is simple as possible? just add choice when drag and drop image to the view window
drag_image_choice

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Not HAVING TO activate it in the first place, not having to point this out to newbies that don’t know this even exists. This is a pretty popular and useful feature and it could be even more if it was a default feature of Blender, which it currently is not, since it is only turned on by somebody that intentionally knows about it and switches it on.

Ian Hubert shows how powerful this function can be, he uses this in a lot of his work:

He had a super interesting talk at BlenderCon last time, highly recommended.

I have stumbled over this a few times in the beginning: Every time I reinstall Blender or use it on another machine, I wonder: Where did that function go, why is it gone?Just to discover that I have to activate the addon.

Question: Who decides which addons get into Blender by default? Then how long are they deactivated (so to speak, being tested?) Who turns them on by default? Because I have noticed that some functionality was originally just an addon and then became part of Blender.

This is just one additional entry in the add / image / menu, there are now 2 entries, there would be a third with this turned on permanently, I don’t think that is excessive or clutter.

It is considered an import export addon and there are many others that are used to import or export file formats.

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I like the idea about drag and drop, but that is a new feature and should probably start in rightclick to select.
This post is just about activating the import image as plane addon, to save users unnecessary work having to turn it on every time they get a new Blender version, which is, lucky for us, often.

That I think would not help in any way, as far as I know, no developers read that forum and eventhough people can comment (turn it on or not?) but nobody with power to do it will ever read it. I have suggested other little features (that are really easy to do) and they never got any developer feedback and that was years ago (one of them was for adding a link to the official tutorials to the help menu / splash screen like most other 3D Software have it, giving a newbie a quickstart/proper onboarding into the UI)

Every time I reinstall Blender…

The first time you run a fresh version of Blender, there is an option on the splash screen to import your old preferences.

If you use many different systems and laptops, desktops that does not work, as it might be the first time you install it. I also don’t know if the addons you have selected gets saved (you can save your config on blender cloud through the cloud sync feature, but that does not save which addons you have selected) While it is true what you are saying, I have noticed over the many years using Blender that in fact you DO have to keep reenabling it.