The only thing I have a problem with in the area of icons on tabs is that they need to be very carefully designed here - I would actually prefer the icons be used elsewhere that they make more sense like in the tool bar itself. I already have found situations where explaining the Properties Window top tab icons was confusing as hell in group chat, whereas written words in the menus were easier to tell people to find. How do you visually keep the World icon different than the Materials icon? Both are little spheres with only a slight difference. This is a small example of where icons for tabs could go wrong if the proper time isn’t taken to get it right visually.
Saint, Blender to me needs to be the Jeet Kune Do of 3d software - Bruce Lee’s Empty Cup theory, incorporate the best and get rid of the meaningless. My take on it, anyway. With William Reynish on board, and the UI team as it is, I feel really optimistic that they are really paying attention to how things work together, and devs visiting here to offer insight is comforting.
Thats a pretty good outlook on it. I feel that being able to approach it like that is one of the strengths of open source, the ability to go in that direction without customers and commercial interest holding them back. The only problem I see often with open source is that ego is often found within its ranks, causing the designs to be more or less more based on being different for the sake of being different.
Anyways, I agree with that sentiment for the most part.
Well, for one thing, the modifier stack system was able to fit neatly into even the 2.4x interface system (though in a somewhat clunkier way than with 2.6x). Another thing, this is as much or even more a feature than simply a UI element, heck, a lot of Blender’s existing features came in long after the commercial apps. implemented them (I believe Blender was one of the last 3D applications at any price range to actually get well-integrated access to a true GI system, with perhaps the sole outlier now being the simple hobbyist app. Anim8or, which is hard to believe because it used to be that even that little app. had features that Blender didn’t have).
Much of the discussion of UI also seems to be intermingled with workflow, the user interaction and approach. Thus, I would argue that something like a modifier stack is not mutually exclusive to the UI or vice versa. A lot of the UI discussions talk about how it works, not just how it looks. The subject of right mouse select and left mouse move is a good example of this, or how each window is broken up into its own mini application with its own set of hotkeys and layout. It all goes right back to workflow.
so to summarize your post,
you still haven’t pointed out what i said about coding that’s wrong
you still can’t produce a post that asked you to shut up after you proposed your brilliant idea
you still can’t produce any new blender ui feature i rejected because of my “fear”
you still can’t produce my motive for my alleged vendetta against maya
I have. But it seems that you haven’t understand my answer really. Must be my bad english. Anyways. I`m off your back now. Peace
About this, it would not be preferable to let user change that instead of devs ?
Some addons are old and there are no dev to fix them, so we will still have some addons on each tab because we cannot move them to another tab.
In a preview mockup, we had a hide button, I think it will be great to add this or maybe the possibility to rearange ourselves the tabs and create custom tabs.
In this exemple, we can see that it’s unreadable because of my addon on each tab.
It should not be so difficult to sort addons for categories, 3d_view, animation, mesh, and so on, and put them (if they have a GUI in the tools panel) in relative tabs.
At least for the moment.
The new UI implementations are experimental.
A drag and drop option on these tabs is expected. It is a familiar solution (like using OS browsers)
Still, they are in trunk and share the same blender prefs 2.69 folder.
There is a danger to brake the prefs of the official blender 2.69.
A 2.69b or a 2.7 new folder sounds a good and safe solution.
Testing new blender builds is on our own risk. OK, but we can avoid it easily.
This is neither a true nor a fair statement. Ego isn’t any more prevalent among open source projects than any other… it’s perhaps more regulated elsewhere, but citing that as the problem is pretty inaccurate. Furthermore, I’d like to address this notion that things are written in open source software to be different for the sake of it (we read this a lot on this and other forums). It’s simply not the case. More accurately, a developer (or even a user who knows some code) thinks that he or she has a better way of addressing some issue. Sometimes they’re not aware of existing solutions, but more often, they simply don’t like it and want to try their take (yeah… ego does show up there). Or sometimes, in the course of solving one issue, another issue gets a stopgap measure that institutionalizes itself because someone else ends up liking it.
Point is: it’s very rare for developers to have the approach of being different just for its own sake. There are more rational reasons for their choices. Now, we can (and do!) debate whether or not those choices are actually an improvement, but that’s a different topic.
You can be sure that any add-on that ships with trunk will surely be fixed to fit into a specific category before release. As for old add-ons… the fix is really a one-liner that just about anyone can do (and if they can’t, send me a PM about the add-on… I’ll do the fix and submit a patch… or re-release the add-on if there’s no maintainer).
Yes, re-ordering panels and tabs with the GUI could be nice as well (maybe), but would you rather wait to have that before getting tabs at all, or take what you can get for now? And, full disclosure, I say this as someone who’s not entirely sold on the concept of using tabs in this situation…
create
Basic
Relations
Animation
Physics
Grease pencil
History
In the future some may add more tabs there. What then? Scrolling?
Now, let’s see, because you all love familiarity
Just have them as I wrote them, as a column
Give them a button-like appearance
Click one of them
it opens, fine
click on another, the first closes, the second is the active and opened.
click holding shift
two will be active then.
Drag and drop option of course, to organize them as you like.
And, of course, the buttons-like under Create, not like buttons, these are not buttons
Now someone may add a few more horizontal tabs without messing everything.
all these adopted from the common UI found in most of the OS browsers
I find it reasonable and stylistic enough.
The whole UI problem in our case is what looks like a button, what is not.
I think, confusion in the blender UI today comes from the use of same looking buttons.
I am sure it will be fast and efficient and consistent for anyone moreso then now that is the point of redesign. However When i see the words “existing users” that says to me “we dont want to change”. “we dont want to take time to learn something new in blender and adjust our thinking”.
Of course redesign will bear these things in mind. One would assume that devs are working on these things know what they are doing (if they dont we are in trouble) but blender still exists and improves with each itteration of it so I think they do know what they are doing.
I think “existing users” need to learn to adapt we complain all the time about “noobs” who dont want to learn blender etc giving them all kinds of flack and heck yet at the same time a lot of present blender community the ones against changes are proving in many cases to be very inflexible.
Then there are the guys who say “i want it to be hard to use because then its impressive that i know how to use it” I see that in this thread as well.
Existing users need to have some faith and take into account that the only way this software will grow and evolve is to improve and keep up and maybe overtake others in the market. They also need to be willing to learn and adapt as well. Yes you may need to develop a different way of working that doesnt’ make it “bad” or “wrong” it means you to may have to change. I kinda like some of the new layouts I am seeing. I am not giving input because I am easily pleased haha. In my books “as long as it works” is how I function. I just want my screenspace back I am able to learn “the new way” easily enough and I am sure everyone else here will learn it as well despite their inflexibility.
I am however from what I see on this forum far more easy going I just am tired of people trying to push the most important part of the software to the background so they can have more “cool crap” and watching the devs as they try to figure how to squeeze it into the present mess. Time for a redesign before blender collapses under the sheer weight of itself. I am patient I will wait for new features I am worried for the health and survival of my favourite 3d software and I know at the end of the day the way its going to survive and grow is to work well not only for present users who have learned over time to work with the present interface but for new users looking at blender now saying “Oh my carpel tunnel syndrome if only they would x,y,z then I can use it” or whatever.
Call me crazy but as a present blender user I am obviously already sold I use their software daily and exclusively these days i dropped everything else awhile back with a couple of exceptions and am perfectly willing to learn to use any new interface they throw in front of me “as long as it works” and I am sure it will.
One of the most regrettable attitudes I encounter from users of programs used to produce art is a refusal to recognize creativity in the programmer. If it’s not ego when you make art, why should you call it ego when a programmer wants to try something different that doesn’t conform to the way everyone else is doing it? I don’t look at my art and say, “Well, that looks like everyone else’s stuff, I must have done a good job.”
FOSS gives programmers an opportunity to do what they love without the restrictions in corporate code production. When I see a UI or a tool that does things a little differently or presents information in a new way I am stimulated the same way as when I see a piece of art that breaks out of monotonous sameness.
BTW I am agreeing with Fweeb just in case my post was not clear.
urbanlamb i am one of those noobs you speak of. i dont have much time to learn blender with the rest of my life, thats my fault. i’m hobbiest and never going to be a pro. i’m also an old fart and learn slower that you young guns. what change does is breaks all the existing tutorials. by the time i learn how to do it have to unlearn that which is even harder than learning from scratch. you have to break habits and override your subconscious. the reason schools largely teach autodesk products over blender is the documentation and consistency. you have to learn it once, not once again. and the documentation is never going to catch up because blender keeps changing. there may be many ways to do something, but one of those ways has to be the most efficient. do it that way so its better for the experienced users and it dosn’t have to change all the time so us slow people can eventually catch up.
it sucks to believe that even if you go slow as long as you keep making progress you’ll eventually get there only to realize that once you were almost there the finished line has moved so you are still at the start of your journey. and the worst part is all you maps of how to get to the goal, the tutorials, are as lost as you are. i have been here for years…and when people start bragging i seem to still be stuck with “well i can model and render the hell out of a cube…two cubes on a good day”. change isn’t always good for the experienced or the noobs. atleast if its the way the experienced people have been doing it for years i can probably find a tutorial for it…if i can ever get to the point of needing an advanced tutorial.
I like this tab version:
> there are many more place for own customizing…
> it will be really good to create own Tabs…
> but on thing i found are to much: double Function like Grease Pencil
> you have the Tab and you have it in Editmode…
> it give me a feeling of an teacher build version
> i find it better to have it only where i need it > e.g. in there near of bsurface…
…here is a cleaner preview of the tab version (without editmode):
Im not young by any means I am over 50 now just about to have my 51st birthday. I am not old either but the reality is when working in this field either as a hobby or as a professional you are continually having to learn its just a side effect of being involved with this kind of thing. I can’t think of a single piece of software that has not changed over the years including windows which has just changed again. I use photoshop and that has changed so dramatically over the last while I have had to relearn that. I can’t think of a single situation where at some point I have not had to learn new things to continue using the software I like. Blender is no different and it should not be.
I also dont really consider the noobs thing to be an issue I hate the word its just on this forum people are really quite hard on new users. The entire point of a redesign is to help everyone new and old users alike. The actualy way blender works will not change 3D is 3D and most of the principles in blender carry over to any 3D software. If you learn blender and want to say switch to maya or 3dsmax you will pick it up quickly. If your new to 3D your not only trying to learn to use the software but your also trying to learn the basic concepts behind creating 3d objects, and texturing them and and and. I guarantee you once you learn all the bits and pieces of how to use blender and create a scene or object and texture it or whatever you goal is (animation, still shots, movies blender has many uses) those skills will transfer over regardless of interface layout. I speak here from experience on that one as I am often put into a situation of having to pick up maya or 3dsmax if I am working with another 3D person I am usualy the one who decided to bend. Learning a new interface wont take you long. Learning how to make a fully animated movie from start to finish models, riggings, lightings etc etc when knowing nothing is a whole other thing entirely. I guarantee that you would have the same steep learning curve regardless of the software you are learning these skills in.
