Does Blender need a flexible UI system for complete freedom in UI coustomisation?

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

I started this poll keep alive the loud debate on blender’s UI to be made more user friendly and settle this matter once for all. See Blendernation where the great debate started.

I am of the opinion that Blender UI must be completely abstracted from its underlying core, and must be able to code in pyhton a completely new Blender interface on our whims. This way we may have interfaces like native 3ds Max or Maya anything else. People from these applications can never question about Blender’s capabilities, but they always complain about its too much off-beat user interface.

Kermon raised the concern that given so much liberty in UI will be nightmarish after this freedom. All people will come-up with tuts in their cool off-beat interfaces. I don’t think so.

First, making a vast UI changes is never a easy task hence ultimately we may end up with 3-types of UI like Blender Original, 3dsMaxUI and MayaUI. We already have themes to wreak havoc with but how many tuts do we have with such off-beat UIs? Furthermore, aren’t we (or any newbie) comfortable with looking at 3ds Max and Maya tuts?

Kermon also says that we may have regular threads as “Hey look at the cool UI I created for Blender”, well, again making vast UIs changes is not easy. But, I would love to check such threads out, after all this is also an art to create great interfaces.

And as for u ShiftingCloud, I would say that it is not the new comers who will make the interface, it is we who will make it. Indeed I volunteer for that, because I more comfortable with coding than with modelling or animating, and I do want to make a contribution to this excellent lovable community.

As for how tough will it be for the Blender developers to do it - I don’t know. Only they can decide it, but at least we can cry to papas that we want that lolly. :stuck_out_tongue:

If this happens, we may have a simpler (stripped down) version for the newbies to too and they could gradually be given the bigger toys (as suggested by Kermon).

So, my suggestion is that blender core be separated from the UI so much that we may be able to even use the already existing native libraries of Python (that come with the Python interpreter) to create the UIs. Winamp can be taken as reference. There u can change the UI completely and create completely new buttons or windows. Creating new UIs doesn’t mean doing allowing custom hot keys, again I will refer u to Winamp which has global hot keys defined that doesn’t change with UI.

So, the question is u want it to be in priority list of wanted features (if it is delayed then it maybe more difficult later with many more libraries to separate the two nations)

Or, u want this but will let the developer decide when

Or, U r still against it. Why? Please post it.

2

If you really want a new GUI for Blender, you can always write your own, and wrap the Blender functionality. It is all open source after all.

It would be neat to wrap Blender by a platform-aware GUI that benefits of all provided controls. For example, under Windows it automatically provides support for drag&drop, copy&paste using clipboard, common dialogs, printers, etc.

At the moment, even simple tasks like copy&paste text into the python scripting editor doesn’t work from the clipboard, and file-load functionality doesn’t use the common file-open dialog.

This idea might be against Ton’s ‘Blender philosophy’, but due to the fact Blender is open source, anyone who has time and knowledge can do this GUI wrapping.

3

Well, the idea is not bad at all but it requires a lot of work, and i’m afraid it will not be worth the effort. I would rather see better documentation for blender as it is now, not just text, but also up-to-date video tutorials. I think many people have a hard time sitting down reading and understand something as complex as the blender gui, especially those of us who doesn’t have english as out first language can encounter some difficulties.

4

ermin I actually looked into the code but it is too complicated for me. So, what I want is like asking form the people who know the code to make it so, that we can easily make this new UI and to do that directly in code requires lot of knowledge about that. Python is much easier to work with and these particular cases it makes sense to use scripting language other than hard code that. Hard coding will force to maintaining parallel projects of Blender which have only the UI different. This is a redundant. Eventually these parallel projects maybe left behind.

5

Does Blender need a flexible UI system for complete freedom in UI coustomisation?

No. It doesn’t. The UI works perfectly fine for the intent it was created for. I could never understand all this crap about “customization”… Somehow I don’t the Maya or XSI folks would provide a “customizable” interface to their products… why should the Blender devs divert their efforts into a “vanity option”? (which is pretty much what I consider this topic to be about IMO).

If you really want a new GUI for Blender, you can always write your own, and wrap the Blender functionality. It is all open source after all.

Erwin has a wonderful point here. If you want Blender to “look n feel” the way YOU want it to, knock yourself out. No really. If anyone wants to spend their time customizing the UI instead of creating game content, art, whatever, they should do so.

It doesn’t take a consensus of the Blender community to do this IMO.

I actually looked into the code but it is too complicated for me.

Then it would appear that this kind of project is beyond your ability. I would consider it very unfair to ask others to do what you yourself are unable to do to satisfy your wants or needs even if you have the best intentions…

6

SiriusCG we always ask new features in Blender even when we aren’t capable of putting in those features. I will again look into the code when I am over with my current project. vbmenu_register(“postmenu_662869”, true);

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I find that blender’s UI is already very sexy IMO. It’s built for speed and effeciency, and i find that im able to create scenes and animations much more quickly than i can with maya.

However… I think it would be cool if we could have a skinnable interface for blender, that way people can make their own customized interfaces and slap them on the program. Personally, i like glossy buttons but others may not. Either way, one would have the freedom to choose among existing skins or make their own. Making blender skinnable would not be as much work as totally redesigning the entire UI.

Besides, its already flexible as hell. You can have as many viewports as you want and change them into any type of window you want. What more could you ask for?

8

Hi guys, well there was this thread a few days ago… Some ideas were posted in there, like a Python described UI ^^, just thought it could be related

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=71760

Ciao
Dani

9

i think for now just some visual updates would be nice…

maya also has a totally customizable interface, since all the toolbars, buttons and menus etc are coding in mel script. so it wouldnt be to bad to have the same function in blender, to be honest i havent seen many maya screens or tutorials that use a custom interface although you can customize it!

Creating levels of interface and type would be good for instance, the modeling interface could have a toolbar or floating panel with all the modeling features and mesh information on down one side or something.

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I am of the opinion that Blender UI must be completely abstracted from its underlying core, and must be able to code in pyhton a completely new Blender interface on our whims.

At first sight I disagree totally. But I can be convinced by good arguments.

Here’s why I disagree : the medium is the message. (Marshall McLuhan)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan#McLuhan_in_modern_technology_culture
This means that Blender is not just a compilation of features : any software can have as many features or more or less, better or worse. Blender is the application, the management of these features through it UI. Blender is essentially its UI. This is so true that a couple of years back most of Blender’s code was UI related and, if you consider that much if not most of the new code is borrowed libraries, it is likely that most of Blender’s original code still is UI.

This way we may have interfaces like native 3ds Max or Maya anything else. People from these applications can never question about Blender’s capabilities,

On the contrary : that only there that the real pros are looking.

but they always complain about its too much off-beat user interface.

The question is to know who is complaining. I’m still skeptic toward someone who can’t make the minimal effort of learning the UI. Blender’s learning curve may be steep because of it, it still is not mount Everest. Who is that lazy really ?

Kermon raised the concern that given so much liberty in UI will be nightmarish after this freedom.

Well, that seems obvious.

All people will come-up with tuts in their cool off-beat interfaces. I don’t think so.

OK, proove your point man !

First, making a vast UI changes is never a easy task hence ultimately we may end up with 3-types of UI like Blender Original, 3dsMaxUI and MayaUI.

What is it that you have against Lightwave, Wings3D, Modo, XSI… ?

We already have themes to wreak havoc with but how many tuts do we have with such off-beat UIs?

You compare colorization with total transformation ? Themes change very little, and tutorialists risk them very rarely (I did not even take that risk http://membres.lycos.fr/bobois/ ) which prooves that customization is to handle with care. Yet, color themes are far from being the risk for confusion that a completely different UI is ! Come on !

Furthermore, aren’t we (or any newbie) comfortable with looking at 3ds Max and Maya tuts?

No, we’re not comfortable. As a matter of fact, it is often difficult even for the seasonned user to adapt a non-Blender tutorial to Blender.
Besides are you proposing that tutorials will be showing a Max or Maya interface rather than Blender’s ? Which will it be ? Why would it be limited to those two again ?

Kermon also says that we may have regular threads as “Hey look at the cool UI I created for Blender”, well, again making vast UIs changes is not easy.

Agreed to-tal-ly : it is not easy to make the changes and it is a thousand times harder to make a good UI. There is much more to it than imitating well known models. Besides wouldn’t it be asking to get sued ?

But, I would love to check such threads out, after all this is also an art to create great interfaces.

Isn’t there a book called ‘The Art of War’ ? It still is destruction to my taste.

And as for u ShiftingCloud,

Getting personnal ?

I would say that it is not the new comers who will make the interface, it is we who will make it.

Don’t you mean ‘interfaces’ ?

Indeed I volunteer for that, because I more comfortable with coding than with modelling or animating, and I do want to make a contribution to this excellent lovable community.

Isn’t there some other area that is more in need than this one ? If your intention is to give back something let the users vote : what is more important ? Micro-displacement, SSS, Renderman compliance, an API for other renderers, a node based GLSL shader creator, GI… or an interface à la Maya ?

As for how tough will it be for the Blender developers to do it - I don’t know. Only they can decide it, but at least we can cry to papas that we want that lolly. :stuck_out_tongue:

I really couldn’t have said it better. LOL

If this happens, we may have a simpler (stripped down) version for the newbies to too and they could gradually be given the bigger toys (as suggested by Kermon).

I like this idea : Blender would still be recognizable then, not disfigured, not neutered.

So, my suggestion is that blender core be separated from the UI so much that we may be able to even use the already existing native libraries of Python (that come with the Python interpreter) to create the UIs. Winamp can be taken as reference. There u can change the UI completely and create completely new buttons or windows. Creating new UIs doesn’t mean doing allowing custom hot keys, again I will refer u to Winamp which has global hot keys defined that doesn’t change with UI.

You see I’d like custom hotkeys : they don’t break communication since the user customizes them and to be able to do so has to know what the default shortcut is. When reading a tutorial this user still can understand it. A newcomer that decides from the getgo to uses one of your imitation UI will not be able to read the user manual or follow all the existing tutorial.

So, the question is u want it to be in priority list of wanted features (if it is delayed then it maybe more difficult later with many more libraries to separate the two nations)

Did you mean “notions” ?

Or, u want this but will let the developer decide when

Or, U r still against it. Why? Please post it.

If this is an honest poll and if your desire of getting to the bottom of the can-of-worms debate is authentic then add this choice :

I want the coding resources we have applide to make the present UI to be the best it can.

11

I think if you want a User interface like Maya, then go get Maya. I really don’t have any problems with the interface as it is. I see nothing wrong with being able to create your own gui, as long as it doesn’t take anything away from the software’s speed or the development of functions that are actually important.
As for the confusion, it would be OVERWHELMING. I have seen up to two posts per day here concerning “where’s the subsurf button?” OMG what would happen when everything was moved? How could a beginner follow a tutorial?
Anyways, I look at it like learning to ride a bicycle. If you want to steer with your feet and peddle with your hands, then by all means I think you have the right to do so.

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The UI was originally concieved for a program with a much narrower scope than Blender currently has. The fundamental UI concepts are sound and very very good, but there has been a distinct lack of development to extend these concepts to give Blender the infrastructure needed to grow in the direction that users and developers want it.

Currently there are dozens of things wrong with blenders UI, some of them cannot be solved currently without major work. This leads to problems not
only for users but us developers as well.

Cheers
Xarf

13

we always ask new features in Blender even when we aren’t capable of putting in those features.

Yes, it’s a lesson I learn everyday… I’m an applications programmer and System Admin. Users want this and they want that, even though they haven’t used the existing application to even close to it’s potential. Maybe that’s why I’m a bit more adamant about NOT changing things around. The functionality is there already…

Customization, skinning, themes, yada, yada, yada… I guess I really am too “old school” to see the benefits vs the drawbacks sometimes…

but there has been a distinct lack of development to extend these concepts to give Blender the infrastructure needed to grow in the direction that users and developers want it.

Hmm, ok… I’m not a dev so I really wouldn’t know concerning its infrastructure. But as a user, I’m perfectly content with it because of the UI. I could purchase Maya or XSI or <Name Brand Modeler Here> but I won’t…

I think if you want a User interface like Maya, then go get Maya.

I’m with you…

14

I would rather see better documentation for blender as it is now, not just text, but also up-to-date video tutorials.

I’d prefer books. We need lots of them. Dummies books, Idiot’s Guides to Blender, Bible and In-Depth series, Inside Blender, etc. People have to have incentives to write them. Let them make tons of money out of it. And let them decide if they want to give back some of their profits to the community as a gesture of good will. The book doesn’t even have to cover everything. Just enough to make a three-minute animation scene comparable to what they did in Elephant’s Dream.

BTW, when is ED workbook going to be released?

15

Unless you make it, you have to wait.
Now THAt said… Get good with photoshop and start some genuine mockups that explain the method of new design work flow

16

I can see pros and cons of both sides.

I think anybody can learn to be functional with the Blender UI, no problem. Its a matter of how committed one is. Those people who find blender on the internet, say “I think I’m going to try this”, download it, open it up, and then say “I don’t understand anything”. So they just go leave blender on their computer and forget about it or delete it, without trying. Either that or they come here and make a post saying, “so I installed blender, now what?” without even bothering to look up any tutorials. Inevitably this is the type of person who would eventually leave blender anyways, and not being committed, isn’t very likely to follow the pseudo “take a penny leave a penny” and respectful educational customs we have here. Is it really worth it to change the UI for this type of behavior? No.

However, for the user who really is committed to learning, whether it be because they must do it because they need to build a portfolio to go to an animation university or get a job, they are trying to see if they are good at 3D like in 2D, etc, the UI can be daunting. So perhaps a somewhat stripped down or more “universal” UI could be made available, but not available perhaps by default in blender.

One problem with having multiple UIs that are greatly different is just that, they are greatly different. It creates unnecessary clutter, i.e. a larger and ultimately slower program, and it could create havoc as far as creating tutorials goes. If a new users is on the ‘stripped down’ UI and they go look at a tutorial for something like 2.4 or less, then they will ultimately be discouraged in the end because they have to make constant reference back and forth becoming essentially a translator of new to old.

On top of that what is to qualify a ‘new user’ interface? Is it just reorganized? Are we going to hide some of the functions that we assume aren’t going to be needed by new users?

One thing is for sure, in my mind, though. If it is decided that a new more ‘stripped down’ interface is needed, then it should not fall on the foundation and its coders to provide. It should be the people who want and use it to maintain it, separate from the main branch. Let the main blender coders worry about improving the main version of blender, not about adding frivolous extras for the unobtainable goal of making the software accessible to everyone, as it will never be accessible to everyone.

17

Unless you make it, you have to wait.

I know it takes a lot of time to produce books. But I’m positive that whatever is written now will still be relevant a couple of years later because the app in its present version is virtually complete and can already produce stunning 3d graphics.

And that’s the point of producing easy-to-understand books with price accessible to anyone interested. The more knowledgeable users there are, the more writers we will have in the future. I plan to write one, myself, for beginners, especially. I think I will have a better idea.

18

In the most part the wiki can provide the best manual when cleaned up… And upholds to the open source nature.

As for the ui, I mean it, make a good mock up… if you do a good job in a modular design maybe someone will look at it as a real possibility to code…

Start a team… Otherwise this is just another screaming match of whats better and what sucks… Which no one listens to

19

Well said. Here’s a take on it from a new user.

I like the idea of a totally customizable UI, but practically speaking, it’d be one of the last things I was worried about. Making everything work correctly would be my primary goal.

I’m not even familiar with what and where everything is in the standard UI. “Nightmarish” is a good description of what it’d be like trying to follow a tutorial with a non-standard UI.

Concerning the ‘new user’ UI, if such a thing was put into effect, I imagine it would just hide the options that were deemed too advanced for a beginner to worry about. As for who decides what those are … that sounds like a possible task for whomever wanted to customize it in the first place.

To answer the question by the thread starter: No, I don’t think Blender needs it.

20

I think OpenSource implies a ‘Do-It-Yourself’ kind of spirit on the user part.
Some people seem to forget they are using the result of a collective volunteer effort and keep comparing it to their favourite commercial software … how embarrasing !
Instead of demanding of others to implement different features, better learn to code what you really need… then you’ll have something to share with the community !
just my 2 cents