How to make a custom Drop Down menu

Support Python Support
1

Hello, everyone,

I’ve been slowly learning python, but I’m having trouble with drop down menu’s and checkboxes. I can easily duplicate one from the existing UI, but I can’t figure out how to make one from scratch.

Any help would be apprecieated. Thanks in advance.

2

first you need to create an EnumProperty for a dropdown, and a BoolProperty for a checkbox. Adding them to a panel is the second step.

http://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_73a_release/bpy.props.html

3

Hi, thanks for the fast reply.

I already figured out that I need a custom property, I just can’t figure out how I’m supposed to declare it so that the checkbox/drop down gets it.

I quickly wrote a script to make a checkbox that isn’t working. Can you show me what I’m doing wrong so that I can apply it in other area’s?


import bpy
from bpy.types import Menu, Panel, UIList

i = bpy.props.BoolProperty(name="checkbox")

class testpanel(Panel):
    bl_category = "test"
    bl_label = "test"
    bl_context = "objectmode"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'TOOLS'
    
    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        col = layout.column(align=True)
        
        col.prop("checkbox", text="Test")

Thanks!

4

You need to register properties on an ID type:

import bpy

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Scene properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "scene"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        wm = context.window_manager
        
        layout.prop(wm, "your_prop")

def register():
    bpy.types.WindowManager.your_prop = bpy.props.BoolProperty(name="Your Prop")
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)
    del bpy.types.WindowManager.your_prop

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

For UI-only properties, you may use WindowManager (but beware, those won’t be saved in the .blend), or on the appropriate “thing”, like Object, Scene, Bone… these will be saved in .blend.

5

Thanks, that worked.