They’re often named after their creators, like Mr.Bui Tuong Phongand Mr.Jim Blinn.
Its completely natural to not know something before you know it. That’s what i don’t get about this whole “jargon” debate. Its argued as though new users would be completely unable to learn anything new, as if these unknown words word stay unknown forever. The focus should be on helping motivated new users to learn, not making it so that they don’t have to.
The translate issue would be solved anyway by using icons instead. The reason to limit jargon is because when a new user opens blender, they need something to grasp onto or they will just give up. Maybe some people are privileged enough to already know a bit of lingo (video games and math helped me), but everyone else should still have to opportunity to learn, rather than immediately be shot down with a bombardment of mentally taxing jargon without so much as a descriptive tooltip.
No, of course not. But if you are completely unable or unwilling to learn anything new… then yes, you should give up now.
(And if you consider learning the names of the three basic transforms as being “professional”, then wow have i been working hard for nothing!)
And there we go : Elitism. Yes it is so elitist of me to imagine new users have the ability to learn new words and concepts. I must be crazy!
I don’t think you read those three paragraphs very well. I’ve never faulted anyone for being ignorant. Willfully ignorant, however, is another matter. The energy you put in to exaggerating the complexity of the “jargon” in blender is vastly superior than the energy required to take 15-30min on Wikipedia and learn it. That’s being purposefully obtuse, and such an attitude doesn’t merit changing standard names in the UI.
I don’t value your opinion either, so i guess we can end this discussion on an agreement 
Your mythical übermensch who learns everything by himself without any help and never gets frustrated or gives up doesn’t need to be accommodated, so he doesn’t belong in the discussion.
Rarely using the tool panel I had never noticed that. Well that sucks and definitely needs to be fixed. Damn can you imagine a new user dealing with that.
Well actually “Translate” is inconsistently named in the first place.
In some places it is called grab/move other places called translate.
Anyway, even Sketchup requires several tutorials and manual reading to create something and learn how to select properly and rotate the view properly.
The only 3d application I can think of that new users can pick up and learn/use naturally is Sculptris being that application is very targeted sculpting app that does nothing else.
Blender has never been designed around toolshelf/toolbar style working. There will always be a struggle with having actions in this
The only things that should be in the toolshelf is the likes of sculpting/painting tools, grease pencil, measuring stuff and selection tools. Actual tools, not actions.
Actions like move-object, set-smooth or bevel should be somewhere else designed for that. Like a pie menu / hotbox.
Either way these are small, layout/access problems.
I totally agree. That’s a good consitent workflow. And a popup floating panel for operators would be nice too.
Thank you seanser for your reflections, but :
Are, as you say, discussions about lack of certain feature implementations and (stupid imo) subscriptions plans. It’s not discussions about having a sub-par UI (or even broken UI) which have been argumented for a while now, so I think there is a difference.
By the way, I agree that the opinion that Blender’s (UI) is broken is quite sensationalist, and they are not words I would use.
But I don’t think that ‘Blender has a few UI issues’ is how I see it either - I think that Blender are having some real issues with attracting new users because of the UI. It is something I have felt personal (subjectively) but have also been exposed to out in the CG community. I’m not alone with these experiences - for instance here are BA members jskurias& Tileswith their observations.
EDIT : And here is Jonathan Williamson’s from CGCookie with his observations (ca. 2 min into the podcast).
I think the problem is that most new users expect the toolbar style and users like me prefer that style so I don’t have to memorize a bunch of shortcuts I will forget anyway. I’m not saying that we need to remove anything from Blender, just add in a working toolbar style. Integrating it into Blender should be very doable, hell apps have had both styles for 20+ years now. It’s a win for both groups, more people start using Blender, more potential donors, more money for Blender dev, etc. I can’t see anything but a win-win here?
IIRC those action buttons were put there because of the for-the-noobs crusade during the big UI change.
They work if Continuous Grab is turned on (Userprefs > Input). Default is Off.
If issues like this are not reported they won’t be dealt with unless a dev stumbles upon them and makes time to fix.
There’s other little things in Blender that are a bother like header button and other shortcuts not shown in tooltips and features/shortcuts that can’t be found in a menu anywhere.
Now that would be a good practical thread. Get a list together to report and get some easy fixes done. Anyone?
-LP
Btw since I’ve done stuck my nose in here…
I think a few pages ago some discussion was about hunt and scroll tedium. (Was it this UI thread?). More windows with panels moved and unused panels closed, at height of workspace for to drag in and out as needed is one answer but the main answer I have for this issue is this…
Working in Blender with a single monitor cripples you. No amount of GUI refinement will change this fact.
Dual monitors and a two output video card is the best investment you can make if you spend any serious time in this app. It’s not a luxury it’s a necessity IMO. Two monitors opens up the UI and makes it a pleasure to work in this generation of Blender. Two 16:10 pivot monitors is Blender heaven. Two monitors are great for multi-tasking and following tutorials too.
Whatever it takes, get yourself a dual monitor rig. You’ll wonder how you ever managed with just one.
Wasn’t going to post this but the thread is all over the place anyway, as all UI topic threads are.
-LP
This whole tread seems irrelevant. the blender foundation already have plans for a better UI according to the blender roadmap. what they need is positive feedback on the proposals. what they don’t need is some self styled “guru” dictating how blender should be and stirring up the mob to try and force the issue before the developers are ready to make such changes.
changes made because of popular demand often result in a worse product than the original, so rather than jumping on the Prices fanboy bandwagon, why don’t we try letting the developers get on with doing what they need to do.
I’m not seeing any mob mentality here, only honest discussions on how to make Blenders UI better - and trying to figure out if there are any tendencies in the perception of Blenders UI out in the CG community. In the effort to help with attracting new Blender users.
And personally - I’m no Andrew Price fanboy, I’m just agreeing with him on this one subject.
Final note : Here is what Ton wrote on Developer Meeting Notes, September 15, 2013 :
So it seems that the ‘head’ of Blender development thinks UI discussions in the community is important.
Quote from Brecht
"To be clear, there is a lot of activity around this topic from users, but as far as I know, no developers have announced any big plans to refresh the UI.
Ton mentioned something about refreshing the default settings in the roadmap, but that’s not the same thing.
http://code.blender.org/index.php/2013/06/blender-roadmap-2-7-2-8-and-beyond/
Maybe with all the activity there is a good change that developers will get interested in working on this topic, but I wouldn’t say that it is actually planned yet."
You can customize that to pretty much to your likings, tick the “Use Sketching Session” checkbox in the sidepanel and bind your grease pencil to D press. It will require Spacebar or enter to confirm however. That would be a rather simple change to the C code however, to allow custom keybindings for confirm/cancel.
Even if you’re using an Intuos system, the mouse and the tablet are treated like two different input devices, yes? If so, it’d be a nifty feature if you could check a box to make your tablet do grease pencil while your mouse does general input. In fact, there’s so many input devices computers are just coming with now (the Microsoft Surface Pro has a 10-point touchscreen, a pressure-sensitive stylus, and a mouse and keyboard), there could be a lot of expansion in the area of multiple inputs.
(obviously it wouldn’t be smart to make a touch screen and stylus mandatory, in just saying there’s a possibility space)
Saying that blenders UI is broken is an overstatement.
It’s not broken, it’s just objectively flawed at parts. Blender is the most comfortable 3D app I used, which is my personal preference, however, I do recognise the flaws and there is a lot of room for improvement.
I don’t think it’s wrong to say blender is broken. It’s like a dropped iPhone; it may still work, but there’s a big crack across the screen and the volume buttons don’t necessarily work all the time, so it’s still broken.
@ Muffy: South paw! Boy did my face light up when I realized what being left-handed had done for me with tablet!
@ Luftmensch: No, it’s not quite like that. Software/hardware are different. Safari on my iPhone crashes often, but that doesn’t mean it’s broken, it’s just annoying/unfriendly.
I think someone’s suggestion of making a chunky toolbar for neophytes and leaving the keyboard shortcuts in was brilliant. That’s a good way to learn a program. That’s how I learned InDesign, what I know of it. Then when you’re more comfortable, the key commands are right there for you to pick up and speed your work flow.
Um… jargon/nomenclature is good. Translate is different than ‘move.’ Oh, wait, I’m shutting up; if I get started on pejorative English usage I’m not going to stop until I’ve worn my fingers off. Hey! UI! It works a lot! Sometimes it doesn’t! Tool tips could be greatly expanded to the benefit of Mankind!