This is a question I almost always have whenever I use Blender. The other is “Why is that happening”!? But that’s another subject.
I am always looking for menus. Usually because the things I want to do are only available in Edit mode, or Object mode. Sometimes this makes sense, I guess, but other things, I have no idea why it’s that way. But recently I’ve discovered some menus that are usually available are not available in some workspaces and I don’t know why. I was in the shading workspace, and I had changed the upper window to be edit mode. I wanted to turn on mirroring on the X axis, but that menu is just not there. Am I imagining it? Is that only available in another mode? I switched to the Edit workspace. There it is. This is the same type of window I had in Shading, but that whole level of the top menu isn’t in that window. How is that? Is there a key to hide this?
I’ve noticed this in other workspace windows too with different menu items. Also, why do things look so different from the standard window defaults? Sometimes show things in wireframe, some show things in solid shaded mode. Some of them I couldn’t figure out how to make them the normal default values so I had to close the window and open a default one.
One of the things I discovered a solution for, but still can’t figure out why it’s not available in the normal menu. Cursor to Selected. It’s not in the menu in edit mode. It’s not that it isn’t available in Edit mode, it’s just not in the menu. It’s in a pie menu that comes up when Shift S is pressed.
Why don’t I just use the hotkeys? I can’t remember them all. Hotkeys aren’t useful if you don’t know what they are.
It sounds to me like you might want to invest some time into customizing your workspaces to your needs, since the defaults aren’t working well for you. That’s something I really like about Blender; I can make it my own. My startup scene is very different from the default. My Shading workspace too. It’s worth the time to set aside an hour or so and just go through the menus and settings to get a better feel for them instead of having that purely driven by need; that tends to be frustrating.
I agree that it can be tough to find things, what with all the differences between the different modes. I’ve memorized pretty much every hotkey for operations I use regularly, but many I don’t use that often, and some that I use a lot don’t even have hotkeys (I hesitate to remap keys). The latter go on my Quick Favorites menu. What I can’t remember, I search for with F3. That too, is alas mode-dependent; I wish it wasn’t because it is otherwise a life saver.
You need to enable that entire header – there’s a checkbox under View → Tool Settings.
Cursor-to-Selected is under Object → Snap and Mesh → Snap depending on mode. I never use them because the SHIFT-S pie menu is faster.
The windows in different work spaces look different because somebody somewhere sometime had to decide on a default setting that would hopefully serve most people well enough until they figure out how to customize things. That’s surely not even remotely perfect (it couldn’t be, though maybe it could be better), but since one can customize things to one’s liking it can become less bothersome.
Why menus are not always visible ?
Because your screen is a limited area.
Menus are distributed into several modes because it is not possible to display them all at once in whole width of screen.
View Select Add Object Mesh Vertex Edge Face UV Sculpt Mask Face Sets Paint Weights Particle Curve Control_Point Segments Surface Metaball Text Grease Pencil Stroke Point Draw Armature Pose Lattice
Display of all those menus, according to context of selected object and mode, is limiting space, they are occupying on screen, to a small portion of a row.
Also, why do things look so different from the standard window defaults? Sometimes show things in wireframe, some show things in solid shaded mode. Some of them I couldn’t figure out how to make them the normal default values so I had to close the window and open a default one.
Each area of a workspace corresponds to an editor type. Each area has its own display settings.
You can create a workspace made of several 3D Views. Each one can display a different shading mode and a different set of overlays.
In Layout workspace, there is a grid floor with XY axis and a Studio Light is used in solid mode.
In Sculpting workspace, there is no floor, no axis and a matcap is used to optimize shading performance.
In Shading workspace, Material Preview mode is used and HDRI used is represented in right bottom corner of view.
Presence of several workspaces is there to demonstrate that customization to needs of user is possible.
The whole point of 2.8 design was to improve switch of UI. Instead of just switching from one mode to another to accomplish a task, user should access to a space optimized for the task with pertinent gizmos, pertinent display, pertinent display of properties and pertinent addons activated.
Absence of ability to create display presets is a lack of an unachieved To Do task.
Like @piranha4D said Snap menu (shift S) is in Object menu or Object Type menu (edit mode), in header. It is also under right click menu.
You’re saying things I already know, not really understanding my question I guess. I know about the shift S pie menu. Why isn’t it in the same menu in Edit mode as it is in Object mode? Why is there no consistency?
The other issue is how are certain menus turned off in certain workspace windows? There are default versions of these same exact windows that have menu items that are not in the workspace version. I need to know how these things are turned on and off. I know they are customizable, but I have no idea how these particular things were changed, or how to reset them, as they are so different from the defaults. I want to know in each workspace how things have been modified and how it was done, and how I can put it back to normal.
My main gripe is that I can never find what I need. I remember menu items being there, but they aren’t there now. Why is that? Am I mis-remembering? I don’t know. Maybe it was never there, or it’s not available in the mode I’m in. Maybe it’s only there on Tuesdays. That seems like it might be a possibility sometimes. I have been spending a lot of time working in Blender the past three years. I should know where everything is by now but I don’t because nothing is consistent.
If you want to know what all has changed since what you think of as “normal”, read the release notes of the versions since you were last familiar with the interface: (https://www.blender.org/download/releases/). There are also videos that go in-depth on what changes have been made in each version of Blender, and they are especially plentiful for the versions that made major interface changes.
It might be more efficient to start over, especially when you’re not certain if what you remember was really there in the first place. Pick a recent LTS version and practice with it until you’re familiar. It took me about 3 weeks to feel comfortable with the interface in Blender 3.0 (and I am old and don’t learn as quickly anymore as I once did), so it’s not all that difficult – a little bit every day sticks better than a bigger chunk once a week. I don’t let inconsistencies get to me; everything has them, I can’t do anything about it, and so I just roll with it.
As to “why nothing is consistent” (I’ll write the hyperbole off as frustration), why are you asking us? We’re not the people who designed the interface. We’re just users trying to help other users with specific issues they have. Those are unanswerable questions in this forum.
Lastly, if you mainly just want to vent your frustration, #general-forums:off-topic-chat is a better place for that and you’re more likely to find some kindred spirits.
There is consistency in a way, though: Snap can be found in a menu that’s named after the type of entity you’re editing.
In Object Mode it’s “Object > Snap”.
In Edit, we’re editing meshes. So “Mesh > Snap”.
In Curve Edit it’s “Curve > Snap”…
And even in UV Editor, Snap can be found in UV menu.
Sorry, I’m not talking about different versions of Blender. Actually haven’t noticed big differences there. I mean the difference between a default window and a workspace window. I can open a default 3D viewport and that will give me default menus. If I go to one of the different workspace 3D viewports, some menus may be different, or not there, even though it’s the same type of viewport.
How were they turned off? How do I turn them back on?
I may have to record a video of this to prove I’m not just insane.
I have a text window in my startup file, with a text document full of notes on key commands, menus, etc. I don’t use it much though, since i find that the act of writing something down usually fixes it in my memory. I do use it from time to time though.
I think the primary problem here might be that there is no single “default” the way you think of it.
Which 3D viewport window do you consider the “default”? I’m guessing the one in Layout? Even though we all start in Layout, it is just a workspace like all the others.
Nobody thinks you’re insane, nobody is doubting that your other workspace 3D viewport windows differ from the 3D viewport you get in Layout, no video is necessary. It is that way for all of us out of the box. The different workspace 3D viewports are adjusted towards fitting the tasks people tend to do in those workspaces.
There is no one single way of how you can get an editor window in a specific workspace to look like what you think of as “default”, because there actually is no such thing – the defaults differ for the different workspaces. If you reset Blender to factory settings you get default setups for all of those, but they’re still all different, still all workspace-specific. There is no single default.
If you don’t want to wrestle with adjusting things every single time you start a new file (which gets old very fast), you will need to customize and save those changes. This is why I mentioned spending some time doing that with your workspaces, so they are actually the way you want them to be and stay that way – you can make every 3D viewport in every other workspace look like the one in Layout if you want. I told you already how to get the header with the tool settings in the 3D viewport window in the Shading workspace. If you explore the menus you’ll discover what makes what appear or disappear.
This is enormously powerful once you get the hang of it. And it can be a one-time investment. Make a list of all the workspace windows that confound you now because they have things missing, read the fine manual starting here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/interface/index.html, ask in this forum for how you can get what you want if that doesn’t answer your questions, set things up accordingly, and then save that setup as your personal default. Done once, done forever – or until you change your mind.
This is why I said I should make a screen recording. I will go through everything and confirm that what I’m saying is true or not. Maybe I missed something, or I’m just tired. I will review everything and make sure I haven’t made some foolish mistake, which may be the case. Thanks for your help.
I also need to be in front of the computer before I respond. Sorry.
I see this now. That is one of the things I was looking for. I was confused when you said, “Assuming the add-on is enabled”. Is mirroring an add-on?
I have never used Auto Mirror, at least not that I was aware of. Is this the same as clicking X,Y or Z next to the butterfly icon?
Here is a screen grab, which may explain why I’m confused. How many different options am I looking at here? I most often use the Symmetrize command under Mesh. I have never used Interactive Mirror Ctrl-M. I’m using a modifier in this model to give me two rows of springs. I hardly ever use a modifier to make a symmetrical mesh.
Oh man, mirroring. Today is a day for learning, and not just for you. I was wrong about those butterfly buttons.
I know of 4 ways of mirroring:
a Mirror modifier – duplicates the selection across an axis, and whatever you do to a mirrored mesh will happen to the projected other half for as long as the modifier is live
symmetrizing – after you’ve made changes to a part of the mesh, you can copy those changes across an axis, to the opposite side of the mesh
live changes to a mesh that already has a symmetry axis (such as a Suzanne) are mirrored for as long as you turn on mesh symmetry (vertices need to match exactly on both sides, or need to be very close topologically (with Topology Mirror turned on))
interactive mirroring (basic flipping, creates no duplicate) of objects or {parts of} meshes on the fly
Re 1: You know about the Mirror modifier. Auto Mirror is an add-on that’s supposed to make using the Mirror modifier easier – one of those bundled with Blender that you just need to enable. It will appear in the N-panel Edit tab. I dunno about easier – I prefer to use the modifier directly and I don’t find that hard; I use it all the time.
Re 2: You know about symmetrizing. I use this a lot in hard surface modeling. I don’t know whether there’s another way to get that; maybe a pie menu (I am not very familiar with those). I have it in my Quick Favourites.
Re 3: In the Tool Settings header the buttons next to the butterfly icon are for that live mirroring. I never use this, because until today I was mistaken about what it does. A bit further right there’s also an Options drop-down, and the XYZ buttons inside are the same as the ones next to the butterfly icon – I never realized that, I thought those were the only way to do live mirroring.
Re 4: That’s the CTRL-M option which exists both in Object and Edit modes. I never use it; I use the scale - axis -1 trick instead. But I can see how this might be potentially useful.
Now you know nearly everything I know about mirroring. And thanks for giving me the chance to check my own knowledge and fix it where it was broken.
I was wrong about those butterfly buttons.