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  • Published 4 Oct 2018

Extra Easy Import

If anyone is willing to provide a very desirable feature which may not be very technical to implement, I suggest an extra-easy import feature, reached via File, Import, All (or Easy, or Auto, or Any, or or something like that). This may be really good to have for 2.8 (or 2.81...)

Actual Behavior:

  • You must already know the type of file you are importing before import (not desirable for large local collections of assets)
  • Blend files require separate "Append" feature

Expected Behavior:
Import...

  • ...shows all supported extensions by default (compiles list of extension strings, including "blend" and any supported by enabled Import-Export addons which have an import feature)
  • ...shows thumbnails if filename_PREVIEW.jpg exists in same directory as filename.x where x is extension of a file supported by any import addon or blend file ( otherwise, a more involved solution would be to have a selectable option to generate thumbnails using similar procedure as blend files--perhaps open [maybe using a reusable auto detect extension function reusable in last point below] then something like bpy.ops.view3d.view_all(center=False), using import plugins while the dialog box is open--cancel remaining queued jobs on exit of Import dialog ).
  • ...shows thumbnails by default
  • If a blend file is chosen (highlighted once, then clicked again, or Import button is clicked) import all items from Object directory immediately (instead of listing all directories)
  • Automatically choose most desirable import plugin after converting extension on selected file to lowercase and searching through plugins (unless is blend, then see above)--manually choose plugin such as by choosing a filter list such as:

drop-down box:
*.* (All Files)
*.blend, *.dae, *.obj (Supported Files) default
*.3ds (Autodesk 3DS Format)
*.blend (append Objects and their dependencies, rename on name collisions)
*.obj (Wavefront OBJ Format)
*.obj (some other OBJ Format plugin)

100%

Development Status: Open

Upvote 9 Downvote 0
poikilos
4 Oct 2018

2 Comments

luciano

yes ive been saying this for ages!!!

2
andy1

Yeah, sometimes you don't know if a file is going to be an fbx or obj or 3ds etc. when you navigate to import it, so finding out that you chose the wrong import type and having to restart navigating a dense folder structure is frustrating every time.

1