Add favorite workspace markers and a “Show Favorites Only” toggle

Blender workspaces are very useful, but when users have many custom workspaces, the top workspace bar can become crowded and harder to navigate.

This is a UX/workflow improvement request for a simple workspace favorites system.

Proposal: Add two related features to the workspace tabs:

1. A favorite marker for each workspace.
2. A global “Show Favorites Only” toggle next to the existing “+” button in the top workspace bar.

Each workspace tab could have a small star icon:

• Empty/off star: the workspace is not marked as favorite.
• Filled/on star: the workspace is marked as favorite.

Next to the existing “+” button used to add workspaces, there could be a global Favorites toggle button:

• Toggle off: all workspaces are shown in the top bar.
• Toggle on: only workspaces marked as favorite are shown in the top bar.

Example: A user may have many workspaces such as:

• Modeling
• Sculpting
• UV Editing
• Animation
• Rigging
• Geometry Nodes
• Compositing
• Lighting
• Rendering
• Scripting
• Add-on specific workspaces
• Studio or course layouts

But in daily use, they may only need quick access to a few of them, such as:

• Modeling
• Animation
• Geometry Nodes
• Rendering

The user could mark those workspaces as favorites. Then, when the global “Show Favorites Only” button is enabled, the top workspace bar would show only those favorite workspaces. The other workspaces would still exist, but would be temporarily hidden from the top bar until the filter is disabled.

Suggested behavior:

• Each workspace can be marked or unmarked as favorite.

• A small favorite icon could appear on each workspace tab or in the workspace tab context menu.

• The global Favorites toggle should be placed next to the existing “+” button.

• When the global toggle is off, all workspaces are visible.

• When the global toggle is on, only favorite workspaces are visible.

• Hidden workspaces are not deleted; they are only temporarily filtered from the top bar.

• The current workspace should remain visible even if it is not marked as favorite, to avoid confusing the user.

• If no workspace is marked as favorite and the toggle is enabled, Blender could either show a small message or keep all workspaces visible until at least one favorite is selected.

• Tooltips could explain:

  • Per-workspace star: “Mark workspace as favorite”
  • Global star toggle: “Show only favorite workspaces”

• The favorite state and global toggle state could be saved in user preferences or the startup file.

Why this matters: Many users work across different tasks and may accumulate many workspaces over time. This can make the top workspace bar feel cluttered, especially on smaller screens or laptops.

A favorites-only mode would make workspace navigation faster and cleaner without removing any existing workspace functionality.

This could help:

• Artists who use different layouts for modeling, animation, rendering, compositing, and scripting.
• Add-on developers who create tool-specific workspaces.
• Teachers who prepare course-specific layouts.
• Studios that use many production-specific workspace layouts.
• Users who want a cleaner top bar focused only on their daily workspaces.

This proposal is not about replacing the current workspace system. It is only about adding a simple favorite marker per workspace and a visibility filter so users can quickly focus the workspace bar on their most-used layouts.

This could also work well in the future with a broader workspace preset/import/export system, but this proposal is focused only on workspace favorites and filtering visible workspace tabs.