Customizable 2.8 TopBar
Topbar is a controversial argument in 2.8 UI developement: many people are arguing that it should be designed differently, that it needs to become something else, that is ok as it is, or that it should just disappear! I have always thought it was for good, but only if confined into the 3dviewport (I had my own UI mockups back in the days showing a 3dviewport Topbar). Now I had this idea to re-purpose the current 2.8 TopBar in a meaningful way: make it an own area to place most used items of the UI. Plus, give it the ability of having presets. Blender may be shipped with a few of them, pre-made with common UI elements, but anytime users will be able to change, delete, rearrange them as they please. I'm not sure if this should be saved with files or with preferences. Ideas?
A quick image to please your eyes :)
Edit:
A second thought about that: the current topbar behaviour could also be kept, as a hardcoded preset. And an option could set icon/text look, so really any topbar, [(even simple ones)](
blender.community/c/rightclickselect/4Hbbbc/how-about-a-more-regular-topbar
) could be easy to setup.
Also, the Topbar preset should be tied to the workflow (tabs on top of the app) so that the user can choose to have, say, a sculpt-oriented Toolbar when in the sculpt workflow (tab), and so on for every other task
7 Comments
yes, this would be great!! But you should include even options to display the output of a script that for example show the number of let's say empties in the scene
@fabrizio.guidotti.2000: that would be cool. How could it be done UI-wise?
Yeah, like Zbrush. Zbrush's interface is very confusing, but it is very customizable.
In Bforartists, they've had the toolbar for some time, working. Ýou can have categories to customize each toolbar, and each category has sub categories for icon packs. They started trying to put in property sliders and dropdown menus, but with code limitations. Maybe this will opent hings up.
The good thing about the BFA toolbar.. was that it was a view. You could put it ANYWHERE. It could be hidden. It could be duplicated. It could be customized. And more, it could be for everything. It's a working prototype, check it out on Bforartists.de
I definitely think this is what they should aim for , it also doesn't defy the idea of the top bar not being necessay. Just for being more helpful
Become something else... you mean like a standard toolbar found in most other software? That kind of something else?
@rontarrant: If you follow the debates that are spreading here and there, you'll know that a "standard" toolbar doesn't fit up there due to the non-standard nature of Blender where you have many type of editors. Blender is not just a 3d modeler. The "standard" toolbar you probably mean (as this maybe?) would mostly fit well in the 3d view