Background

In the current builds the different tabs of the properties editor display a breadcrumb bar on top. For some of the tabs this provides context like a title would. Telling the user that you are in the scene, object, output or physics tab and so on.

As the icon for that tab is mostly far off and therefore not in the reading vector you have to interpret from the contents of the menu which menu it is. Currently in some of the tabs the breadcrumb takes over and labels where you at. For others it does not provide that information or even gives you a false direction.

Examples:

• Active tool shows no breadcrumb
• Output tab shows scene name first, if your working in the default scene it reads "Scene" and is identical to the Scene tab. Thus not giving the user that above mentioned context.

A title would contextualize clearly at this place but not providing the context. A breadcrumb on the other hand provides that functionality very well and even gives additional context like the current objects name. The current breadcrumb implementation is more centered around blenders internal data structure, instead of contextualizing it in the UI.

It could and should provide both!

• [UI Context: eg. Icon + Tab name] -> [Data structure context: eg. Object name, scene name...]
• Example for the object tab: [Icon + Object] > [Object name]

The current implementation of the breadcrumb bar does not provide the flexibility to easily change the information it provides as it provides the pinning functionality as well. As Brecht pointed out (Thanks mate).

Current state / proposed state

Active Tool

• old: no breadcrumb
• new: Active tool > Tool name

Render

• old: Scene name
• new: Render > Scene name
• new - alternative: Render > Render engine

Output

• old: Scene name
• new: Output > Scene name

View Layer

• old: Scene View Layer
• new: View Layer > Scene > View Layer

Scene

• old: Scene Name
• new: Scene > Scene Name

World

• old: Scene name > World name
• new: World > Scene name > World name

Object

• old: Object name
• new: Object > Object name

Modifiers

• old: Object name
• new: Modifiers > Object name

Particles

• old: Object name
• new: Particles > Object name

Physics

• old: Object name
• new: Physics > Object name

Constraints

• old: Object name
• new: Constraints > Object name

Object data

• old: Object name > Mesh data block
• new: Object Data > Mesh data block

Material

• old: Object name > Material data block
• new: Material > Object name

Texture

• old: no breadcrumb
• new: Texture > Object name

Proposed features for a update

• Properties editor with a breadcrumb on top
• Starts by contextualizing where you at in the UI (Icon + Current tab)
• Provides additional context by adding the data-centric information like object, scene, mesh data name.
• Modular: Select which information to show via adjusting the user preferences to match personal preference.
• Keeps the current internal data structure to provide the pinning functionality.