Drag and Drop import of different file types
Blender users regularly import many different kinds of files into Blender. Blender has a good support for many industry standard file formats like .obj, .fbx, .stl, .usd and .bvh.
What would make this support even more powerful would be the ability to simply drag and drop such files into Blender from any folder. When a file is drag and dropped, Blender could simply detect it's file extension and open the appropriate import settings, perhaps even as an F9 operator dialogue (like the one you get when creating new primitives).
6 Comments
I noticed that in 4.2 this works only when dragging files from the file manager (e.g. Windows explorer) but not from other applications.
This already works in 4.1
Not completely? FBX-format was mentioned, and release notes say this:
"Initial use of file handlers for drag-and-drop support has been enabled for the following file formats within the 3D Viewport and Outliner areas: Alembic, Collada, Grease Pencil SVG, OBJ, OpenUSD, PLY, and STL"
So FBX isn't listed in supported formats yet, and that is a bummer as it is the de facto transfer format for animated meshes.
I made an addon that adds drag&drop to 4.1 for FBX as well! But, yeah it should be added by defualt :( blenderartists.org/t/drag-drop-import-for-fbx-addon-blender-4-1/1520804
Hi Dangry,
You are an add-on developer, FBX importer is an add-on, could you please make a patch to add drag-and-drop to the official add-on instead of making a new one?
It would really help Blender and the community if more users would contribute to improve already existing add-ons instead of branching out new ones.
This is the FBX add-on: projects.blender.org/blender/blender-addons/src/branch/main/io_scene_fbx
This is the documentation on how to implement it: docs.blender.org/api/master/bpy.types.FileHandler.html
If you need any help, there's #python in blender.chat or the module channel #pipeline-assets-io-module .
Thank you 🧡
Hi Pablo, hope you are doing well!
I would love it if this got added to Blender by default, and I would be super happy to contribute a patch! I have been following the development of Blender for years and literally read through all patches added/submitted! During the Blender Today live streams (RIP) I literally know all of the patches/commits beforehand, I just watched for the nice vibe.
Unfortunately it would most likely not get accepted. Since someone else submitted a patch for the drag-and-drop for FBX, and it got rejected. Some UI stuff blocked it, that no users care about anyway. Why not add the core functions first and do polish on UI later? projects.blender.org/blender/blender-addons/pulls/105212
Ironically enough, most users prefer no UI popup whatsoever.
So yeah, my patche would most likley get rejected, and that's why just making yet another add-on for the most essential features is going to be way more incentivizing, hope it makes sense.