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  • Published 1 Aug 2022

API Support to Activate Specific Sidebar Panel

Just like the Redo-menu popping up instantaneously after using many operators, I'm a strong believer in also having the same possibility for Sidebar Panels.

Adding a class method to bpy.ops that lets you activate a specific panel ID, would provide a way for addon devs to implement such feature akin to Redo Menu.

Now, there needs to be some way for the user to disable this, for situations when they want a specific panel to stay. Therefore I propose a Stay Active toggle somewhere in the Sidebar/Panel UI.

Benefit of this proposal is panels following the context of operation. No more endless search in the Sidebar. No more MMB-scroll on panel tabs...

100%

Development Status: Open

Upvote 14 Downvote 0
hcederblad
1 Aug 2022

8 Comments

Lauloque

The issue is clearly there, but I'm unsure this is a viable solution:

  1. If it all comes down to addon developers to do the work, then it doesn't seem different from the current situation
  2. If we rely on pies, then how does this work?

Do the addons devs make one pie per addon, or should there be a pie menu for all addons?
The first option sounds cumbersome for devs and heavy on the key map, the second option seems to lead to the same UI clutter issue.
And let's say we aim for a halfway solution like a few "category" pies (like one for modeling, one for animation, etc.), then you basically add two extra steps and more keyboard shortcuts to remember with no UI, just to access one piece of UI.

  1. If we go the right click menu route, I guess we still have kind of the same issues? Clutter, or heavy to use, and always extra steps.

Another issue I wish people talked more about with the sidebar system is that, while some addons require to use their UI in a very sporadic way, some addons UI sometimes require to be displayed almost constantly for an extended period of time.
The current sidebar allows showing elements at the same time only if they are in the same tab. The next solution is to open multiple viewports, with the performance hits that it costs.

IMHO, the master solution is that Blender itself needs to change to allow way more user customization. The first thing should be the possibility to customize each addon's target sidebar-tab.
Currently, this feature entirely depends on the addon developer's will to make it a thing, it's time-consuming, yet another thing to maintain at each addon/bpy update. Blender should handle this by default with as little work as possible from addon devs. It could be the default behavior of any addon UI registration.
Most addons panels are barely a few lines high. And even the most UI heavy addons don't "require" a dedicated tab, if you think about it. Panels are more than enough. A bit of proper naming to tell addon panels apart just works well as is.

Sidenote: Since Blender 2.80, the n-panel is named "sidebar", and overall all UI naming that relies on their keyboard shortcut has been replaced by descriptive and universal alternatives.

3
hcederblad Author

@ -L0Lock- Amended my original post adding a suggestion that adds zero clutter. Feel free to vote on it if it sounds good.

Lauloque

As I understand it, if you put all addons in a pie or something, that doesn't sound like solving the problem to me, more like pushing it elsewhere. And if you hide all behind keyboard shortcuts, then how do you assign all these shortcuts, and how do you make things discoverable if there is no UI anymore ?

I am not sure whether it's reasonable to justify any kind of solution by saying it's better than when the current situation is pushed to the extreme.

1
hcederblad Author

I don’t envision pie-menus to contain addons. Rather they’d provide categories for addons which are then presented in normal menus.

However, I’m leaning towards the ultimate workflow: see my redacted original post.

xan2622

This annoyance is finally about to come to an end. 😌

This patch (not reviewed, not merged yet) makes addons tabs in the sidebar (N panel) not shrink when there are too many of them: developer.blender.org/D15395

Consider awarding a ❤️ token to let #b3d developers know that you like the patch.

⚠️ Remember that this patch is NOT the place to discuss about your suggestions for sidebar UI redesign.

1
LalaGhost

Or maybe the labels of the add-ons don't get smaller but you can scroll through the vertical line of add-on tabs

1
xan2622

Hi Henrik.

If I understood your suggestion correctly, you want add-ons to have a hotkey to immediately display their add-on tab on the current sidebar?

What if the user has activated 15 add-ons? Does that mean that she/he has to remember (and set up) 15 different hotkeys to make their tab appear immediately? 🤨

Btw, about your idea to add a "stay active" toggle, it's already possible (but only on individual panels): Just press SHIFT + LMB on an (expandable) panel, a pin icon will appear and if you click on another tab, that pinned panel will still be visible. Like this: imgur.com/YrL6x01

hcederblad Author

@LalaGhost My ultimate proposal is to let addon devs open their panels instantaneously when pressing the addons’ keybinding and provide a method, Stay Active to prevent this when you want your current panel to stay active. I’ve redacted my original post to reflect my specific proposal.