Sidebar GUIDELINES for Addons
#1 There should be 1 tab named Addons and in there every addon can be stacked sensibly with a clearly visible name:
#2 If an addon makes sense to go in existing tab, put it in there, don't make your own tab:
#3 If you absolutely must be a special snowflake and refuse to share a tab with other addons, then Blender should allow you to put an icon in the tab instead of a name. The tab list area should be the same width as the icon tab area of the Properties Editor.
I might update this with a mockup later. Item, Tool, View, Edit, and Add-ons, should be replaced with icons. In my screenshots "BlenderKit" would be replaced with its own logo/icon. When the N panel is collapsed/hidden all of those icons will still be listed down the side next to the navigation gizmos if the viewport is very wide. If the viewport is not very wide they will be listed below the navigation gizmos if the viewport is tall enough to show the first 5 default tabs. Clicking any icon/tab will open the N panel in its standard location. If the viewport is not big enough then nothing will be shown as it is currently.
12 Comments
Hi, it's called the sidebar, not n-panel. The BF made an effort to make a more thought-out naming since 2.80 and especially get rid of any name that involves a user-modifiable thing such as shortcuts, and use more descriptive names.
#1 shoving all addons in one tab will not solve the issue. It will just push the tab overcrowding into a panel overcrowding. And it also prevents from having, you know... Panels... Since your addon is already in it's own panel, then you only have subpanels remaining, effectively losing yet another UI feature for your addon.
#2 Already what most people do. But not everyone agrees on what makes sense to merge or not.
#3 Why you have to paint this as snowflakes who refuse to share a tab with other addon? Also, how an icon would solve anything? And who makes the icons?
This issue has been brought up many times I don't even count anymore. And I am honestly shocked how sometimes people seem to get mad at addon devs for doing basically what they can with no better, and thinking the solution is a bunch of guidelines or "forcing" them to make things your way.
Slapping volunteer works on the wrist will not get you anywhere far.
It's quite of a commitment to make addons on your free time and give them for free. It's hard to figure out how to make it work in an efficient UI. The python API doesn't give you all the control we wish to have.
Your proposal is basically about removing options, and adding more prerequisites. I have a hard time finding how that will help addon devs to make better addons. I even think that will make some devs purposefully disrespect such guidelines, if not all the guidelines for good and do things their way, making their addons "unfit" to be shipped with Blender.
IMHO, the main issue is the python API. It needs to give addon devs more control, and also let the user customize their ui without requiring addons devs to add extensive bits of code everywhere. It should be an easy standard for any piece of ui to be movable anywhere easily. Especially within the sidebar.
"Your proposal is basically about removing options"
#1 is an add itional tab that they can choose to use or not use.
#2 is a suggestion that far too many choose not to follow for no good reason.
#3 is an add itional feature that they can choose to use or not use.
How you interpret any of those three as "removing" makes my head hurt.
Your complaint is people not following "suggestions" for "no good reason", and you want to fix this with even more "suggestions" which - if followed: are restrictive for the addon developer.
That illustrates perfectly the issue of such suggestions/guidelines:
We don't all agree to what constitutes a good reason to follow a guideline or not, and there's nothing you can do to prevent that. You have to work with the current, not against it.
Plus, guidelines become an obligation when you want your addon to be shipped with Blender.
In either case, saying that your guidelines are optional isn't a valid point to defend them against anything.
Addon devs already have options to merge their addons into the existing UI, or have custom icons in the panel header. Some devs even spent extra time implementing user customization.
But adding more guidelines like these will just make more noise in the sea of information we already have a hard time to navigate in when developing an addon.
And again, these don't really help, especially when being shipped with Blender is a goal. And when you tie people's hands too tight, the risk is alienating them. Which is sad when it's all volunteers.
At the end of the day, addons devs can't develop their addons to work in every user case, and every user have different needs and preferences. So IMHO, the solution is neither more guidelines and noisy rules. It is instead: proper user-sided UI customization tools . If you have that, you basically get rid of all potential issue.
We sort-of started to get that with the workspace addon filtering. But it's a far cry from being able to drag any piece of UI anywhere like some other software do.
"It's called the sidebar, not n-panel" - come on.. it has been called n-panel for a very long time. The n hotkey is still there by default. I really think we can still unofficially call the Sidebar the "n-panel". Most people will understand. "shocked how sometimes people seem to get mad at addon devs for doing basically what they can" Are they really doing what they can?.. I am sure most people don't even think about that and just do what everybody else does. Add-on developers should definitely stop and think about what makes sense in the UI more.
Any name can be used, it doesn't make it the most practical when communicating to the masses.
If addon devs are as you describe, then what solution is there?
You can organize it with this free add-on: chippwalters.gumroad.com/l/simpletabs
I bet he knows about the addon - but this is more about the core design and a plea for addon makers to stop abusing the panel
This whole stupid issue and years long debate could be solved by simply allowing the tabs to overflow into more than one column. It's an issue even without having any add-ons installed . As resizing any viewport below a certain threshold causes all tabs in its sidebar (N panel) to have clipped or non-visible text. It would be a very simple and logical fix if people could just stop arguing about it
blender.community/c/rightclickselect/jY1R/ All blender addons tools in Properties tab (new icon in Properties dock)
i dont agree, so many differnet workflows and configs .. a modelling workspace in a company probably wants modelling tools in friendly npanels, same for animators or whatever .. a generalist at home might want to pack it tighter ... maybe blender should just expose a default config for npanel name in addon settings for every addon
In short: let the user customize its UI. ❤️
Then that company would be best served by a tab showing their company logo under which they have all of their many company pipeline specific tools.