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Add-on: Clean Tabs Interface

32
By on Add-ons

'Clean Tabs Interface' helps you roll up many many windows into a tabs (or buttons) bar.

Tabs interface addon takes whole Blender UI and changes all panels to draw as tabs, with a fixed order.

The ideas behind this UI change are based on a very old proposal (5 years!) which I wrote for the 2.5 project. these could be defined as:

  • save time by avoiding scrolling, use single click instead of several scroll or panel unfold/fold clicks
  • don't search for panels, use them
  • you can use your muscle memory in the intefrace, because panels can't be reordered. You can open somebody else's file and not feel lost.
  • save space for your work

Features include:

  • fixed order
  • fixed columns - Tabs will be always the same
  • panel pinning if you need to see several panels at once
  • row or grid layout.
  • hide tabs and categories you don't need at all. Save these to your startup file.
  • several layout options

Link

32 Comments

    • vildanovak on

      hi DAREK, sometimes, you need to click in the UI for the tabs to appear for the first time. Did you do that?
      The reason is, I basically take all Blender UI, and need to re-register it after it's been allready registered, I didn't want to take a lot from blenders performance, so it doesn't update immediately. It should work, please test it. I work with 2.78 and tested the addon also with 2.77.

      Also, this will be fixed soon, so there's no such inconvenience.

      Reply
  6. Ales Kubovic on

    Nice idea/addon. But strange behavior (slow). Sometimes user interface looks empty, you need to move something.
    But, thanks!

    Reply
    • vildanovak on

      Could you better describe what you don't like about the render tab setup? could it be improved? Or you just like more the default behaviour(which I guess you name accordion for obvious reasons :)) ?

      Reply
  8. Ales Kubovic on

    Not work on my PC (I had tested it only on laptop). It works only a few seconds, then disappears all Properties settings.

    Reply
  9. Russell Wulfenstein on

    I like the innovation and passion represented in your work creating this for the industry, and I hope those who want this functionality will reward you with their $.

    I personally prefer the current Blender menu setup, but It's great to have options, and no doubt, there will be many people who will find this to be very useful. Cheers to the entreprenurial "can-do" spirit of the Blender community.

    -Russell

    Reply
  10. fredhystair on

    Hi vladnovak
    I bought the addon and it really helps you keep things organised and clean
    A few remarks yet so far :
    - the UI is really improved but not in the modifiers tab. In this section it is important to have the stack well visible. We should be able to disable it in some tabs.
    - To keep the main tools at hand, I pin some tabs, which ios very fine. However, these settings are not save in the startup file. Not even sure if they are saved in the working file. Would it be possible to save the setup ? Saving different presets would allow us to setup different workflows depending on the work initiated and call them on the fly. I'd love that !
    Ta

    Reply
  12. Matthew Carson on

    AaaahhhhHH! In one fell swoop you have transformed my Blender world. I have been advocating tabs forever (and not sideways one). I especially like how you allowed me to hide the panels I hardly ever use but make it so easy to get to them if necessary. I suddenly feel like Blender actually fits on my screen!
    Especially the sideways-tabs section; if I enable a lot of user addons that Tool space becomes confusing and unmanageable. Not so with this addon!
    This is the kind of alternate option Blender should integrate instead of forcing 'their way' on everybody.
    Two notes:
    Note #1: If I disable the addon I get an error and none of the standard panels appear. If I re-enable I get the tabbed interface back but some default style panels also appear. Hard to describe more than that. I am using a post-2.78a build on Win 7. I have no intention of toggling your addon's enable checkbox, so it's not a problem for me.
    Note #2: My other dream interface for Blender is the ability to create a custom panel or palette of commands with text and/or icons that stays visible, no popups. Too many hotkeys to remember and some of them are impossible to do with one hand anyway. Is this possible with an addon? I thought it would require a new type of window which FAIK is not possible in Python.

    Reply
  13. Join Bruford on

    Cant get it to work properly. either the t or n menus simply don't work, so that all of the controls on that panel are not there! (t just shows tools menu, n just shows window properties)
    good idea, but for me absolutely useless unless this gets fixed

    Reply
    • Vilém Duha on

      It's quite hard to reproduce the bug, since all my test are well, and for most users the addon works. Mostly, it will be other addons that can do unexpected things.
      If you can, please post your console output. thanks

      Reply
  14. Stephen Boyd on

    This appears to solved a problem that doesn't exist. You have simply replaced one tabbed system with another tabbed system. In fact I'd say that it is worse because now you will have tap away at all the tabs finding the one that you want. Unless you can remember in exactly which tab every feature is?

    Still if someone finds it useful then I guess it was worth it.

    Reply
  15. Jonathan Garcia on

    Hi, I been using the addon and I just love it, but I recently saw that it don´t works with one of my favorites addons: "pro lighting studio" from blender guru, it just disappear the enabled checkbox from the tab. This have any solution? thanks for the atention

    Reply
    • Vilem Duha on

      Hello Jonathan, thanks for your feedback - please, if you can, try the latest version from gumroad (1.3.3) and let me know if it works - I managed to fix most of the other addons in the latest versions, so I hope also pro lighting studio works.
      I can't sadly test it because I don't have a copy by now and I can't buy all the addons :)

      Reply
  16. Tijm Lanjouw on

    Hi, thanks for this great add on. I have an issue however. I want to disable the tabs for the toolbar as I prefer the native Blender tabs in this region. But each time I set it, save user settings and restart Blender, it reverts to the tabbed layout of this add on. I'm using Blender 1.79 and tabbed 1.4.

    Reply

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