Add-on: Clean Tabs Interface
‘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
- Gumroad: Clean Tabs Interface – EUR 7
hhaha love it makes so much sense! less scrolling!
best idea yet …. will have to get.. thank you
Hey!
I doesn’t work in my 2.78 Blender version. All my tabs disapeared in all pannels.
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.
same here
All organization of Blender UI is welcome!! I thing Blender team is in the right way in this matter. They should incorporate this addon in future versions…
I just buyed this addon. Very nice!! Now my UI are much more friendly!
Nice idea/addon. But strange behavior (slow). Sometimes user interface looks empty, you need to move something.
But, thanks!
When I open a new file, tabs don’t appear. When I move the panel a little, they appear. For me, it’s ok.
Looks promosing, though i dont really like the render tab setup. Better have accordion behavior then
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 :)) ?
Not work on my PC (I had tested it only on laptop). It works only a few seconds, then disappears all Properties settings.
sounds weird. would you be able to post a console output and write to this thread?
thanks.
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?414384-Blender-tabs-Interface-Clean-and-fast-blender-UI/page2
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
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
Hi vladnovak
I found other bugs in your addon. Is there a way I could contact you in PM for feedback ?
Hi!
thanks for your feedback.
To answer to you:
– with modifiers, my personal opinion is that it’s about getting used to it a bit for a few hours/days, and find the advantages of this approach – try moving a modifer up or down for example e.t.c. , But more people allready requested the possibility to switch off some areas.
-pinning should be saved in the files, also activated non-pinned panels. In the next version many bugs are fixed allready, I just need to test it properly, which will take about 1-2 days.
disscussion is now also happening here:
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?414384-Blender-tabs-Interface-Clean-and-fast-blender-UI/page2
Great. And again, this addon is a blessing !
Hi, I bought this add-on but it’s not working’ – can’t activate It! Ubuntu 16.04, Blender 2.78a
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.
all good except the sad fact that the add-on can’t be enabled…
It’s really hard to guess what is the issue, because the addon works well on most configurations. Please, If you have the possibility to do so, post your console output to this forum thread:
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?414384-Blender-tabs-Interface-Clean-and-fast-blender-UI/page2
thanks
Hi, thanks for answering. As you asked for, I just published a screenshot with the issue on blenderartists.
Hi, I hope things should be fixed for most users now, along with several new features.
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
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
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.
Hi, If you don’t have the problem, this addon isn’t for you.
If you’d be interested in what is the problem we are talking about, please read the original UI proposel:
https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/File:UI_proposal_tabs_lists_outliner_etc_vildanovak.pdf
or the blenderartists discussion
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?414384-Blender-tabs-Interface-Clean-and-fast-blender-UI/page2
If you work with an app professionaly, of course you remember where are the features you are looking for. Just test the system for a week or so, and you’ll see how your productivity will increase.
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
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 :)
I installed this new version and it works!! thank you very much! n_n
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.