by Dan Silverman » Thu Mar 08, 2018 5:30 am
Briefly looking at the UI, I would recommend that you look at the Toolbox panel and reconsider how to condense this. For example, you have sections there labeled as Objects, Curve, Sculpt, Mask and Paint. And there is that section up at the top with the select, move, etc., icons. All these could be slimmed down to a small side-bar like the one in Photoshop. In Photoshop you have a brush. If you click it, you activate the brush. But there is a little triangle in at the bottom-right corner that tells the end-user that if you click and hold, you gain access to other brushes (like the Replace Color brush, etc.).
Using an idea like this, you could have a Objects with the Lathe object being shown by default, since it is most likely the most used one. Then the end-user could click-hold on the icon to access any of the other objects via a menu that offers them a selection. And, like Photoshop, once a new item is selected, like the Cube object, then the icon shows the cube by default and it stays the default until the user chooses another object. This is how it works in Photoshop. If I change from the Brush to the Replace Color brush, then the Replace Color brush is always offered to me on that icon until I click-hold and choose another brush.
Doing something like this would really streamline that part of the UI and free up a lot of screen real estate for those that need it. It also makes things look a lot less cluttered.
Another way to handle this, if you don't like "hiding" things in icons like Photoshop does, is to add a strip across the top or bottom of the UI (I prefer the top). When you click an icon, like Objects, you would get options for objects on that top menu strip. This could include a drop down menu to chose what type of object you want to use, as well as other parameters that are just for whatever object they select.
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