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Blender: The invaluable, indespensable FOSS application with the worst UI/UX to ever disgrace a computer monitor.

bayesian_horse 8y ago
Blender's UI is quite efficient. Unfortunately it is very strange, both for the user and for the addon developer. When I inquired about certain things (like callbacks for buttons, or custom panels/windows) a core developer gave me the rather annoyed reply (paraphrasing): "Blender isn't an application framework and Python is meant to enhance functionality, not create it." Which is unfortunate, because Blender has become a de facto application framework, even if the developers don't want to admit it.
- Doxin 8y ago
  I'm more than sure that python plugins are allowed to add panels and buttons and whatnot to the interface. I suppose you just ran into the wrong person to ask questions. OTOH I'm afraid I don't know specifics either so I guess I'm the wrong person to ask as well.
  - bayesian_horse 8y ago
    Oh, it does allow you to add buttons to panels. It doesn't allow you to add area types, dialogs and tabs in the properties area. Also there is no such thing as a button callback in Blender UI. The only thing you can do is insert a button which calls an "operator". You can define your own operators of course, but this only works as long as you don't want to generate the buttons dynamically. Then you'd have to generate operators dynamically, and things only go downhill from there...
thedaemon 8y ago
That's just, like your opinion man. I personally find Blender to have the best out of all of the 3dcc applications out there. Just because you haven't taken the time to learn how to use it, doesn't make it the worst UI ever...
rebuilder 8y ago
There's probably a lot to be improved about Blender's UI still, but I actually find it quite nice, and I'm not even that practiced with it. I'm a professional VFX artist, and the one thing that seems to be true for all the tools I use is, the less visual UI, the better. It's all about keyboard shortcuts and muscle memory. IMO Blender has the right idea there: ditch the toolbars etc. as much as possible and let the user focus on productivity. Intuitive isn't always productive, sometimes you have to learn a workflow. It's one of those steep-learning-curve-big-payoff things.

Blender's UI is quite efficient. Unfortunately it is very strange, both for the user and for the addon developer. When I inquired about certain things (like callbacks for buttons, or custom panels/windows) a core developer gave me the rather annoyed reply (paraphrasing): "Blender isn't an application framework and Python is meant to enhance functionality, not create it." Which is unfortunate, because Blender has become a de facto application framework, even if the developers don't want to admit it.

Doxin 8y ago
I'm more than sure that python plugins are allowed to add panels and buttons and whatnot to the interface. I suppose you just ran into the wrong person to ask questions. OTOH I'm afraid I don't know specifics either so I guess I'm the wrong person to ask as well.
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
  Oh, it does allow you to add buttons to panels. It doesn't allow you to add area types, dialogs and tabs in the properties area. Also there is no such thing as a button callback in Blender UI. The only thing you can do is insert a button which calls an "operator". You can define your own operators of course, but this only works as long as you don't want to generate the buttons dynamically. Then you'd have to generate operators dynamically, and things only go downhill from there...

thedaemon 8y ago

That's just, like your opinion man. I personally find Blender to have the best out of all of the 3dcc applications out there. Just because you haven't taken the time to learn how to use it, doesn't make it the worst UI ever...

rebuilder 8y ago

There's probably a lot to be improved about Blender's UI still, but I actually find it quite nice, and I'm not even that practiced with it. I'm a professional VFX artist, and the one thing that seems to be true for all the tools I use is, the less visual UI, the better. It's all about keyboard shortcuts and muscle memory. IMO Blender has the right idea there: ditch the toolbars etc. as much as possible and let the user focus on productivity. Intuitive isn't always productive, sometimes you have to learn a workflow. It's one of those steep-learning-curve-big-payoff things.