UI Idea

Just thinking aloud here - but in 3ds max you can drag the divider between the main screen and the tool panel to pull it out to allow for multiple tool/control panels to show side by side rather than one under the other. With bigger screens these days, it may be a nice UI option to be able to have multiple tool control panels side by side rather than one on top of the other? The actual width of each panel could then be controlled in the preferences.

What do you think?

Also, one feature I love in 3ds max and blender is the right click to cancel an operation while you still have the left mouse button held down. So if you are making a change and realise it is a bad idea, rather than having to wiggle back to the starting point of hit Control + Z you just right click before you let go of the left mouse button. This is a real time saver and would be great to have in Fusion.

You can already do #1, as you can add panels to anything, float as many as you want, or dock as many and as many copies that you want. All panels can be torn off.

But does the tool panel duplicate itself if you add another one of those or does it wrap onto the next column the way the OP means?

Duplicates itself.

Duplicates itself.

Not really. Of course the same tools/controls show up in both Tools (Controls) views, but you don't have to have the same ones open.

DualControlsViews.JPG (146.29 KiB) Viewed 2329 times

The size of the closed tools' "window shades" are seemingly pretty inefficient use of screen space. Otherwise this might be useful...

MonitorOControls.JPG (605.86 KiB) Viewed 2327 times

The thing is that in the 3Dmax example the window will overflow into the next column, which could be handy for tab-heavy tools like the particle tools that won't fit vertically. Especially with the current Fu8 Beta your screen fills up way too fast.

The thing is that in the 3Dmax example the window will overflow into the next column, which could be handy for tab-heavy tools like the particle tools that won't fit vertically. Especially with the current Fu8 Beta your screen fills up way too fast.

Expanding tabs is less of an issue than just being able to have more tools showing. So 3rd max is less of an ideal example. When the Fusion 8 skin showed up, I couldn't get 2 BC's to display at the same time. Stretching the window out to make it wider didn't help, the issue was lack of vertical space. So yeah, having the ability to easily add more columns would be great, especially if the wasted space from the closed controls could be handled better.

What would scrolling do though? Would you want it to be one long column that wraps? Assume that tools can't be split. If you have 3 columns, scrolling would just move the center column to the left or right if they were linked, and if they were separate, how would you determine which tools show up in each? If all the tools show up, how do you deal with the wasted space from closed tools?

Lot of little issues there, not sure what would work best.

The thing is that in the 3Dmax example the window will overflow into the next column, which could be handy for tab-heavy tools like the particle tools that won't fit vertically. Especially with the current Fu8 Beta your screen fills up way too fast.

This was more what I had in mind. Also, rather than having to go through the add panel process, just dragging a panel out from the side for overflow and additional panels would be a real time saver. Drag out for more space and no need to scroll and drag back again when finished.

What do you think about the right click thing?

The thing is that in the 3Dmax example the window will overflow into the next column, which could be handy for tab-heavy tools like the particle tools that won't fit vertically. Especially with the current Fu8 Beta your screen fills up way too fast.

This was more what I had in mind.

But other than the number of clicks needed to set it up, how would you see it different from what you can already do?

Chad, I agree that in the current paradigm of Fusion there is no way this would work. I was merely chiming in to try to further clarify Andrew's wishes.

I would very much like it though if you could choose to have tabs show up side by side if you expand the tool area instead of just stretching it. F.e. with particles there can be a lot of clicking back and forth while setting it up.

The thing is that in the 3Dmax example the window will overflow into the next column, which could be handy for tab-heavy tools like the particle tools that won't fit vertically. Especially with the current Fu8 Beta your screen fills up way too fast.

This was more what I had in mind.

But other than the number of clicks needed to set it up, how would you see it different from what you can already do?

Isn't that the point? Less clicks = good! It was just an idea. And I'd still like to see the right-click while left mouse button is still held to cancel an operation ...

This was more what I had in mind.

But other than the number of clicks needed to set it up, how would you see it different from what you can already do?

Isn't that the point? Less clicks = good! It was just an idea. And I'd still like to see the right-click while left mouse button is still held to cancel an operation ...

Sure, but when I tried it, even after the extra clicks, it wasn't a great experience because it's not filtering out the closed tools so they only show up in one view. That would be something that I'd like to see changed. Also, it would be nice if you could drag the tools in the view to reorder them. Otherwise they might be on opposite sides of the screen and you have a hard time looking at both at the same time.