[Bf-funboard] Blender suggestions

[Bart Veldhuizen]

Hi,

> 1.) I wish the 'buttons' screen didn't take up 1/3 of
> the screen.  That's a lot of real estate.  A quick
> keyboard shortcut for popping it up and down would be
> great, or some kind of right-click (or combo
> middle+right click) pop-up 'quad menu' as in 3dsMax.

If you're using the default screen layout, try this: move your mouse
into the 3d window and press CTRL+UP. This maximizes/restores fullscreen
mode for any window. 

Alternatively, you can also move your mouse into the buttons window and
press numpad '-' a few times. This will scale down your buttons, which
is very helpful if you're using a large screen. You can then drag the
screen divider line down and save your default setup with CTRL+U. 

> 2.) A permanent horizontal animation slider would be
> great, too.

Just a hack, but try this file:

http://www.vrotvrot.com/stuff/animation_slider.blend

I have added a tiny headerless IPO window to the default view. You can
use it as a n animation slider by left-clicking and dragging. The lines
that you see are of course the IPO curves for the currently selected
object. I've changed the IPO setup to keyframe view; you can grab the
yellow keyframes and slide them. The change for the current frame will
be shown immediately. You can switch back to normal IPO view by pressing
K in the IPO window. If your animation length changes, you will have to
reset the scale of the IPO window by pressing HOME (while your mouse
cursor is in the IPO window, of course). Again, you could make this your
default setup by pressing CTRL+U.

Just two tiny examples of how you can customize your Blender interface
;-)

Enjoy!

B@rt