ShelfUI

[froyd]

Hey together,

I thought I could share my customized UI, maybe you find it useful :) I took the buttons i usually need most and tried to arrange them in some plausible groups. For some of them I made Macros to get smaller buttons, for the background I made a big, disabled button containing the image for the borders.

Click here (http://froyd3d.de/files/ShelfUI.jpg) to see a screenshot!

Notes:




this UI is made for 1600x1200, you will miss some buttons on the right if you use a smaller resolution!
UI uses Marcus` Alpha/Texture Loader plugin (http://www.pixolator.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=30425)
and some of Svengali`s QuickSave plugin (http://www.pixolator.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=46610)
some buttons are macros that replace native buttons for size-reasons, they dont reflect if the original button is enabled or disabled - keep that in mind!

click the image to download:

UI-img.jpg (http://www.pixolator.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=66981&stc=1)



Installation: Extract the zip file directly into the ZBrush3.1 directory

Some Tips if you want to make you own UI or if you want to change this one:




to make as much UI space (width) accessable as possible, move the very thin button in macros->frd_ShelfUI and place it left in both, left and right shelf. that will make them smaller again and let you access the most right UI areas
Dont create buttons that have a width below 38. Buttons below that size and all buttons alligned right to it somehow move on pixel to left-top every time the config is saved and ZBrush is restarted - using a button with a width of 15 a placeholder between the different buttongroups would destroy the leayout more and more with every UI-save
I hope you like it!

greets
froyd

[WailingMonkey]

wow. very minimalist! ;)
I might give this a try...thank you for sharing it, and for the UI tips! :)


WailingMonkey

[Giantsun]

Yep, minimalistic and very cool. :tu:

[Sebcesoir]

Hmm..! Looks pretty cool!
Clear and nice...

[froyd]

thanks guys :)

In fact I was aiming for something clean, slick. Since an alt-click on any UI element opens its corresponding palette, I can access the functions I need quick enough.

I just want to point out issues and bugs:




the new little Icon-buttons dont behave exactly like their big brothers, the mat, texture and alpha icon are greyed out sometimes, usually after you have chosen another alpha, texture or material. You then have to click twice on it to get it back to work.
there are buttons that are not saved with an UI, for example the xyz,x,y,z buttons for switching between symmetry modes (would be nice for visual feedback), the subtools-fields dont stay where you place them (someone else recognized that too), some elements like the Active/TotalPoints-counters are only saved if you have placed them, when no tool is/was active.
the "moving-button" effect can be noticed everytime after storing configuration, even in the standard configuration the ZSub, ZCut, RGB and M-buttons from the draw-palette have this habit. Everyone who saved his config and restarted about 15 times will find those buttons moved into the ones left to them:

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/6024/buttonbugge2.jpg


Maybe this can be a topic for future updates... :)

greets
froyd

[raziel31]

Thanx Froyd, pretty cool :)

[(o)ne]

hmm, I'm using 1600*1200 but all buttons seems to be collapsed..maybe that's because of missing that plugins, I'll check it out...nope, it didn't help..

collapse.jpg

[marcus_civis]

hmm, I'm using 1600*1200 but all buttons seems to be collapsed..maybe that's because of missing that plugins, I'll check it out...nope, it didn't help..

I think you'll need to set the Preferences:Interface: Button Size to 38.

[(o)ne]

oh, of course, thanks :)

p.s. that's really usefull stuff, put a link in ZBdigest.

[froyd]

Oh yes, thanks marcus, I forgot to mention that. :)

thx for your comments!

[N8]

Great idea! looks slick too! I just cant get it to work, i unzipped it ino 3.1 root and everything shows up in my marco dir, but i can't figure out how to get it at the bottom. did i mess something up?

n8

[(o)ne]

use arrowa in upper-left corner of the screen to swich between different schemes and layouts

[Svengali]

Hey Froyd,

Nice post. I like the idea of customizing/personalizing the UI, especially creating special purpose UIs. At some point a dedicated thread should be started, one that focuses on the techniques for building a personalized interface and reasons for doing so. Or maybe a specific section of the Wiki could host the how-to and why-to for custom UIs.

For a long time now I've been building plugins that use the ZScript window as home-base. Problem is, as soon as ANY other ZScript is executed, the window either changes or closes so there is little possibility for continual display of one specific plugin.

That is one of the signal advantages of the custom UI you've posted here, especially since you supplement the standard buttons and sliders with custom ones you create for your specific layout and creative process.

At this point I've pretty much decided no more ZScript window scripts for me. Custom UIs are the future!

Sven

[froyd]

Yes, Svengali, I thought about that too, at least some tips for the wiki would be good. But I also think, althoug that the UI system is on a good way, it could use some more features, some more customization. My whishes would be real floating palettes with custom width, some container items for grouping (except the custom subpalettes) or macrobuttons, that can look and behave like switchbuttons. Especially for my UI I would like to have some vertikal opening menus/palette :) And of course those little quirks need to get fixed ;) But I´m confident. There are several other good solutions for customizing UIs, I like for example Silo2, because its simple, yet very flexible - with custom skinned buttons you can get most out of it. But I also like Modo`s UI system, its very complex and offers alot of different ways to customize.
Lets wait and see where ZBrush's UI is going :)

greets

[N8]

Well done, loaded the ui and it was like a breath of fresh air!

[hobo]

this is nice.

how would I go about making a dual monitor - stretch mode - 2560x1024 px ui, keeping the document in the left hand side monitor, and keeping it as large as possible in the monitor. All the rest going on the right?

[terjq]

thanks for share,but my resolution is not high enough to use this:cry: