How have you customized your Rhino UI?

[eobet]

I’m curious, because most tutorials online use the default UI, but that must be to not confuse people, I suspect. I come from a decade of Solidworks which offers minimal customization, but also a decade of Alias where if you were to set me down in front of a default installation, I would not know how to use it.

After a few months of Rhino, here’s what I currently ended up with:

I tried to minimize the horrible command console, and also added a custom toolbar. Now, disclaimer, I know those icons in that toolbar are very ugly, but they are (to me at least) extremely readable (and in the case of the Select U/V icon, actually shows information that isn’t available anywhere in the default Rhino UI). The toolbar itself contains all the tools I’ve commonly used so far, renamed and tweaked with options to mimic what I’m used to from Alias, including some scripts that nice people have shared on this forum to get even more similar functionality to make me feel home (except that sweep is called rail in Alias, but even after 10 years, I’ve honestly never gotten used to that name). Something that’s totally Rhino, though, is the right-click options, so to get used to that, I had to explicitly put them behind a slash on all labels.

I think I also increased the default control point size, enabled backface coloring and switched out the selection color to cyan, all through things I’ve learned on this forum!

I’ve seen some really custom stuff on this forum, so I’m very interested to see if anyone will share any in this thread!

(EDIT: I tried to search for similar threads, but either there aren’t any, or I tried bad search words…)

[pascal (Pascal Golay)]

but that must be to not confuse people,

Yeah, exactly … back when I used to do real work, my Rhino was pretty heavily customized as well, but that level of difference is impractical from here at McNeel… I also dock stuff on either side of the very useful but over-wide on modern screens command line. And I put the vp tabs on the side to reduce the vertical squishing of the viewports on a wide screen.
-Pascal

[jdhill]

The last time I did much of any customization was Rhino 3. As I recall it, either Rhino 4 could not properly use the workspace file, or I lost it, or whatever else … anyway it did not carry over, and it was about then that I started to prefer customizing my brain instead of Rhino, or whatever other software I am using.

[3dsynergy]

I have to double mostly on what Pascal says. I had heavily customized rhino up to V5 where every icon was replaced. I find that gets too confusing if you teach people rhino and then you get brain numbed again when you look at the standard interface. So I do have custom tabs and middle mouse button menu but I left the other areas alone in V6.
Customization is one of the strengths of rhino and should be used as little or as much as the user needs, the above is where I am at now.
RM

[Helvetosaur]

Mine is also fairly customized and goes back to like V2, but these days I type many of my commands - I have over 250 aliases.

[eobet]

How do you remember all of those?

Nobody has posted any screenshots yet, but I did find this when I searched before I created this topic:

Asterisk

Aug '16

Hire me. I’ll fix your “too many icons” problem. XD

User Interface is Intimidating

Hire me. I’ll fix your “too many icons” problem. XD [image]

No idea how he managed to get the filters and snaps side by side like that, but it looks very neat! (Also, I did not realize I could re-color the command line.)

[andrew.nowicki]

I try to make the viewport as close to square shape as possible.

[Normand (Jakob Normand)]

As already mentioned by others, I’ve grown into the habit of using “vanilla” Rhino because of previously being a teacher. Instead I use aliases (269 and counting) based on abbreviations of the actual command names: pl=PolyLine, ip=InterpCrv, mm=mirror etc. I hardly ever used the icons anymore, but it does happen whenever I need a command not on my alias list… although I find it harder and harder to remember where the icons are, and I usually end up relying on autocomplete and typing instead
-Jakob

[Helvetosaur]

although I find it harder and harder to remember where the icons are, and I usually end up relying on autocomplete and typing instead

Yep. Even harder for me, I often have to find the command equivalents in French or German (as I normally work in English, but teach in both other languages). Not so easy, even with the underscore, as it doesn’t actually tell you the localized name of the command. But if you hit F1 in the middle, you get the localized help for the command…

[Czaja (Jakub Czajczynski)]

Don’t hesitate to share them in the gallery. Easy to scroll, UI gallery as a competition to scrolling Pinterest or FB (for geeks only).

My Rhino UI - users gallery

It took some time to get used to, but I really like having so many commands at my fingertips. The problem is that now I have a hard time using rhino without it.

[Piotr]

My version of UI
TOP BAR (left to right):
Command line!!!
file editing, visibility, drafting (form points to complex crvs), solids, solids editing, editng, meshes, other stuff
BOTTOM BAR:
snapping
RIGHT TOP:
most recent used commands
RIGHT:
all stuff available, subidivided sometimes into 2-3 rows - depending on file complexity

I’m using shorcuts mostly, still like to have everything at hand.

[eobet]

Ah, I knew someone would have created a thread like this already! Why is it in Serengeti, though?

I’ll post my screenshot there as well, because this thread seems to have been invaded by command line savages!

[Czaja (Jakub Czajczynski)]

@eobet

Ah, I knew someone would have created a thread like this already! Why is it in Serengeti, though?

Serengeti because I felt that analyzing how people customize their Rhino UI should be a start to discussing the future directions for the UI changes.
I had an idea that we need a new forum subcategory for all UI related stuff so we can store all information, whining and wishes in one place, but I was left with almost no response - which is, as you may know, the worst form of response.

Here is this topic:

UI discussions forum subcategory

Can we have new subcategory on the forum where all the UI discussion topics will be moved? Right now all those “philosophical” UI topics are scattered all over the forum and I think it would be a good idea to keep them in one place.

[David8]

I made this thread a while ago, and got no replies.
But at least it’s here for posterity.

Workspace and Themes Collections

Hey McNeelians, I’m trying to organize a few examples of different ways people organize their Rhino Workspace to create a tutorial or a catalogue or some other sort of workspace resource that might be handy for newcomers. Could you share a screenshot of your workspace/toobar config or info on your Display Mode preferences? I think most of us can agree that the Rhino workspace/toolbar system is very overwhelming to newcomers and isn’t necessarily legible. Other programs like Maya, Sketchup, or …

[carvecream]

Fairly vanilla, for mostly same reasons as mentioned above: It’s not practical to have vastly different interfaces from coworkers when we need to be able to use each others’s Rhinos on the fly. And dealing with the custom UI headaches over the years… so we keep it simple.

I’m a single window modeler 99% of the time, so all tool bars are optimized for that. I have a ton of buttons on my mouse pop as shown in the screen grab. Some are custom. I also use a ton of keystroke aliases.

-Robert

[Max3 (Max Allstadt)]

I made my own dark mode. I use a plug in to get a custom color palate to quickly pick from, and I loaded it with a group of colors I found on a data viz blog, for maximum contrast between all of them.

Also made a middle mouse button toolbar with tools I use a lot, with some attention to submenus, too.

I Set F1, F2, F3 etc through F6 to toggle GridSnap, Ortho, Planar…Gumball, in the order they’re shown on the bottom of the window.

Many many custom hot keys. For various selection commands like SelLast, SelCrv, SelOpenPolysrf, etc. Example: Ctrl-5 is SelCrv, Ctrl-Shift-5 is SelClosedCrv, Ctrl-Alt-5 is SelOpenCurve, same theme for polysurfaces.

The most recent addition, which I use a lot, is ctrl-alt-G for _RelocateGumball, because I hate clicking at that little white bubble and having to click again.

Some of the ideas for doing these things came from a Jean Gorospe tutorial on PluralSight. Worth the one month fee if you’re a beginner and you want to get faster. It changed my life. Learning to Work Quickly and Efficiently in Rhino | Pluralsight

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

is ctrl-alt-G for _RelocateGumball, because I hate clicking at that little white bubble and having to click again

you can also drag to relocate the gumball by its origin point by pressing Ctrl just before dragging and then releasing. This is quicker if you only need to relocate its position. Works for the scale handles too.

[eobet]

Hmm… perhaps these three threads should be merged?

I updated my first image now to add one-shot icons that I finally made. I kept forgetting how to reveal them, and now that I know, I can’t be bothered to press control to do that all the time.

[Max3 (Max Allstadt)]

I know. I use the command because I often need to realign the gumball to a specific direction.

[brt1]

i´ve been using rhino since 1999 (i think it was beta then) and have been constantly customizing my workspace.
for teaching i always use the custom workspace.
for my personal use i prefer more textbuttons in a plain, colorless, high-contrast/black&white UI and i like the possibility of organizing the panels in vertical tabs on the left and right margins of my screen.
i tried to group as many buttons as possible in as few toolbars as possible, as - unfortunately - it still happens that minimizing/maximizing operations mess up the interface, and few large toolbars can be rearranged quicker than many small ones.
i use a 43" monitor, so the buttons may seem small on other screens/resolutions.