Rhino has confusing UI! Toolbars need reorganization!

Rhino Rhino for Windows
41

My insanity continues! I managed to extract all possible macros and put them in html table. So now I have list of all 1304 default macros that can be assigned to menu or toolbar icon. Its all organized so I can have a nice overview of all macros with appropriate macro id, bitmap, and a script macro executes.

But now I just quit doing this as I don’t have time for this really. I was using this as a reference: http://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/6/help/en-us/index.htm#seealso/sak_curve.htm%3FTocPath%3DCommands|By%20function|_____9

Some of the macros are not listed even in this documentation. For example there is “_Polyline” command that draws a polyline, and there is “_Lines” command that draws a polyline! The only difference is that “_Polyline” draws joined curves, and “_Lines” makes then exploaded. Thats how you get three tools, Line, Line segments and Polyline. Line draws only single lines. Line segments draws exploaded polylines. Polyline draws joined polylines. What bothers me that Line segments aka. _Lines is not listed in documentation.

Anyways @Brenda nailed it. Rhino has the best UI and UX I have seen, but they have deceivingly extensive tool-set. Its not that Rhino is not powerful, it is, but on top of that they make confusion with toolbars and tools you can select from three different toolbars, and some tools are only available through menu, others through toolbars, and some of them are nowhere to be found… its just too confusing those Rhino toolbars.

I conclude this post and won’t bother with it anymore, dunno what will I do, I guess I will just remove all the toolbars from my workspace, and use menus to see whats available. And for the tools that are not listed on the menu… well… I don’t know, It will be as if they don’t exist for me!

Good luck everyone!

42

Attn: @brian in case you haven’t been following this thread. Especially Sky Daddy’s last post.
Something to put some thought and attention on for V7?

Even though we all live with Rhino the way it is, I doubt there are very many who don’t agree this is valid criticism. Nobody actually prefers a messy workshop to a neat, well organized one. Well, almost nobody.

43

Yes, it is:

image
image671×604 25.4 KB

44

I don’t see it here under “Drawing Lines and Curves”:
http://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/6/help/en-us/index.htm#seealso/sak_curve.htm%3FTocPath%3DCommands|By%20function|_____9

Can you post a link where you found it?

45

Hit F1 and type “lines” in the search box…

46

Found it here: http://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/6/help/en-us/index.htm#commands/lines.htm%3FTocPath%3DCommands|Alphabetical|L|_____13

So its listed if you look for commands by alphabetical order, but if you try to find a command ordered by function, its not under “Curve”, “Curve from Objects” and “Curve tools” categories. Where is it then ordered by function? Will try to find it now.

47

image

image
image.png742×389 26.1 KB

image
image.png703×368 18.3 KB

48

Hey guys, I just have the need to say that I’m not trying to bring Rhino down. Rhino is amazing CAD software. And I’m one of you now :slight_smile:. Will be using and already am using Rhino as my goto CAD tool. Its just amazing how much different fields Rhino hits. When modeling in Rhino I dont feel constrained, by constraints haha, and yet you can use ‘record history’ to use Rhino as a parametric tool. And I dont even want to mention Grasshoper as I didnt played with it alot, but from what I saw, its a really powerful tool.

User experience for me is top notch in Rhino, it feels good using it, feels rewarding. Makes me turn Rhino on and play with it and explore every minute of my free time. And the underlying system that powers menus and toolbars is powerful. Really smart guys working on this, I would bet my money on Rhino any day.

The only issue I have with Rhino is that Toolbar organization is really confusing. And its really hard to get an overview of what Rhino can do when some tools are only in toolbar, some are only on menus. And when you can access the some tools through toolbar, and from sidebar and from some dropdown toolbar. And then you remmember a tool in sidebar, switch tabs and you get new tools in sidebar and get lost. Thats the issue I have. Toolbars organization.

I started creating my own workspace, will upload it once I get done. Its called cLean.rui hahahha!

  • no dropdown (2nd layer) toolbars
  • only ‘raw’ commands, for example, I only add ‘Rectangle tool’, and not ‘Rectangle around curve’ and other tools derived from Rectangle. I can setup options clicking on command, and avoid poluting toolbars. When I click Rectangle I can see in command that it can go around curve, be perpendicular, I can draw it with 3 points etc…
  • sidebar is only for editing or tools that are usable on both curves, surfaces, solids… like join, expload, trim, split, group, groups, blocks etc… and sidebar does not change with changing tabs. That adds confusion like… you remmember a tool in a sidebar and then can’t find it in different tab, then you have to change tab to get that tool.

Today I was making a script that generates toolbars in a way… it would fetch all commands from that documentation ordered by function, and generate .rui file creating toolbars with function name and adding commands on its own. It would basicly build toolbars as they are on that docs ordered by function. Then I figured out that Lines command is not listed and lost it haha!

Anyways, Rhino rocks, its just I really feel those toolbars need better organization.

Cheers!

49

I made some progress organizing toolbars so I just wanna share it with you:

RhinoToolbars
RhinoToolbars1253×797 323 KB

Most of the work is done as far as organizing goes, I need to add Dimensions, Visibility, Selection and Mesh toolbars. And then place them in the workspace.

You can see here what I was talking about, for example look at “Solid” toolbars.
I have three toolbars:
Solids - drawing basic solid shapes
Solid tools - editing solid shapes
Solid extrude - creating shapes from curves / surfaces
Once I combine all three toolbars in one group / toolbar, I will have all tools for solids one click away, and a clear overview what I can do with solids if I get lost and need to find a tool I don’t know about.

This is really hard work, I renamed and organized over 400 macro items. Deleted lots of them. For example extrusion macros, there are 4 basic extrude commands for extruding curves, ExtrudeCrv, ExtrudeCrvAlongCrv, ExtrudeCrvTapered and ExtrudeCrvToPoint. And same set of extrude commands for extruding surfaces. And with those 4 commands you can do everything, but there are also many macros like “Extrude face” or “Extrude face to a boundary” that do the same thing as those basic commands but just add confusion, there is like 20 extrusion tools that can be replaced with just those four basic as they are derived from them.

And also for curve drawing, you have “Line” command, and then “Line: Angled”, “Line: Angled from midpoint”, “Line: Bisector from midpoint” etc… It just adds huge confusion to a new guy like me that things those are all different commands, and its like you can just use “Line” and click on command to chose what you need.

And then there are tools that are useful that can’t be find on toolbar or menu or under a tab you would be looking for them.

Its like having 5 hammers with different colors for hammering different nails, but they are all the same and you can just use one. Not a good example but I hope you get the point.

Anyways will continue editing these commands and add whats missing, reorganize those a little bit more and change icons order and will probably upload that workspace somewhere if someone will be interested.

Those default macros are unorganized, there are so many duplicate macros, or macros that have no command under “script” tag, this seriously needs organization.

I guess devs were just creating new tools and were just adding them and now after many years it got messy.

This is really hard work just clicking all day, I edited 400+ icons and added them to a category, it did gave me a better overview what can be done with curves, surfaces, solids and meshes. Thats something that should be visible from menus first time you open Rhino, hope it will change. So when a new guy comes and opens curves tab he can see all the ways he can draw a line.

See ya!

50

Now I’m confused…

Why?

51

Hello @skydaddy , Im deeply frustrated that this discussion concluded in such a way. Your work is truly impressive! Could you please share your GitHub link? I genuinely appreciate your comments. I currently work at ETH and my goal is to teach Rhino to 400 fresh students annually. I completely agree with you that Rhino is not intuitive to learn, besides its being a very powerful tool. Have you achieved any notable results with your work? Best, ivan

52

People who love to type on a command line are soooo ms-dos circa 1982. They also typically yearn for the early versions of AutoCad.

Obviously I am not a command line commando. I think the only thing I ever type is J to Join stuff.

All that said, I was in the same sad state as the OP. Lost, confused, hunting around. Then one morning I had two eggs for breakfast and there it was CUSTOMIZE THE MENU TO HAVE THE TOOLS I NEED AND USE.

What a concept skeletor! So I started dragging various menus out on the screen, checking which ones did what and built my custom menu system. Works like a champ for me. Lean, not all cluttered up with things I never use. Now, like the OP mentioned, there seem to be lots of sort of hidden commands that are not on any menu. Those are still a bit of a challenge for me.

But isn’t it wonderful? The command line commandos get what they want, I get what I want, and I can change it anytime I feel like it. Over the past few years I have updated what I originally put on those menus, it is so simple to do that.

As far as “learning all the commands and what they do” ??? Good luck with that.

53

Hi @T_Reischl,
Thanks for your suggestion.
We have logged RH-96699/Add-All-Commands-To-Menus-Toolbars

Here is the Rhino Command Reference.

You can watch this link for any progress.
And if there is something to test, you will be notified here in this forum thread by Brian Gillespie.

Sincerely,
Mary Ann Fugier

54

Just remember to save it every now and then.
Setting up a custom UI can be a pain when moving to a new machine if your tool layout can’t be recreated quickly. I used to teach and needed a vanilla setup to not confuse the students, so I use a custom toolbar for my stuff. It’s the easiest to back up too, so I recommend using that for custom UI stuf rather than changing the default layout.

55

Read up:

image
image360×520 137 KB

Back in Rhino V1 days I used to really care about the toolbars and customizing them. But then I started to do actual research into the basic principles of Interface Design and realized they’re just a worse version of the menus, by all metrics–this is not debatable whatsoever, don’t even try–and that most customization is a waste of time that does not, again by any real metric, improve productivity.

I mean I remember the first word processor that offered those little square buttons as a feature, and they were strictly intended as a shortcut for a small number of tools. For anything more…the menus are right there! This whole system McNeel’s spent untold man-years building and users spend hours customizing and then fretting over when some change to Rhino breaks them, is really just a silly toy.

56

SolidWorks is still my main tool. Once you’ve mastered parametric modeling, it’s hard to work any other way. I’m here to learn Grasshopper, but first I need to learn Rhino. Honestly, Rhino has been more challenging than I expected, even after 25+ years of 3D modeling as an industrial designer.

To me, Rhino 8’s UI still feels dated. It could use a modern facelift, especially the default layout. First impressions matter, and in 2026, UX is just as important as UI.

Blender was in a similar position until version 2.8 (IIRC). The improved UI and UX made it much more approachable, and its popularity really took off.

Custom panels and third-party radial menus have made Rhino much easier to use. I was close to giving up until I found a radial menu New Rhino Radial Menu- So Good!. Now I rarely need to switch between the mouse and keyboard.

Grasshopper could use some UX improvements too. The node graphics are fine, but connecting and disconnecting nodes takes more steps than necessary. Blender’s Node Wrangler handles the same tasks much more efficiently.

57

I want to be able to eat my cheeseburger with my left hand while i execute commands with my right hand on the mouse and not mess up my keyboard.

The icons start making sense in that way like you don’t want cheeto dust on your keyboard you want as little contact on the computer parts as possible.

..

.

.

I’m gonna log of for today i think I’ve had way to much plastic fumes inhaled from 3d printing.

59

you’re so wrong about this

60

I can see why newcomers are having difficulty figuring out the UI.
Once upon a time I was hating on the UI, and that was after years of working in Rhino.
I couldn’t wrap my head around - why does the UI look so old. I was wrong on so many levels.
But with time you configure everything as needed and you start loving the subtleties that where carefully thought out.
There are no two workflows that would be the same.
And also, it would be more scary if McNeel make the default view that something an experienced user would setup.
But from my experience I’ve tried to put some logic to my setup.

Unnamed document_0
Unnamed document_01754×942 354 KB

“This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.”

And honestly I need to reconsider the toolbars attached to the side-panels because they are almost never getting used.
Almost everything has it’s alias. These might be sitting there as a reminder sometimes, when i forget the shortcut or command.
Also the dynamic toolbar sits there out of habit. Probably the command panel should take it’s place, but it’s too short. I sometimes need to enlarge it to see some previous outcomes.
WISH: Pop-out command panel as in AutoCAD.

ANDhitecture_Window_Layout.rhw (89.2 KB)

61

What’s that exactly?