I could live without Sub-d and Grasshopper. But I use the Gumball and SmartTrack all the time.
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Also, for me as an architect, I’ve never touched the “Draft angle analysis tool” I know it is an essential tool for injection Moulding.
A similar thought experiment is “What useful feature is in Rhino 7 that you had no idea existed, because it isn’t discoverable in the UI”. If we add everything to the UI, it gets complicated. So some stuff gets developed and then used by one developer and the one user that was told about the test command.
Believe me, we’ve tried to delete old stuff… but it’s critical for someone, so we leave it in.
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A 'fresh" UI… I almost can’t wait!
If there’s one thing I could do without, it’s this old glitchy crusty panel/toolbar UI.
Hope the new one will be twenty-first-century tight, snappy and good-looking.
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I wouldn’t hope too hard. I don’t believe this is going to be a complete overhaul of how the UI looks, but simply a better way of handling and personalizing workspaces. I’m willing to bet that toolbars and panels will still be largely present but have improved functionality.
You don’t - I put them on the right, but you can turn them off altogether too (ViewportTabs command)
-Pascal
Cool, didn’t know that one.
In maximized viewport mode, CTRL-TAB can be used to cycle through the viewports, btw.
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Eugen -
As Mitch points out, you were reading too much into that. Jeremy asked about making it easier to customize the UI. The new system should make it easier to switch between different custom layouts of the toolbars and panels.
-wim
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A panel will still be a panel, and a toolbar a toolbar. However, it’s the subtle details that make all the difference. A bit more whitespace, a slight shadow of some grip lines maybe, balanced typography…
And well working dark/light color themes!
I’m always amazed by the finesse of good font design. These people have really keen eyes. (Been in a school for graphic design. Not a typedesigner, though).
I noticed in R8 object properties you gave the parameters a bit of space. Good!
Btw. to me, Rhino looks better on Windows 11. Rounded corners, blue contrast color…
And yes: consistency! If there’s a panel that lists something (layers, named views, layer states, snapshots, etc) it should behave exactly the same - arrow keys to navigate, F2 to rename, RMB menu with the most needed commands, how to store/restore something…
nice topic.
comment on UI
what i really think is a great quality of rhino:
- commands are accessible by
- icon in toolbar
- via the menu
- via the commandline
- via shortcuts / aliases
- rhino allows both verb-noun, and reversed noun-verb approach (first tell the programm what to do, then what is affected / and reveresed) (the hole adobe creative suit is noun-verb-only !!)
- commands / options can be customized / fine tuend / automated by macros, scripts, Plug-ins, … really cool.
commands i could live without
i use 90% of the commands written in the command line.
so i really don t care if some older commands pile up…
what i really love is, that for most commands the naming / taxonomy is precise.
But there is also some commands, my non-native-language-brain fights:
weld-merge-stich
ring-loop
extract-duplicate
crv-curve
i could live without: _boolean2Objects, gridSnap, before SubD: Gumball,
meta-Commands / command-search
I think some commands could be combined into a single meta-command.
A good example for a very complex command that exists is _arc
_extrudeAnything would be a metaCommand combining 10 different extrude Commands.
_rotate and _rotate3d might be easily combined.
and of course a general:
_SurfaceByCurvesEdgesAxis
_sweep1 adding an Axis will become railrevolfe
_sweep1 adding a rail will become sweep2
_sweep2 adding a 3rd rail will become networks…
_revolve adding a rail will becom railrevolve…
another approach would be to find commands by a advanced search
input is … (curves, axis, surface, …)
action is … (modification of shape, translation, modification of UI, modification of properties…)
output is … (surface, information as text in commandline, …)
the UI should have an answer on how to find commands that might help, but the user does not know.
pay and vote feature
i would love to be able to dedicate my Rhino7 to Rhino8 upgrade payment on some features. If this is possible i will pay the upgrade tomorrow, even if the new version needs 3 more years to come. I would love to set my money on
- a nurbs based multiblend tool (most)
- some homogenisation of workflows of similar commands (_box , _extrude - direction)
- input-finetuning / mouse focus (when does a field needs a enter to confirm the command, when do i need to click the viewport, where is the delete key dedicated to)
- a commuity - developer meeting, drink a bear with pascal and the others ;- )
- have a version switch in the online help, including older versions - google still finds V5 at first place.
and i will tell my university / school to put the money on:
- exactly the same interface on mac and pc.
- including preferences, layouts, UI-Customization
- a simple approach to share all preferences and UI-Customization between computers, mac and pc - i would love to share “tom-s-setting.xml” to all students at the beginning of a course. “drag selected objects only - yes”, no “near” object snap, “turn of automatic points on”, …
i don’t car about a fancy UI - but it woudl be a pity if all tutorials and videos would not be compatible with a new Version.
looking forward to see V8 - the code editor already is great - kind regards - tom
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I use it every single day, all the time. I would really hate to see SmartTrack die or put on the backburner. It’s actually one of my favourite features!
-Jakob
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For many years I would say LAYOUTS, until recent… 
i use grid snap constantly for precision design it is part of my workflow.
i find the overall user interface very cluttered. a simple solution would be to populate it with my most frequently used commands.
also the snap settings and nudge commands and units and grid settings are split between the preferences menu and the settings menu. it is a total pain going back and forth.
OSNAP or Disable can be deleted.
Keep Layers and Keep Layouts.
Project option in osnaps, never used it.
History, as we now have Grasshopper.
Seriously? Interesting. I have this set to an F button as an instant shortcut, use it all the time
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Yes, this astounds me, too! If I’m in a top view and draw a curve with snapping on, chances are high the curve will be a mess in the z direction.
There was a lot of debate about this already. GH is not a replacement for the history, because it cannot ‘track’ the modelling process. Interesting as this would be.
No one on Drape or Heightfield?
For me this list is about things you don’t understand and not on unused command.
Mostly unused tool are also unknown tools.
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Not to mention PATCH.
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I use these all the time
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