UI/UX enhancement: remove the User tab

Victor-IX / Blender-Launcher-V2

Standalone client for managing official builds of Blender 3D

GNU General Public License v3.0

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UI/UX enhancement: remove the User tab #121

Closed xan2622 closed 1 month ago

xan2622 commented 5 months ago

🟡 Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Currently, the "User" tab (at the top) contains "Favorites" and "Custom" (both displayed on the left side of the UI). UX-wise, their location is not consistent with the rest of the interface. In my opinion, there's no real need to place them inside a "User" tab.
If you look at the Blender Launcher interface (image below ), it seems logical to use the left side for everything related to the "type of installation". That's why I think "Custom" should also be located on the left side of the UI and "Favorites" at the top.

🟡 Describe the solution you'd like:

Could you please consider to remove the "User" tab and move the "Favorites" tab to the top and the "Custom" tab to the left? This would also save 1 click for the user: He/She would just have to directly click on "Favorites" or "Custom" rather than being forced to go inside the "User" tab first.
Here is a mock-up of the new UI:

Victor-IX commented 5 months ago

What do you think about also moving the favorite tab to the left side of the Library tab? IMO, having the favorite tabs on the right makes it awkward to use. Having everything in the Library tab would make more sense; it would make it easier to navigate to the favorite builds.

xan2622 commented 5 months ago

I am a little more skeptical about the Favorites tab but it would worth trying this new UI (with both Custom and Favorites in the Library tab, as you suggested).

xan2622 commented 5 months ago

As I said in my initial comment ⬆️, I still would prefer that Favorites would be placed at the top because it doesn't belong to "a build that is installed on the disk" (unlike Stable, Daily, Experimental and Custom). If you know what I mean.

IMO, having the favorite tabs on the right makes it awkward to use. Having everything in the Library tab would make more sense; it would make it easier to navigate to the favorite builds.

I don't really think it would make easier to find the Favorites in the Library tab, rather than directly seeing it on the top row of tabs.

Also, there is plenty of empty space at the top to place the Favorites tab there..

baronlanteigne commented 4 months ago

Slightly off topic but I think it makes more sense to chat about this here rather than create a new ticket.

The distinction between Library and Downloads is quite binary so it makes sense to only have 2 tabs on that axis. So shouldn't the favorite tab be on the left too? This selection will always be a sub selection of the Library anyway. (That said, it's true that there's enough space up there for a 3rd tab)

It's great to sort different versions of blenders but I usually have 3-4 versions at all time as I don't need older versions for that long. There's also no way to see everything that's installed and those 3-4 versions will get spread across 2-3 categories. (Usually Stable and Daily for me) So I often find myself having to click them all to get a better sense of what's installed on a computer. For this reason, I usually favorite everything so I use the User/Favorite tab as a way to see all of my 3-4 versions.

My actual suggestion: I just wish there was an "All" tab to see everything in one place.

xan2622 commented 4 months ago

So shouldn't the favorite tab be on the left too?

That's why Victor created a poll on the BlenderArtists thread (to let users decide): https://blenderartists.org/t/blender-launcher-standalone-software-client/1230543/315

xan2622 commented 1 month ago

Thank you for removing the User tab.