The tray system in 2016 is a great improvement over the old separate window scheme. Thank you so much for adding it!
One slight further improvement would be to remove the restriction that each dialog can appear on only one tray. Certain dialogs are used in multiple activities, but can’t be added to multiple trays, which makes it hard to build trays based on specific activities. For me, Entity Info is one I use frequently at all stages of the modeling process, but if I were to set up multiple trays, I could put it on only one of them.
LayOut has this restriction as well, and would also, in my opinion, be improved without it.
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Personally I wish I had the option to use Trays or not. On my laptop it makes sense since the monitor is smaller. At work I have (2) 27" monitors and I used to spread out the menus exactly as I liked to see the most possible options, especially materials and layers.
To get the individual windows I created a new Tray for every option
I personally think this is a step backwards unless I had the option to deactivate trays.
I see your point about versatility. One thing I didn’t like, though, was that yes, you could set them up exactly how you wanted, but they didn’t tend to stay that way for long. A “reset workspace” tool would have helped. Also (OK that’s two things), the way the side windows would keep the focus until you physically clicked in another window caused me problems all the time. I won’t miss that.
Anthony, after four months of using trays, I’m finding myself using your single-window floating tray method more and more, even on my two-monitor setup at work.Certain windows I use all the time and want to keep open, and since I can’t add them to more than one tray at a time, I’ve put them in their own floating trays so I can leave them open all the time. Everything else goes in two tabbed anchored sidebar trays, organized roughly by task (building and rendering). And the single-window tray does work a little better than the old window, in that it won’t close if I hit “escape” with the focus still on that window.
So when I posted in December, I was only using the tabbed sidebar trays, where two trays were never visible at the same time. I guess with floating trays, allowing a window into more than one tray at a time could result in the awkward situation of having that same window appear simultaneously on the screen(s), in multiple open trays.
Tray visibility can be controlled with a keyboard shortcut. After setting up a tray, go to Window > Preferences > Shortcut and use the tray name in the search box to find setting option.
If one uses any auto-hidden trays, then r-click on the sidebar area to get a menu of options and toggle on/off visibility there too.
Good idea, and thanks for the tip, catamountain. I am all about the keyboard shortcuts!
Area Man Knows All The Shortcut Keys.
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