Blender For Dummies. Jason van Gumster

to be able to see at a glance what's going on in your file. Furthermore, if you absolutely need multiple windows that can overlap, you can have them. For example, you might have two computer monitors that are different sizes and you'd like a full-sized Blender window in each. I show you how to do this task in this chapter in the “Duplicating an area to a new window” section.

       This non-blocking window philosophy, combined with the fact that Blender's entire interface is written in a standardized programming library for graphics called OpenGL, is the precise reason that Blender looks the same, no matter where you run it. Whether you run it from Linux, Windows, a Mac, or even an experimental build for Android devices, Blender looks and behaves like Blender. An additional benefit to being written in a 3D library like OpenGL is that many parts of Blender's interface allow you to zoom in on them. Try it! Hover your mouse cursor over the Properties editor (the editor on the right side) and press Numpad Plus (+) or Numpad Minus (-). You can make the panels in this editor much larger or smaller than they are by default. Pretty cool!

Resizing areas

      Regardless of the type of editor that's contained in an area, you modify and change all areas in a Blender window the same way. To change the size of an area, left-click the border between two areas and drag it to a new position. This method increases the size of one area while reducing the size of those that adjoin it. If you have only one area in your Blender window, it's exactly the same size as that window. To resize it, you need to either adjust the size of its parent Blender window or split a new area into that space, as covered in the next section.

       Splitting and removing areas

      While working in Blender, it's pretty common that the default layout isn't quite what you need to work efficiently. Sometimes you may need an additional 3D View or you may want to see the UV/Image Editor in addition to the 3D View.

      To create either of these layout changes, you need to split an existing area into two. You can split or join areas by right-clicking the border between two areas and choosing either Split Area or Join Area from the menu that pops up. However, there's a faster way. Look at the corners in the bottom left and top right of any area. These corner widgets are marked as a triangular region indicated by diagonal lines. To split any area into two, use the following steps:

      1. Left-click one of the corner widgets and drag your mouse cursor away from the area's border.

      2. Drag your mouse cursor left or right to split the area vertically.

      Dragging it up or down splits the area horizontally.

      As you drag your mouse, the areas update in real time so that you can see the result of the split while you're working.

       If you decide that you actually don't want to split the area, you can cancel the operation by right-clicking or pressing Esc.

      If you want to remove an area, the process is similar. Rather than splitting an area in two, you're joining two areas together. So instead of left-clicking the corner widget and dragging your mouse cursor away from the area border, drag it towards the border of the area you want to join with. This action darkens the area your mouse is in and draws an arrow to indicate which area you want to remove.

Figure 1-7 shows the process of splitting an area and then removing that area. When I work in Blender, I find myself constantly changing the screen layout by splitting and joining new areas as I need them.

       Figure 1-7: Creating a new area and then removing that area.

       Duplicating an area to a new window

      In addition to the new way of splitting and joining areas, you can use these corner widgets to duplicate any area into a new Blender window of its own. You can move that window to a separate monitor (if you have one), or it can overlap your original Blender window. And within this new Blender window, you can split the duplicated area into additional ones as you like. This area duplication feature is a slight violation of Blender's non-overlapping principles, but the benefits it provides for users with multiple computer screens make it very worthwhile.

      To take advantage of this feature, follow these steps:

      1. Shift+left-click one of the corner widgets in an area and drag your mouse cursor away from it in any direction.

      This step duplicates the area you clicked in and creates a new Blender window to contain it.

      You can also achieve this effect from the header menu of some editors by choosing View ⇒ Duplicate Area into New Window.

      2. Close the additional Blender window by clicking the close button that your operating system adds to the border of the window.

      Customizing Headers

      All editors in Blender have a horizontal region called the header running along either the top or bottom of the editor. The header usually features specialized menus or buttons that are specific to the editor you're using. Here are some ways you can customize the header:

      ✔ Resize the header. Like any region, you can resize the header by left-clicking the seam between the header and the main work space of the editor and dragging it up or down.

      ✔ Hide the header. If you drag the seam all the way to the area border, then the header becomes hidden, leaving only a small plus icon (+) in the corner of the editor. If the header is at the bottom of the editor, the plus icon appears at the bottom right. If the header appears at the top, it's at the top left. Left-click this icon and the header reappears.

      ✔ Change the location of the header. You can also change the location of the header to either the top or bottom of the editor it belongs to. To do so, right-click the header and choose Flip to Top (or Bottom, depending on where your header currently is).

Maximizing an area

      When working in Blender, you also occasionally need to maximize an area. Maximizing an area is particularly useful when you're working on a model or scene and you just want to get all the other areas out of your way so you can use as much screen space as possible to focus your attention on the task at hand.

      To maximize any area, hover your mouse cursor over it and press Shift+Spacebar. You can toggle back to the tiled screen layout by either pressing Shift+Spacebar again or clicking the Back to Previous button at the top of the window. These options are available in the header menus of nearly all editor types by choosing View ⇒ Toggle Full Screen. You can also right-click the header and choose Maximize Area from the menu that appears. If the area is already maximized, then the menu item will say Tile Area.

       You may notice that the hot keys next to these menu items are Ctrl+Up Arrow for maximizing and Ctrl+Down Arrow for tiling, rather than Shift+Spacebar. Those hotkeys also work, but I find that I don't have to move my left hand as much to hit Shift+Spacebar, so that's much more convenient for me.

The menu that is a pie

       There's a recent addition to Blender's user interface that's worth mentioning. That addition is a feature called pie menus. Contrasted with the more conventional linear, list-type menu, a pie menu lists your menu options radially around your mouse cursor. This setup has a few advantages:

      ✔ Each menu item has a much larger click area.

      With a typical list-type menu, once you find the menu item you want, there's a relatively small area that you need to precisely click. With a pie menu, you only need to have your mouse cursor in the general area around your menu selection (its slice of the pie). Because you don't need to be as precise with your mouse, you can navigate menus faster with less stress on your hand.

      ✔