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Comment by gcp | Hacker News Reader

Blender is not actually that bad.

No, Blender is not bad, it's terrible.

You need a tutorial video to understand how to close a pane, and even then it's hard. That has got nothing to do with 3D modeling being hard. It could've been a word processor and it would still be terrible.

And yes, window panes are very much a standardized UI part which has a completely non-standard interaction design in Blender. For no reason.

Edit: Before you downvote this, download Blender and try to close a pane. Just try it!

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I actually love how window panes work in blender. It's a bit nonstandard, but once you get the hang of it you realize how powerful it is. It makes the entire interface customizable, and I actually miss it every time I move into another application like photoshop.

I haven't used Photoshop but applications like Visual Studio allow similar configurability while still having fairly standard window controls.

I also haven't heard the same level of complaints that Blender gets about its competition. Presumably, there's solutions.

Blender's competitors are so expensive that most people haven't tried them, and of those that have, there is a significant risk of the sunk-cost fallacy tainting their opinion.

>It could've been a word processor and it would still be terrible.

Like vim or emacs?

>window panes are very much a standardized UI part which has a completely non-standard interaction design in Blender. For no reason.

It's called "tiled window management". Lots of people find it more comfortable to use than the classic overlapping windows.

> It's called "tiled window management". Lots of people find it more comfortable to use than the classic overlapping windows.

True, but when speaking about "lots", we have to keep in mind that tiled window management for the general public died together with Windows 1.0. That probably puts the percentage of the public who's ever used tiled window management around 0.001% of the total PC using population :)

> True, but when speaking about "lots", we have to keep in mind that tiled window management for the general public died together with Windows 1.0.

And came back with Windows 8 :-)

> That probably puts the percentage of the public who's ever used tiled window management around 0.001% of the total PC using population :)

Well, the awesome success of Windows 8 kind of reinforces my point :-)

But the market share of Windows 8.1 is currently 8,40%.

https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share...

Defenders of open source, rally around the OS-outcast - for he who is condemned by the public, may he be horrible and atrocious as can be, is our brethren in spirit.

You know how bad it is, if Microsoft lowest-point is your high point.

Like vim or emacs?

Yes. There's reasons the popularity of those is waning.

It's called "tiled window management". Lots of people find it more comfortable to use than the classic overlapping windows.

It's got nothing to do with tiling. There's plenty of other software out there that's meant to be used with tiled windows. The interactions in Blender are unique to Blender, non-intuitive and non-discoverable.

> There's plenty of other software out there that's meant to be used with tiled windows.

There is a tiling window manager INSIDE blender used to control its window frames. It works pretty much like any other tiling manager. You immediately grasp the idea if you've ever used one.

I use Blender on a regular basis. Not every day, but certainly a few times a month. Which is to say, not enough to be an expert that has the thing ingrained into my muscle memory. It's not that hard to use.

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