Is a Maya floating toolbar possible?

[Jhonus]

the hotbox is one fat floating toolbar.

i've never investigated adding my own menu items to the hotbox so i don't even know if you can do it

[Dave Hackett]

I'm thinking of something more like the Photoshop toolbars that you can drag around. The hotbox is cool, but you still have to scroll through a bunch of crap to get anywhere. I'm doing a ton of poly modeling and I'm using maybe 10 tools constantly. A tool bar would really help me out.

[Lyr]

Make a marking menu for your modelling tools and stick it on an intiutive hot key. Much better than a tool bar, it's only up when you need it, it's always right at your cursor and best of all YOU decide what goes in it.:thumbsup:

[Dave Hackett]

Is that as close as I can get? It works ok, but I really want a floating toolbar. That seems so mu easier than a hotkey>marking menu thing.

[Lyr]

A marking menu is just the quikest way I know of. You can always make a window with all the tools you want in it with MEL. That would take a little bit longer than a marking menu though.

[Dave Hackett]

It looks like that is indeed the fastest way to do it. The scripting it would take to do a window that has all the poly tools (or whatever tools)is over my head. Too bad there isn't a plug-in that creates a window you can just drag your favorite icon into. Or is there? That would be really usefull.
Thanks for the help.

[graphiouz]

why do you whant something that is covering your work area as a floatingTooooolbar does??? takes time to move it around you know,!
only floater i have is the Outliner and that one is down in the right corner over the channel box, but not always.
you´ll get used to the markingMenu trust me.

.

[Dave Hackett]

It's no big deal really, it just seems like you should be able to do this without so much trouble. Max can, and so can XSI, so why not in Maya? Everybody works differantly, this would just suit me well.
Dave

[Lyr]

You can always just tear off the edit polygons toolbar and use that.

[Jhonus]

marking menu's sound infinetly better than floating toolbars... perhaps you should adapt to them Dave ;)

[ALIASWAVE]

Dude, the marking menu is what makes maya better than XSI and MAX no toolbars in the way. I suggest messing with the marking menus, try making your own its the fastest work follow.
Shelves are also a toolbar you can use . Drag some commands to the shelf and make your own custom shelves.
Those are just some suggestions.:buttrock:

[wmaher2]

I cant be assed to open maya right mow n check but can you just make a custom shelf and drag it off.??????

but why thats what makes maya sweet......its a pain in the ass when you you are using somthing like adobe premier with all those floatin boxes.

[ALIASWAVE]

I use after effects, photoshop and premiere. Well i don't care for the toolbars being in the way. There might be a script that does it for you. The shelf is the only thing like that, even if its not a floating toolbar. I guess you will have to make your own script if there isn't.

check highend3d.com

[Deepray]

If you want a floating toolbar, you can do it. But you must make it with MEL scripting, making your our bitmaps buttons, and all setup and commands. It isn't hard to do it. Look at this tutorial, it can help you in some form. ;)

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/ron1/

[bentllama]

Use the MEL, Luke. Use the MEL.

[Dave Hackett]

I'm still learning Maya, so Mel is way out of my league as of now. There has to be somebody out there that has thought the same thing as me, like this guy, scroll down a bit and look at what he made for his Max program. It's a cool as hell tool bar with his favorite tools on it. To me, this is way better than the marking menu. Of course this is Max, and it's useless to me, but a great idea. www.planetshane.com/
Dave

[Lyr]

Looks like an ineffecient waste of screen space. Marking menu is better. If you want something like that script it. I don't see why you would want to spend time scripting something that is going to slow down workflow though.

[graphiouz]

Damn it !! :D whats the use????? you have the 'shelf' and you have the 'marking menu' and you have the 'short keys'! totally agree with Lyr on the waste of space.
Drop this custom toolbar windows waste of space talk.:thumbsdow

.

[Dave Hackett]

Thanks for your opinion. It is after all, your opinion, not mine. I don't think it is. I'm asking for help, not to be told how inefficient things are.

[Machismo]

Originally posted by Dave Hackett
Of course this is Max, and it's useless to me, but a great idea. www.planetshane.com/
Dave

hey another unreal engine fan :applause:

thanx for the heads up Dave :)

[Lyr]

I was hoping the effeciency comment would help you understand why noone has written something like this. When people write scripts they do it speed things up or add things to maya that allows them to work faster. If your dead set on doing this here's a start:


window -t "polytools";
columnLayout;
button -l "(place what you want the button to be called here)"
-command "(place command for tool here)";

button -l "(place what you want the button to be called here)"
-command "(place command for tool here)";

showWindow;


just copy the button stuff for every button you need. To run the script copy paste from this post and place it in the script editor, label the buttons, delete out my crap, attach the appropriate commands, select the whole script and middle mouse drag it to the shelf. If you don't know what commands you want to attach to the buttons turn echo all commands on in the script editor and copy paste the command code into the script. You can always check the MEL command referance too if you are having problems.

[3L3CTRO9!9]

Off the top of my head:

look up the command documentation for window
shelfLayout and shelfTabLayout
as well as shelfButton and toolButton;

The docs come with examples to use these so just cut and paste the examples into your script editor and experiment. Don't fool yourself....MEL really is easy! I'd give you the complete code but you really must learn basic MEL.

However....my opinion is floating windows are annoying and I personally don't use shelves. I love marking menus.

-jd

[Forty-Two]

Are you looking for somehting like this

xtools.xteo.com

[NickolasYounker]

the only thing that comes to mind in this persistant thread....is that poop shader at highend3d..

[Jhonus]

LOL :buttrock:

[Waboflex]

Leaving opinions aside for a moment, someone HAS written this already (for the shelves at least, but not the toolbar). At Highend3d.com (where else?), in the MEL -> Interface and Display section there's a Tear Off Shelf script, it gives a resizeable floating shelf window, and you can access any shelf from within it.

I've found this really useful on occasions - okay it takes up screen space but it can be sized and placed as you like it and you can of course get a fair bit of space back by switching off the 'real' shelf.

Just another way of working if that's how you want to, it's nice to have the option there. That's my opinion anyway ;)

Wabo.

[ed_gross]

What you want to do is create a tear-off shelf. It's possible, and someone has already written a script to do it:

http://www.highend3d.com/files/dl.3d?group=melscripts&file_loc=yuya_tearOffShelf-v1.0-.mel&file_id=1557

[dmcgrath]

Dave,
I didnt see it anywhere, but you know there is a shelf editor.
A litte pull down menu. In there you can make you own shelves.
Then just find the tool you want to use and hold Ctrl+Alt+Shift.
That tool will pop up onto your tool bar. If you always want to change the parameters of the tool jsut make it a hot key to
always open the options box

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