So I have been using SOFTIMAGE|FACE ROBOT for a while now, and have got very used to its layout behaviour. If you haven’t seen the software, it basically has small buttons in the interface to quickly collapse/expand panels without the bother XSI’s optional panels.
Of course, once you are comfortable with a workflow, you want it to apply to as much as possible. So I spent a little time adding this behaviour to a new layout for XSI users as an example.
To make one of these layouts, you need to add two values to a switcher object in your layout using a text editor to edit the xml directly. The to values are:
- optionbutton=”container”
- optional=”hidden” or optional=”visible” to set the default state
In the example layout, I have added the buttons to the Left Main Toolbar and added a new switcher containing a bunch of views to the buttom of the View Manager. Check lines 67 and 82-92 for the major modifications.
Place the file in your Application\layouts directory and restart XSI. The new layout will be available from the View menu. Here is a screen capture…
