# Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Blender Windowing System

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The Blender user interface may appear daunting at first, but don\'t
despair. This book explores the interface one step at a time.

In this module, you\'ll learn about Blender windows:

-   recognizing windows and their headers,
-   the different types of windows,
-   how to activate and resize windows,
-   how to split and join windows.

You\'ll also practice launching and leaving Blender.

## An Interface Divided

Blender\'s user interface is divided into rectangular areas called
 (or sometimes,
). The overall arrangement of
windows is called a .

If you haven\'t already launched Blender, go ahead and do so. You should
soon see something that resembles the following.

Blender has had some major changes to its user interface (UI) since
version 2.4x. Some of these changes include moving buttons and changing
the space bar hot key from the "add menu" to the "search menu"
( is now the \"add menu" hot
key). This is important to know when trying to follow tutorials.

Other changes include the addition of the tool bar and window splitting
widget. The shelf widget (indicated by a plus sign) opens hidden tool
shelves. The object tool shelf can be toggled on and off by pressing
. The properties tool shelf can be
toggled on and off by pressing the .
The split window widget allows you to split and join windows. Blender
2.69 is shown below.

![](Blender269DefaultView.png "Blender269DefaultView.png"){width="800"}


-   You may be running a different version of Blender - perhaps a newer
    version. The screenshot was made using the 2.69 release.

:   

    :   If you\'re running an older version, you should probably
        upgrade. Download instructions are in the
        Introduction.

-   The user-interface settings on your computer may have been changed.

    :   Try resetting the user interface with *File → Load Factory
        Settings*.

:   

    :   To take a video in Blender, press
        , and click *Make
        Screencast*. This will record what\'s on your screen until you
        click the red *Close* button on the info header. The screencasts
        will be saved in the *tmp* folder. In Microsoft Windows, the
        *tmp* folder is located at \'C:\\tmp\'.

## Window Headers

Did you find all five headers?

Every Blender window has a header. A header can appear at the top of the
window, at the bottom of the window, or it can be hidden. Let\'s take a
closer look at the headers.

If you click with  on the header, a menu
pops up which lets you move the header (to the top if it's at the
bottom, or vice versa), or maximize the window to fill the entire
workspace:

![](Blender269HeaderMenu.png "Blender269HeaderMenu.png")

To hide the header completely, move the mouse to the edge of the header
furthest from the edge of the window (i.e. the top edge of the header if
it is at the bottom of the window, or vice versa); it will change into a
vertical double-headed arrow. Now click with
 and drag towards the window edge, and
the header will disappear. In its place, you will see the following
symbol appear at the corner of the window:
![](Blender274RevealShelfIconBrightened.png "Blender274RevealShelfIconBrightened.png").
Click this with  to bring the header
back.

## Window Types

Blender has many types of windows (there are 16 of them in Blender 2.69)
and a Console for the Python programming language. You\'ve just
encountered the Info, 3D View, Properties, and Outliner windows. The
rest will be introduced as needed in later modules.

Every window header in Blender has an icon at the left end to indicate
the window type. For instance:

-   ![](Blender_2.59_Info_ico.png "Blender_2.59_Info_ico.png") = Info
-   ![](Blender_2.59_User_Prefs_ico.png "Blender_2.59_User_Prefs_ico.png")
    = User Preferences
-   ![](Blender_2.59_3d_view_icon.png "Blender_2.59_3d_view_icon.png") =
    3D View
-   ![](Blender_2.59_Outliner_ico.png "Blender_2.59_Outliner_ico.png") =
    Outliner
-   ![](Blender_2.59_Properties_ico.png "Blender_2.59_Properties_ico.png")
    = Properties

If you  on the icon, a menu will pop up.
(If you don\'t know what  means, please
review the Keystrokes, Buttons, and Menus
Notation module.)

If you\'ve changed any window\'s type, please change it back (or reload
the factory settings with *File → Load Factory Settings*) before
continuing with this tutorial.

## The Active Window

The **active window** is the one that will respond if you press a key.
Only one Blender window is active at any given time.

The active window is usually the one containing the mouse pointer.
(Blender uses a \"focus follows mouse\" user interface model. When a
hotkey fails to work as expected, it is often because the mouse pointer
has strayed into a neighboring window.) To change the active window,
simply move the mouse pointer into the window you wish to activate.

Practice changing the active window by moving your mouse between the 3D
View and the Timeline windows. The Timeline window is directly below the
3D View header. At this point, it\'s worth mentioning that the header
for the 3D View window and Timeline window is at the BOTTOM of its own
window instead of the top as the name \"header\" implies.

## Resizing Windows

Resizing windows is easy.

### Dragging on a Border

Whenever you increase the size of one window, you decrease the size of
another. That\'s because Blender has a
:
unlike many other programs, it does not permit windows to overlap.
Neither does it move windows; it just resizes them. If you find that you
cannot increase the size of a window (e.g. the Info window) any further
although there seems to be enough space to do so, it may be because you
decreased the size of another window (e.g., the Outline window) to its
minimum size (i.e, just the heading).

### Maximizing a Window

Another way to resize a window is to maximize it. When Blender
 a window, it makes the
window as large as possible. The previous window configuration is saved.

-   To maximize the active window, press
     ,
     or
    . On a Mac, if "Spaces" is
    enabled, you may have to use
    .
-   When a window is maximized, use
     ,
     or
     to restore the previous
    (unmaximized) window configuration.

Practice maximizing and un-maximizing the 3D View and Timeline windows.

## Shelves

You will notice that the 3D View
![](Blender2693DViewIcon.png "Blender2693DViewIcon.png") window (the
largest window in the screenshots above) has several buttons down the
left side. This rectangular portion is called the *Tool Shelf*. This is
like a window within a window - you can drag the boundary between it and
the main part of the 3D View to resize.

If you drag all the way to the window boundary, the shelf will
disappear. In its place, the following symbol will appear:
![](Blender274RevealShelfIconBrightened.png "Blender274RevealShelfIconBrightened.png").
Click it to bring the shelf back.

## Too Much To Fit

If a window or shelf contains too much information to fit within its
display area, scrollbars will appear along the bottom or right edge. You
can scroll the contents by dragging these with
; alternatively you can drag with
 directly within the contents.

A window header may also contain more than fits within its displayable
area. There is no explicit visual clue for this (though some of the
widgets at the right edge might not be visible), but if that happens,
you can drag sideways within the header with
 to scroll its contents.

## Splitting And Joining Windows

At the top right and bottom left of every window, you will see something
like this: ![](Blender254WindowWidget.png "Blender254WindowWidget.png").
If you move the mouse over the icon, you will see the pointer turn into
a cross. At that point, you can do one of the following by clicking and
dragging with :

-   Split the window into two copies horizontally by dragging
    horizontally away from the edge.
-   Split the window into two copies vertically by dragging vertically
    away from the edge.
-   Join the window to the adjacent one horizontally (getting rid of it
    and taking over its space) by dragging towards it.
-   Join the window to the adjacent one vertically (getting rid of it
    and taking over its space) by dragging towards it.

Of course, the last two are only possible if there *is* in fact another
window in that direction. Note: you can only join windows horizontally
that are the same height, and windows vertically that are the same
width.

## The Default Workspace

If you look at the above screenshot of the default workspace, you will
see the following window types:

-   The menu bar at the top (outlined in green) is actually a window,
    called Info ![](Blender269InfoIcon.png "Blender269InfoIcon.png"). In
    previous versions of Blender, you could resize this to reveal the
    User Preferences, but in 2.5*x* they have been moved to their own
    window type. Instead, all you can see here if you enlarge the window
    are some debug messages, which may be removed in a future version of
    Blender. As of 2.70, the debug messages are still present in this
    menu.
-   The largest window on the screen is the 3D View
    ![](Blender2693DViewIcon.png "Blender2693DViewIcon.png"). This is
    where you work on your model.
-   The Properties
    ![](Blender269PropertiesIcon.png "Blender269PropertiesIcon.png")
    window is the tall area on the right; this is where most of the
    functions are located for performing operations on models, materials
    etc. In previous versions of Blender this was called the Buttons
    window. Over time, it evolved into a disorganized area that made it
    difficult to find things. It has been cleaned up significantly in
    2.5*x*. Note that it defaults to a vertical layout, rather than the
    horizontal one of previous versions. The new design prefers a
    vertical layout, which better suits today's widescreen monitors.
-   The Outliner
    ![](Blender269OutlinerIcon.png "Blender269OutlinerIcon.png") (at the
    top right) gives you an overview of the objects in your document. As
    your models get more complex, you will start to appreciate the
    ability to quickly find things here.
-   The Timeline
    ![](Blender270TimelineIcon.png "Blender270TimelineIcon.png") (across
    the bottom) becomes important when you're doing animation.

The default layout may not be optimal. For example, if you're doing a
static model or scene, not an animation, you can get rid of the
Timeline. If you're doing heavy script development, you'll probably want
the Console available to try things out. And so on.

## Workspace Presets

In the Info window/titlebar, you will see a menu with an icon like this
![](Blender267ScreenLayoutIcon.png "Blender267ScreenLayoutIcon.png").
Clicking on it with  will show the
following menu:

![](Blender255WorkspaceMenu.png "Blender255WorkspaceMenu.png")

Selecting from this menu lets you quickly switch between various
predefined workspace layouts, tailored to various workflows. Try it and
see. You can return to the default layout by selecting "Default" (but
note that any changes you make to the layout are immediately associated
with the name being displayed here). The menu has a search box at the
bottom. Typing text here will restrict the menu to showing items
containing only that text. It might not appear to have much use, but in
a complicated project that needs dozens of different layouts, the search
function could become very useful indeed!

The name of the currently selected item appears to the right of the menu
icon. In the illustration above, this is \"Default\". Blender allows you
to rename the current menu item by clicking on it with the
 and typing a new name, so take care not
to do so unless you actually want to rename the menu item. For example,
if you replace the name \"Default\" with \"MyDefaults\", you will
subsequently see that \"MyDefaults\" appears in the list of menu items.

Note also the "+" and "X" icons to the right of the menu; clicking "+"
creates a new entry which is a duplicate of the last-selected entry,
while clicking "X" gets rid of the currently-selected entry. You will
see these conventions appear consistently in menus elsewhere in
Blender's new, revamped interface.

## One Document At A Time

Blender can only work with one open document at a time (this does not
apply to blender 2.79, which allows multiple instances of blender to run
concurrently). To save changes to the current document, select one of
the Save options from the File menu (or press
 to save under the last-saved name).
To open a new document (actually load a copy of your last-saved user
preferences), select "New" from the File menu (or press
), and select "Reload Start-Up File"
from the popup that appears, but be aware *this will not automatically
save any changes to the previous document*.

## Scenes

A *scene* is like a separate Blender-document within-a-document.
Different scenes within the same document can easily share objects,
materials etc. You can define them once and make different renderings
and animations from them. You create, delete and switch scenes using the
scene ![](Blender267SceneIcon.png "Blender267SceneIcon.png") menu in the
info header. A new document starts by default with just one scene,
called "Scene".

## Leaving Blender

To exit Blender:

1.  If there\'s a tool active, press  to
    exit the tool.
2.  Press . This brings up an *OK?*
    menu.
3.  Confirm *Quit Blender* by clicking 
    or pressing .

## Additional Resources

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