User interface and API Freeze

In the last month, we’ve polished the user interface and added the last planned features to Blender 2.80. The details can be found in the weekly development notes.

Now we are freezing the user interface, so that there is a stable base for creating documentation and tutorials. Settings will stay in the same place and screenshots should remain valid for the final 2.80 release. A handful of menu entries may be added, or a tooltip might be improved, but nothing major that would break documentation.

The Python API will also remain compatible. Add-ons that work now should continue working in the final 2.80 release.

The focus for development has now fully shifted to bug fixing and documentation, to get ready for a release in July.

This Summer’s Sculpt Mode Refactor
Geometry Nodes Workshop: October 2024
New Brush Thumbnails
Blender 4.3 Beta is here!

14 comments
  1. I have learned and learned blender in the past but went no where. Then I saw a preview of Blender 2.8 in YouTube. It seems Blender interface looks very intuitive. I then tried it. And wow, I can easily play around with it even with basic editing. I can easily see what I want to get simply by see and click the icon. In the past, I tried hard to memorize each hotkeys with slow progress and still forget them.
    With the new interface, it make us, the newbie, like playing a toy. As simple as using Sketch up. As simple as using Microsoft office. Just click and you know what you need.
    I really appreciate the brave move of Blenders’ developer to change the interface. Thanks millions to developers who know the needs of beginners. I hope more and more people will use Blender.

  2. If I want to write a big addon/extension to Blender how do I start? I have created a simple file exporter in Python but I don’t think that Python is the way to go with anything more computationally expensive such as a new type of sculpting extension.
    Would you consider writing some tutorials, that may make Blender development more approachable.

  3. If i put a curve resolution setting preview in 1 and render in 4 (for example) when rendering it does 1 and not 4 as it should.
    Is it a bug?

    • Sorry my fault.
      The curves render properly now

  4. Hello friends
    In 2.79 OUTLINER i can click on the icons of parented objects to select them (with hierarchy retracted) but not 8n 2.8.
    Why?

  5. Nice! Also please upgrade Freestyle SVG exporter for 2.8, if it is possible.
    It is a unique and useful tool for vector graphics export since 2.79.

  6. We have the selection on the left mouse click, that’s great. It would be good to set the cursor with the right mouse button, yet we have the menu pop up. This is awkward because now you have to reach over to the keyboard to hold down the shift button, then right mouse click. We probably set the cursor more often then use the menu.
    My opinion would be to rather have the menu appear when clicking shift and left mouse click.
    Automatic setting of key-frames was really convenient by pressing “i” in 2.79.
    Thank you so much from bringing Blender to the world.

    • – You can just scrub the playhead by dragging it – no need to hold modifier keys
      – You can still use auto-key. It was not removed.

  7. Iam glad that we entered the final stage for the blender 2.8
    From now it’s all about bugs!!!

  8. Hello devs, i have some points about the graph/dope sheet in general, for example the graph editor no longer has a center line at least on the horizontal value like in 2.79 , also would love if we use Autokeying and key the transform values weather in the properties panel or sidebar thechannels and curves shouldn’t get deselect in the graph just like when u use the 3d manipulators in the 3D view…. i have so many little suggestions to make these editors much better for us Animators bu i am afraid they will be taken into consideration, thanks.

  9. A stable Blender is the best blender. I hope to see unhanded error access violations less and less. Kudos for all your great work!

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