obscure hamburger icon can they make it a menu
WendyLuvsCatz
Posts: 38,507
not many people even know the menu is there on tabs, well I didn't for years
and have to keep telling others
just told a friend who has been using DS longer than me today, (not as often though)
the 3 lined hamburger icon is easily oiverlooked
and wikipedia agrees with me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger_button
it has been argued that while the collapsed menu button is now commonplace, its functionality is not necessarily immediately obvious when first encountered,
why not have a gear or a menu like below?
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Comments
Or a nice little gearbox symbol!
Gear symbols are traditionally associated with program settings, which this icon is not. A "menu" icon could also be desceptive because the main interface has several "menus" at the top of the page. The three-line icon represents a menu that changes depending on what's selected in the window at the time. A "context" menu, if you like. And since it's a collapsable menu, the three lines with a small triangle is a fair representatiion of that what it does.
if you are aware of it that is
and I was not alone or I would just put it down to noob error, I keep finding people who have used the program for years unaware of options there in so many window tabs
The hamburger menu
The funny thing is its going out of fashion to call it "hamburger menu" at least in the post I've seen. Somewhere between version 4.7 - 4.8 I guess they changed the icon to 4 lines with the arrow. What does it look like now like a double-wopper menu?
Nowadays its often refered to as "the lined button on top of the pane" in many posts by me and Richard. I'm not reading much of documantaion but one thing I noticed is that its officialy called the "Option Menu" and I try to stick with that. Makes sense to me because it offers you a selection of options that are related to the functions of that particular pane.
As you saied in the OP I also had Daz Studio installed for some time (while I was trying to get used to it) before I noticed that most functions of the program are hidden under this little icon that can be found all over the place because every pane got one. You actualy have three places where you eventualy can find the commands you searching for. You have the Main Menu, the Option Menu and the Viewport right-click menu that I've discovered even later.
Well why am I continued to write this long post? Maybe because I had too much time but its also because I care about the poor default Daz Studio interface layout. If the user experience is frustating because you get nothing done by searching the menus all the time there is something wrong with the user interface. I mean the interface in general is not bad at all, it does have a few glitches but I actualy like it and its far better than the poser interface disaster. It may be due to historical reasons about the free and the pro version of the program that the advanced functions are a bit hidden. And I mean you can scale the ammount of functions at hand to your skill level and the things you want to do with the program. But I found ways to customize the interface to make it work for me while doing more advanced stuff and I'd like to share what I've learned.
Viewport right-click menu
With most programs that offer a context menu you have to right-click exactly on the item you want to manipulate to get a context menu - in this case the right-click combines selecting the item and opening the menu. However the concept of the Viewport right-click menu in Daz Studio is a bit different in that it dosn't matter where you right-click exactly on the viewport the list of actions you get are depending on the tool that is currently selected and the item that you have selected in the scene. Maybe this was the reason I couldn't wrap my head around using the right-click menu at first.
The good thing about the viewport right-click menu is you don't have to move the mouse that far to a menu or icon somewhere on the edge of the screen. The downside is that there is no fixed location where the menu pops up, your eyes have to quickly read thrugh all of the menu entries to find the right one.
Also I hate to navigate sub-menus in Daz Studio - I don't know maybe its the case if the program is busy but for my taste there is some extended delay in the time your mouse cursor has to rest over the menu entry sometimes before in the sub-menu pops-up. It may be just in the range of milliseconds but I think its longer than I'm used to with MS-Windows menus. This had caught me far too often while I moved my unsteady mouse cursor in the direction of the sub-menu before it poped up, then another nearby sub-menu poped up instead and I got frustrated everytime I used those sub-menus in the right-click menu.
There is only one situation I can think of in Daz Studio and that is with the Surface Selection tool where the viewport right-click menu is truly context sensitive to the position where you click. I remember that quiet well because I was surprised by that inconsistency with the menu design - this hidden menu entry that only shows up if you right-click the right spot on the item AND this spot is a surface that has already tags assigned - very strange. If they would have been consistend with the menu design the menu entry would show up everytime you right-click and would operate on the selected surface in the Surfaces pane - in case there is no selection well than show a pop up message "select a surface first". Chances are good that you will oversee that well hidden menu entry without reading any documantation.
Confusing menu entry locations
As a beginner its very confusing and I propably should have read more documentaion first instead of trying to figure out everything by myself.
At first I thought with Daz Studio it is like with most programs that the Main Menu offers the most compete list of all functions the program has - and the Option Menu, the Viewport right-click menu and also the variouse icons on the toolbars represents just a limited selection of those commands. I concentrated on remembering the right locations in the main menu to find the functions I need but I was wrong thinking you can find everything in the main menu.
I mean at first you select a interface layout and you get all those toolbars with all those icons you have no clue what they are good for. It was all so confusing to me that I tried to stick to the main menu because I don't like to have my eyes searching for icons, buttons and reading menus all the time.
Maybe I have the disadvantage that english is not my first language and it takes a bit of extra time for me to understand the meaning of the written words in the menus. But I like to keep it simple with a fixed main menu thats how my brain can remember the position of a function I like to execute. For example I can easily remember that the function I want can be found in the third menu from left half way down to the bottom. I can preform that click almost blindly without reading anything that means its less demanding for the brain than to locate some icon, button or reading through menus or even prefoming tedious sub-menu navigation.
How to Customize Daz Studio - to speed up Workflow!? [WIP]
If I intentionlay missread the thread title "...can they make it a menu" I would say yes you can have every single Options Menu entry also as a main menu instead so you don't have to hunt down every single "lined button on top of the pane".
It was about two years ago as I got very frustrated about all the sub-menus and how slowly I was performing even simple tasks becasue I had to search the commands in so may sub menus all the time barely remembering where to find them. Ofcourse the fastest way to execute an action is to press the shortcut key(s) but there are so may you can't remember them all. But seeing the assigned shotrcut keys behind the menu entry can help learning them.
This and a few forum threads about how customizeable Daz Studio is got me to the point of rethinking how to work with the program. I opened the Window>Workspace>Customize menu and was going through the list of actions on the left. Initaly I was like "oh this action sounds interesting never seen it before - lets add it to some toolbar to try it". Lateron I realized that I don't want more toolbars taking up screen space so I finaly made this more or less complete main menu extension that I use till today. It is following the idea that the main menu should list every action that is available in the program. And there is plently of room for additional menus below the title bar.
If the action in the menu is available for use depends on the viewport tool thats currently selected, thats why most of the menu entries in JointEditor, WeightMap Brush and the GeometryEditor are grayed out. To compensate that I've added the corresponding tool selection on top of the menu. There is an exception and that is the Joint Editor action Rename Node that you can execute regardless of the tool that is selected.
Some menus I ended up never using like the New-Item, Un-Lock and Un-Hide. The New-Item is useless because you have it already in the Create menu. In the Un-Lock and Un-Hide menus I was collecting all related actions to try them but it is a mess some actions seems to be there twice but actualy one is for selected nodes the others are for selected properties.
You can download my extended main menu and customize it further. For me it has evolved ever since, maybe I upload an updated version in the future. I've also took the time to add all my frequently used scripts into extra menus beside the default Scripts menu I've also added a seperate Scripts Pose and Scripts MCasual menu and a menu called Shader to quickly apply Iray or 3DL base shader or run the converter product. If you still frequently run scripts from the content library you are doing something wrong because navigating through there is wasting time.
The extended Main-Menu DazStudio4-10_Syrus_MyCustomMainMenus_1.zip
Before you change anything of your Daz Studio interface save the layout Window>Workspace>Save Layout As.
Then to be save also make a backup of your current settings go to Window>Workspace>Customize and press the Export button at the bottom and choose to save Menu / Toolbars / Actions : Custom and press OK.
To apply the menu from the download go to Window>Workspace>Customize select File Type: Menu (just like in the sceen below) navigate to the extracted "DazStudio4-10_SyrusMyCustomMainMenus_1.dsx" file and press Accept.
thanks, I have already customised the heck out of my interface too though
and having been aware of the icon use it frequently but its a right pain describing to others where it is!
I agree Poser much worse and certainly Carrara and other DAZ apps could do with some UI tweeks but DAZ studio and to an extent Hexagon are the only two they are actively developing at this time
I really wanted a feel for other's opinions on this lined icon and it's noticibility before I took it upon myself to make a suggestion to DAZ
a Facebook group post tended to suggest most found it obvious in visibility and use and I got laughed at
and booted out of the group for subsequently blocking the admin 
If anything I think part of the issue with Studio's hamburger icon is that it doesn't look like the now traditional icon. There are two issues with having the word "Menu" on the icon, first is that it won't work well at very small sizes, and second is that once you put words on icons you run into issues when translating the interface. Now if DAZ isn't planning on adding additional language support for the software that second part applies less, it's more a general rule about putting text on icons.
For the gear icon, I agree it's generally accepted as preferences, but that also is just as "unintuitive" an icon for a menu as the hamburger icon to me.
I personally think, in addition to better overall documentation that teaches users that the menus are there on basically every panel, is to use the traditional hamburger or the three vertical dots menu that are more common in other software UIs. Yes, it's nice to have your own unique icons, but it's much easier to train users if the UI is similar to other ones that they are already using.
I personally think the biggest issue with the menu icons is placement. They look like they are separated from the panel, they appear alongside the list of tabs, which does not intuitively suggest that they are meant for the currently selected tab. When you select a tab, the UI visually draws a bounding box around it with the color change, and the menu icon appears outside that box. Moving the icon inside that box would make it much clearer that the menu is connected to that panel.