I recently made a side-panel design so I can cram a lot of features into one plugin without creating a ridiculously-long toolbar in the Plugins tab. This panel features collapsible sections to avoid overwhelming the user with buttons.
I’m looking for feedback on the design. Are there any improvements that could be made to make it easier to use? Are there any potential difficulties for using a plugin with this design?
This is a great idea! Having multiple useful functions in the one place is bound to increase productivity for a lot of people. However, at first glance, there are a few aspects of the UI that are a little bit confusing.
The UI element in the Selection field which bears the text “Select descendants which are a…” appears to be a text box that the player can click on to enter a string of text, similar to a search bar. However the selectable options below seem to communicate otherwise.
If text cannot be entered into this text box, I’d suggest removing the white outline around the text to avoid confusion. Moving the enter button below the selectable options may also help to the communicate the intended UI flow. I’ve created a mock-up of a possible alternative arrangement of this UI, which you can find below:
It isn’t immediately clear what kind of entry field the “Show Invisible Bricks“ field is. Its name suggests it’s a boolean-based function which can either be on or off at any one time but the entry field’s design resembles a slider or text box, which is a bit confusing. It also isn’t very clear whether or not this function is currently activated in the screenshot.
If this function is boolean-based, I’d suggest reworking the design of the field into a check box with the text “Show Invisible Bricks” separate to the intractable button. I’ve created a quick mock-up of what this could look like, which can also be found below:
Although there are a few confusing elements in the UI, the plugin certainly sounds useful! With a few tweaks to better the user experience, you’d be well on your way to having a plugin that’s not only useful but is intuitive and easy to use too.
Keep up the good work! 
The selection area allows for selecting descendants of a specific type, which is useful for doing something in bulk, like deleting every constraint in a model.
I see the buttons do look off and the placeholder text looks confusing. “Enter descendant type to select” would be better. I may delete the two buttons since what they do can be typed manually into that box. I may also add a separator between the text box and any future buttons I add there.
With the “Show Invisible Bricks” thing, that’s a checkbox. It has the faint background so that its text doesn’t visually-associate with nearby controls. I didn’t think it would be confused for a really long slider. Maybe I should remove the background and use separators instead.
