chippwalters
patreon
FINALLY! A super easy fix for the N-Panel UI
🕑 Added 2025-07-21 04:14:35 +0000 UTCHey guys, I've been meaning to find a solution to this for quite awhile now—and I think this is a good one.
The problem is simple: the N-Panel gets incredibly crowded with addon tabs. It's tough to find the right one when you have to scroll forever and tilt your head to read all the vertical text.
This addon fixes that. It gives you a simple pop-up menu with all your N-Panel tabs listed horizontally. Just hit Shift + ` (the key next to '1'), click the tab you want from the list, and the addon will open it for you instantly. Or, just click the red heart icon above the N-panel and you'll see the panel populate there.
Getting started.
Drag/drop it to Blender 4.2 or greater. Once you enable the SIMPLE N-PANEL addon in prefs, you need to press the refresh button to get a list of all your addons in the N-Panel. Let me know if you miss any or there's any errors as it's just not tested that much yet.
How to Customize It
You can change the menu to your liking in the addon's preferences (Edit > Preferences > Add-ons).
Finding New Tabs: If you install a new addon, just click the Refresh Panel List button in the preferences to make its tabs show up.
Changing the Order: You can move your favorite tabs to the top of the list using the ▲ and ▼ arrows. The order you set here is the order they'll appear in the pop-up menu.
Hiding Tabs: Don't use a certain tab very often? Just uncheck the box next to its name to hide it from the pop-up menu and keep things clean.
Latest beta can be found at:
http://cw1.me/simple-n-panel-beta
Disregard link below.
Comments
Darren Evans
I'm waiting for the day the Blender UI devs give us more control over the real estate taken up by N-Panel tabs by allowing us to edit tab names and tab order natively without the need for addons. A drop-down menu selection solve like this is good but it's still a two-step button click to enter the tab instead of a one-click access when the N-Panel flyout is visible. I've tried all N-Panel addons and they are limited somewhat by Blenders native menu behaviour so they might provide one thing (tab ordering) but neglect another (tab renaming) and Blender UI behaviour often overrides things with no rhyme or reason, and you have to use the addon to get your preferred tab order back after you close and re-open Blender the next time.
Chipp Walters
Sorry, I missed this. Did you get this resolved?
Chipp Walters
I use them together.
David Swoboda
Hi Chipp. Does this replace your older add-on, Simple Tabs which I have been using for years (love it)?
xanathon
When I click the heart button to drop down the addon list I get this error: Python: Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\admin.brainiac\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.5\scripts\addons\simple-n-panel\operators.py", line 29, in execute region.active_panel_category = self.category ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ AttributeError: bpy_struct: attribute "active_panel_category" from "Region" is read-only bpy.context.area.ui_type = 'INFO' Help?
xanathon
I just started publishing videos on Youtube, the first one features this addon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb1V6rubexU Hope it helps. :)
