It is way, way, way, WAY, **WAY** too easy to accidently click one thing and destroy the UI
hlln334
Posts: 30
I love Daz Studio. I've been using it for about ~8 months now. Will never go back to the --cough-- alternative.
But if I have one consistent, constant, and unimaginably frustration-laden complaint about Daz Studio, it's the UI. There should be a button called "don't allow literally everything to be destroyed by accidentally clicking on the wrong spot," and when you push this button, it locks every single thing from being changed, dragged, moved, closed, opened, etc.
I can't tell you how many times I have had the misfortune of accidentally clicking one of the thousands of hidden mines/bombs in the UI that seem to be programmed to do nothing other than screw up everything. I can't even tell you what they are because I never know when I click them.
Today I tried to click on something from my content library, and the entire thing just disappeared. No idea where it went. Had to do the thing where I reset workspace and start with the default UI all over again.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Save your workspace, so incase anything wierd happens, you can just load it again and your UI is back to how you had it.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Where did it all go? I have literally no idea. But it's like Daz has all these hidden "mines" (I call 'em mines) because you click by acident and they just ruin everything.
Whoah, you can do that? Did not know lol. I'm trying to avoid having to reset this time. This is a new one for me. I don't see any "button" that can bring back all the things that went missing (just posted a screenshot).
I absolutely LOVE Daz Studio. I think Daz Studio is a 9/10. The only reason I wouldn't give it a 10/10 is because of the UI. I really think there are numerous areas for improvement imho (maybe it's just me). Way, way, way too easy to screw things up.
I'll be watching this. Been using Daz for years, often switching tabs without this happening. Be interested in knowing just what happened.
This is the third time It's happened to me. I must've clicked something. The last 2 times I reset my UI. This time I'm trying to find out what it is that I did so I can bring it back. I just don't see any options or have any idea where it went!
I FIGURED IT OUT. It's THAT tiny little devil, evil, miserable button right there. That was what's been giving me so much grief! No idea how I clicked on it by mistake, but with my trackpad, anything's possible. Why is that even there! LOL. Its only purpose is to ruin the UI. It literally offers no benefit because what point is the content library if you're not even allowed to see the content in it? I can't even conceive of a situation where I would need my content library to show nothing but a blank window!
This is where you click to open it again (for those who may still have a pane minimized.)
Click here to uncollapse the subpane:
Just FYI - All the open panes have a minimize button like that. :) So if you "lose" one, just find the tiny button for that pane and click to reopen. And Like Zev said.....save your layout if you want it a particular way. In DS click Windows>Workspace>Save Layout As... Especially if you have customized it.
Thank you!
Look at the middle top of the tab, directly above where it says "None". See the medium grey separating line with a darker grey box in the middle? That's the mark of a "collapsed" sub-tab. Click on the dark box again and the sub-tab will uncollapse. What's happening is that you're seeing only the part that shows you content thumbnails in a folder, but you're not seeing the part that shows you the folder structure, so you can select a folder and see the content inside it.
And yes, it's always been much too easy to do this by accident, because the buttons are tiny and not easy to see, so a misclick or slightly misplaced mouse movement can do all sorts of Weird Stuff™. Some of us have been using DAZ|Studio since its very first prerelease versions <mumble> years ago, and we still do this every now and then.
And iff you really want to destroy the UI, just install an update to Studio while you have it open . . .
Sage advise. But it doesn't excuse poor programming practices.
It's a toggle - click to collapse, click to expand. There's nothing destructive in it so I fail to see how it is evidence of poor programming practices. You might argue that it should be more visible, but then people would not be happy about the space it was taking up - there's an unavoidable trade-off.
As a new user myself, I do wish there where a way to lock those. I literally never have use for them - though I can see why others might, just to give a bigger picture of what they are working on without the UI being so intrusive on the scene. I also have an issue where I'll go to click on one of the tabs, not realizing I already have it opened, and it collapses it. I know these are just newbie mistakes, but when you do that the first couple of times before you realize what it is, it kind of puts you in panic mode - What did I DO!? Where did my panels go!? lol Having an option to lock tabs in place or make them uncollapsible would be cool. :) I bet most people actually don't even use the collapse option, so it could even be the default and have it an option to turn collapsibility on. *shrug*
Changing the color of the button would help tremendously without making it bigger. Gray on gray...it looks like it is part of the background rather than a button.
Does Daz allow 3rd party skins like some softwares do?
I know you can customize it hugely-- some of the other included workspaces are like a different program entirely.
change by me, ususally there is a function to disable the trackpad on your labtop. For me its one of the blue keys together with the function key. I used to struggle with mishaps because of the trckad as well until I found that disable function.
I think it's good being able to maximise and minimise panels within panels, especially for people with eyesight or dexterity issues and people with tiny displays. That sort of thing should be in the UI basics section of the manual :).
Window>Style>Customise Style allows for changing colours, but you need to be careful not to make a change that will cause issues elsewhere. I'm not sure if there's currently a direct way to create wholly new styles - if there is it is a major undertaking.
Those little buttons are a real menace until you find out what they do. I spent a lot of time searching through menus and randomly clicking the mouse around the screen when parts of the interface dissapeared trying to get them back.
The only thing that I dislike is when I accidentally use a keystroke command and change the camera view. For some reason yuo cannot undo this. That is one user interface change I dislike.
I've reported the lack of Undo on the keybaord camera controls (and oen or two other things) as bugs. You can switch the keyboard navigation off (shif-k is the shortcut) which should prevent accidents.
Where are the saved layouts stored in the filesystem? It would be beneficial to have "export to file" and "import from file" options for layouts and other customizations in the studio. Many of the developer IDEs provide that feature.
Just in case if I ever need to install the studio from scratch...
"C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\user styles" and "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\user layouts"
Thanks. But whoever thought the default gray on gray was a good idea needs to be smacked. That's GUI Design 101.
I just switched from Hollywood Blvd to City Limits because I found out there are more tools available in City Limits than their are in Hollywood Blvd. I had to change the style though from Main Street to Highway because Main Street takes up too much realestate, Highway is just about reaching the limits of what I can comfortably read without reading glasses.
But speaking of things with the UI I wish they'd fix. I wish they'd fix the way the Scene tab freaking out when you click on something to select it and it ends up selecting everything between it and the last think you selected instead. That gets annoying.
Only with the Full Service (Beat) layout are some tools unavailable, all of the others have the same sets - but they may not be placed as buttons on toolbars.