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Creating a Simple Menu

A Simple Menu is a flat rectangular popup — a clean grid of buttons that opens at your cursor position.

Use it when you have many buttons that are easier to read in a list than spread around a circle.


When to Use a Simple Menu vs a Pie Menu?

Pie Menu Simple Menu
Best for 4–8 frequently-used actions Large toolsets, items that need to be read
Speed Very fast — gesture-driven Slower — you scan and click
Direction sense Yes — muscle memory per direction No — just a list

Create the Menu

Inside your Preset, click Add Menu. Fill in:

Field Description
Name Shown in the menu header
Description Optional subtitle in the header
Columns How many buttons per row
Shortcut The key that opens this menu
Context Which Blender editor the shortcut works in

Add Buttons

Click + Add Button to add buttons. They fill the grid left to right, row by row.

You can drag buttons to reorder them.

Tip

Use a LABEL button as a section header, then group related buttons below it.


Columns and Col Span

The Columns setting on the menu controls how many columns the grid has.

Each button has a Col Span value that controls how wide it is:

Col Span Result
0.5 Half a column wide
1.0 Normal width (default)
2.0 Two columns wide

Example: A 3-column menu with two 1.0 buttons and one 3.0 button:

[ Button A ][ Button B ][      Button C     ]

See Layouts & Col Span for more detail.


Opening a Simple Menu from a Pie

Use a MENU_CALL button in a pie menu to open a Simple Menu when clicked.

This lets you build a hierarchy:

Pie Menu  →  "More Tools" button (MENU_CALL)  →  Simple Menu