Preferences — The Options Tab¶

Everything on this page lives in Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Add-ons ▸ PieMaster ▸ Options.

Options are global: they apply to every preset, every menu and every button. Anything that should differ from one menu to the next is set on the menu itself (see Design) or on the button.

Help Mode

Turn on UI Settings ▸ Help Mode and a small ? button appears next to the options and next to the button settings. Clicking it opens the matching section of this documentation.

Auto-save Preferences¶

Presets Auto-Save File¶

JSON file used for the automatic backup of your presets and of the Options tab settings — same format as user_pies.json.

Leave it empty to use user_pies.json inside the add-on folder. Point it at a stable location (e.g. Documents/PieMaster/user_pies.json) to keep everything across add-on updates.

Manual backups are a different thing: use Export in the Presets tab.

User Folders¶

User Presets Folder¶

Folder holding your own exported preset JSON files. They are then listed in the Import Preset menu under User.

Empty = only the presets shipped with the add-on are listed.

User Buttons Folder¶

Folder where your own buttons and grids are saved — one JSON per entry, grouped in category subfolders, icons and scripts bundled alongside. They appear in the Button Library under User.

Empty = saving buttons to disk is disabled.

User Menus Folder¶

Same idea for whole menus: the folder the Menu Library saves to and lists under User.

User Icon Directories¶

Folders scanned for your own icon images. Every image found is listed in the icon picker next to Blender's built-in icons, so a custom icon survives a preset export as long as the file is there.

Add as many folders as you need with Add User Icons.

UI Settings¶

Show Header Button¶

Shows the PieMaster logo button in the 3D View header. Turn it off for a cleaner header — the preferences and the editor stay reachable from Blender's Preferences window.

Help Mode¶

Adds a ? button next to the options in the preferences and next to the button settings. Clicking one opens the matching page of this documentation in your browser.

Off by default; turn it on while you learn PieMaster, off once the panels feel familiar.

UI Scale¶

Global size multiplier for every menu and button, on top of Blender's own scale. Use it to adapt to a screen resolution (4K vs 1080p).

Follow Blender UI Scale¶

Whether the menus follow Blender's interface scale as well:

Off — menus keep the same pixel size whatever Blender is scaled to.
Resolution Scale — follow the Interface ▸ Display ▸ Resolution Scale slider only, ignoring the display scaling set in the OS.
Full DPI — follow the scale Blender actually draws with (Resolution Scale combined with the OS display scaling), so menus end up the size of Blender's own panels.

Edit Mode Text Size¶

Text size multiplier for the Preview — Edit Mode toolbar (Add, Remove, Move Up, Dup Item, Snap…) and for the hint in the bottom-left corner. Raise it on high-resolution displays.

Auto Area Scale¶

Shrinks a menu automatically when it is opened in a small editor, so it never overflows a narrow panel.

Area Scale Threshold¶

Editor size in pixels (smallest dimension) below which menus start shrinking. Raise it if menus feel too large in split viewports.

Area Scale Minimum¶

How small a menu is allowed to get: 0.5 = half size. Lower values allow more shrinking.

Theme Settings¶

Design Presets Folder¶

Folder where your design presets are saved. Empty = the add-on's own design_preset/ folder, which is lost on update — set a stable folder to keep them.

Default Theme¶

The design used when a menu's design is reset, and for every new menu.

Sync Blender Theme¶

Makes the menu colors follow Blender's current theme, so PieMaster stays native-looking when you switch themes.

Menus Settings¶

Keep pressing to show¶

Spring Loaded: hold the shortcut key to keep the pie open, release to fire the highlighted button and close. Great for pies you use constantly.

Quick Open Threshold¶

How far the mouse must travel from the center, in pixels, to trigger Quick Direction — the instant fire when you flick and release. Lower is more sensitive, higher asks for a deliberate gesture.

Quick Direction on Grid¶

Lets a quick flick toward a GRID direction fire its first button. Off by default: grids benefit from deliberate selection.

Pie Flash Mode¶

Maya style. While Quick Direction is still armed the pie stays invisible and only the button you are flicking toward is drawn. Hold instead of flicking and the full pie appears as usual.

Basic (radial) pies only — ignored in Layout mode and with Center Placement.

Pie Flash Time¶

How long the flashed button stays on screen after it fired, so you can see what ran. 0 = off. The action itself always runs immediately; the flash never delays it.

Chain Mode¶

Maya marking-menu style: a pie opened from a PIE_CALL button keeps the center circle of the pie it came from on screen, linked by a line. Hover that circle to walk back.

Chained pies always open under the cursor. ESC or Right Mouse closes the whole chain.

Chain Back Zone¶

Extra pixels around a breadcrumb circle that still count as being on it, so you don't have to land exactly on the dot. Buttons always win: the part of the zone covered by a button does nothing. 0 = the drawn circle only.

Directional Auto Hover¶

Highlights the nearest button when the mouse moves past it in that direction, even if the cursor overshoots slightly. Automatically disabled for GRID layouts.

Auto Hover Threshold¶

Minimum distance from the pie center, in pixels, before Directional Auto Hover engages. Raise it if buttons near the center highlight too early.

Shows the menu's description when hovering the center circle of a pie — a reminder of what the menu does.

Auto Open Pie on Hover¶

Hovering a PIE_CALL button opens the linked pie without a click. Disable to require the click.

Same for MENU_CALL buttons. Off by default.

Hover Open Delay¶

Seconds to wait before an auto-open fires on hover (PIE_CALL, GPU_MENU, DRAWER…). 0 = instant. Each button can override it.

Center Placement¶

Opens every pie at the center of the editor instead of at the cursor. Useful on large screens.

Right Mouse Closes Menus¶

RMB closes an open menu. Disable if you need RMB for something else — only ESC then closes the menu. RMB-drag to reposition a menu, and the Preview-Edit toggle shortcut, keep working either way.

Nudges a menu inward so it stays fully inside a small editor. Disable to always open exactly at the cursor even when the menu gets cut. Locked menus always stay in view; ignored for pies when Center Placement is on.

Opens Preview — Edit Mode in the 3D View automatically when you create a menu.

Seconds to wait after hovering a button before its tooltip appears. 0 = instant.

How long the tooltip stays visible. Raise it if you read slowly.

Keymap¶

The global shortcuts owned by PieMaster itself, not by a menu:

Preview - Edit Mode toggle — the shortcut that flips an open menu into Edit Mode (Ctrl+Shift+RMB by default).
Identical Shortcuts — a report of menus bound to the same key combination, so a silent conflict is visible.

Per-menu shortcuts are set on the menu, in its own Keymap box — see Shortcuts.

Gestures¶

A menu shortcut, or a button Global Shortcut, can ask for a 3x3 grid gesture instead of a plain key: the same key combination then holds several menus apart by the shape drawn while it is held.

Gesture Grid Size¶

Distance between two dots of the 3x3 grid, in pixels. A dot is taken once the mouse has covered about 70% of it, so a smaller value makes gestures quicker to draw and easier to overshoot. Scales with the interface scale.

Block the Click Under the Cursor¶

Takes the mouse button the instant it goes down, so drawing a gesture over an object or a node no longer selects it.

The cost is the plain click on that combination: it belongs to the gesture whether one is drawn or not. Off hands the press back to Blender and starts the gesture on the drag instead.

Show Grid Dots¶

Draws the nine dots of the grid while a gesture is being drawn, so the shape can be aimed at instead of guessed. Dots only — never joined by lines.

Gesture Colors¶

Line color and width, dot color, size and border, and the color and size of the grid dots not yet taken.

Width, in pixels, of the Blender popups PieMaster opens from the editor: Icon Picker, Button Library, Menu Library, Search, Edit Button, Edit Container, New Menu, Capture Button, Add Button, Menu Picker and Color Picker.

Lower them on a small screen, raise them to fit more content.

Icon Picker Columns¶

Number of icons per row in the icon picker popup, and in the inline icon grids of the Edit Button / Edit Container dialogs and of the preferences icon field.

Bounce Settings¶

A short scale animation played when a menu opens or a button is clicked. Each one can be turned off on its own, and its strength set separately.

Button Bounce¶

The click animation on a button.

Pie Bounce¶

The opening animation of a pie menu.

The opening animation of a simple menu or a layout menu.

The opening animation of an object menu (Auto-Show).

Sound Settings¶

Enable Sounds¶

Master switch for the click, hover, bounce, slider and enter sounds. Each one can then be enabled separately and given a custom sound file.

Sound Volume¶

Volume for every PieMaster sound.

Debug¶

Writes a diagnostic report and an optional trace to the Log Folder (empty = system temporary folder). Categories — auto-show, commands, modals, mode, perf, fault — decide what is recorded.

Only useful when reporting a problem: see Troubleshooting.