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Working with rollouts

Most of the controls, buttons, and parameters in the Command Panel are contained within sections called rollouts. A rollout is a grouping of controls positioned under a gray, boxed title, as shown in Figure 1.9. Each rollout title bar includes a plus or minus sign (a minus sign indicates that the rollout is open; a plus sign shows closed rollouts). Clicking the rollout title opens or closes the rollout. You also can reposition the order of the rollouts by dragging the rollout title and dropping it above or below the other rollouts.

Note

You cannot reposition some of the rollouts, such as the Object Type and the Name and Color rollouts, found in the Create panel. •

Right-clicking away from the buttons in a rollout presents a pop-up menu where you can select to close the rollout you've clicked in, Close All, Open All, or Reset Rollout Order. The pop-up menu also lists all available rollouts within the current panel with a check mark next to the ones that are open.

Expanding all the rollouts often exceeds the screen space allotted to the Command Panel. If the rollouts exceed the given space, then a small vertical scroll bar appears at the right edge of the Command Panel. You can drag this scroll bar to access the rollouts at the bottom of the Command Panel, or you can click away from the controls when a hand cursor appears. With the hand cursor, click and drag in either direction to scroll the Command Panel. You also can scroll the Command Panel with the scroll wheel on the mouse.

FIGURE 1.9

Open and close rollouts by clicking the rollout title.

Cross-Reference

You can customize the Command Panel like the other toolbars. Customizing the Command Panel is covered in Chapter 4, “Customizing the Max Interface and Setting Preferences.” •

Increasing the Command Panel's width

The Command Panel can be doubled or tripled (or any multiple, as long as you have room) in width by dragging its left edge toward the center of the interface. The width of the Command Panel is increased at the expense of the viewports. Figure 1.10 shows the Command Panel double its normal size.

FIGURE 1.10

Increase the width of the Command Panel by dragging its left edge.

Tutorial: Rearranging the interface for lefties

I used to work for a company that required that all computers have the mouse to the left of the keyboard. We swapped computers often, and the boss hated having to move the mouse to the other side of the keyboard (and you thought your work environment was weird). The reality is that some people like it on the left and others prefer it on the right, and Max can accommodate both.

With the Command Panel on the right side of the interface, the default Max interface obviously favors right-handers, but with the docking panels, you can quickly change it to be friendly to lefties.

To rearrange the interface for lefties, follow these steps:

1. Click the Command Panel on the empty space to the right of the Utilities tab, and drag toward the center of the interface. As you drag the Command Panel away from the right edge, the cursor changes.

2. Continue to drag the Command Panel to the left edge, and the cursor changes again to indicate that it will be docked when released. Release the mouse button, and the Command Panel docks to the left side.

3. For an even easier method, you can right-click the Command Panel's title bar and select Dock⇒Left from the pop-up menu.

Figure 1.11 shows the rearranged interface ready for all you southpaws.

Tip

To save the interface changes, use the Customize⇒Save Custom UI Scheme menu. The maxstart.cui file is loaded by default when Max is started. •

Using the Lower Interface Bar Controls

The last major interface element isn't really an interface element but just a collection of several sets of controls located along the bottom edge of the interface window. These controls cannot be pulled away from the interface like the main toolbar, but you can hide them using Expert Mode (Ctrl+X). These controls, shown