So far working with the current UI for a few months now I have some more notes, mainly about the sculpting & paint modes. It's about some information that can be revealed and made accessible by default without taking up too much additional space.
Here's a mockup:

I went through some original design mockups of the toolbar again and saw that one draft depicted different views of the toolbar and customisability:

In T45734#506696, @Paul Kotelevets (1D_Inc) wrote:

In 2013 I started research to discover tool, that will allow any kind of precise 3D transformation of selection, based on CAD snap system like this.
Here is my proposal for temporal widged that can expand this snap system.
It is based on behaviour of current ruler/protactor tool with ability to "hook" current object selection (like pose mode in armature) to bring precise CAD alignation.

With 2 point Key:

{F3521309}

With 3 point Key:

This tool concept is based on series of research that was made in 1D_Scripts in mesh representation.
This tools are mostly 3DMatch, Sideshift, 3D Rotor/Scaler and Aligner. Links will brought you to videos that explains that concepts on practical tasks.

Also here is our attempt to bring simple CAD snap system to 2.79 both in object and edit modes: 1D_NP

In T45734#508020, @Paul Kotelevets (1D_Inc) wrote:

Current CAD snap is all about desperation.
Here is GIF about it. Don't know how it was missed.

I agree on the first point. I've commited a fix for it rB2ece296d4fc9bb5c58da0e8428c13c0d1c5b9373 .

Agree on both points.

Two issues found while testing this with @Pablo Vazquez (venomgfx):

• Wireframe mode currently doesn't work when Show Overlays is off.
• Sharing the Show X-Ray setting between wireframe and solid mode seems not so great in practice, as usually you want to see all wires in wireframe mode but it's less common to want x-ray in solid mode. I suggest we store these settings separate for wireframe mode and solid/lookdev/rendered, and enable it by default for wireframe. Other than that all the buttons and shortcuts can stay as they are, it would just decouple the setting between these modes.

More than a week without reply or activity. Due to the policy of the tracker archiving for until required info/data are provided.

Julian: Regarding the sculpting brushes, I think the first step would be just to make it work with a 2D representation. 2.7x had icons, but they didn't update and stay in sync with changes to brushes, so they were not accurate at all. I think it's better to have a simple icon that represents the purpose of the tool, and then another brush icon that shows you the spacing, the size, the falloff, the texture and so on - this can be represented perfectly well just in 2D, and can then update live and stay in sync with the changes you make.

A Krita-like context menu would be great to have! Hopefully mapped to RMB when LMB is used for selection :).

I bumbed into this video: https://youtu.be/xiuCqrffpIk?t=191
and shows a little bit how these kind of manipulators could improve experience for text editing aswel, like in this case kerning, just watch a few seconds at the frame I posted.

I'd rather have the tools that are currently on the spacebar (with some additions) as my right click context menu instead of the W menu.

Yes, in 2.79 I select all the time when painting - I have two or more objects, each selected and then switched to Texture Paint mode. After all are in Texture Paint mode, then simply select the one you want to paint and go, and then select the next and paint. Face select masking also, must have selection as active for use here.

@amon paike (amonpaike) Although it's not in the list yet, I believe Ctrl+A is far more standard than A/Alt+A for select all.

Consider using Max's viewport rotate/pan/zoom shortcuts to avoid conflicts with LMB shortcuts and actions, since all off them are based on MMB shortcuts. It wount affect LMB and RMB in any way. I´m already using them without any issue in blender for some time.

In T56744#536278, @William Reynish (billreynish) wrote:

No, it's not assuming LMB selection. Paint modes already use LMB for painting, both when using LMB select or RMB select. When painting or sculpting, you can't select objects anyway, so RMB is mostly unused.

Ah, nevermind then.

Yes, it could be. As for the context menu, we happen to just not really have any context menus for the paint modes. What you suggest would be the most consistent, so that W is always used for contextual things when using RMB select, and RMB is used for contextual things when using LMB select.

It could be under W for RMB select, since with LMB select it's like the context menu.

No, it's not assuming LMB selection. Paint modes already use LMB for painting, both when using LMB select or RMB select. When painting or sculpting, you can't select objects anyway, so RMB is mostly unused. There would be a potential conflict through when using Vertex Paint Face Select mode.

With the Quick Access on rmb, is this assuming lmb selection then? Because I need to be able to select an object to continue painting on it if I am painting multiple objects with lmb as my stroke/dab/fill etc. I often use paint and sculpt on multiple objects at once. If I do, will I then have another keymap for the quick access that you put on rmb then? Just trying to understand what it will cost for me to keep my ability to select and paint/sculpt.

To be clear, the plan is to move 3D viewport addons from the toolbar to the sidebar. There are no current plans to move such addons in the properties editor.

In T56702#535852, @William Reynish (billreynish) wrote:

Your suggestion of a 'default tool' should not be necessary. It's essentially the same as enabling a Transform tool and disabling Click Anywhere.

In T54582#536259, @Julien Kaspar (JulienKaspar) wrote:

I think it could very well work in an overhauled sidebar but the pinning will still be useful to implement in that one then. Sometimes you would want to have the interface of an addon that is more complex than a tool like Blenrig visible on the side even when going fullscreen but while also having the transform properties visible at the same time. So pinning them makes them both visible without switching tabs constantly in the future sidebar.
it's just a shame of not being able to use the space in the toolbar if available space on the sidebar would run out. The current way is more clean but the things that were removed were able to be more useful where they were.

I think it could very well work in an overhauled sidebar but the pinning will still be useful to implement in that one then. Sometimes you would want to have the interface of an addon like Blenrig visible on the side even when going fullscreen but while also having the transform properties visible at the same time. So pinning them makes them both visible without switching tabs constantly in the future sidebar.
it's just a shame of not being able to use the space in the toolbar if available space on the sidebar would run out. The current way is more clean bu the things that were removed were able to be more useful were they were.

Don't waste your time. UI team have ignored all feedback in blender 2.8.

I support the idea of left toolbar being exclusively dedicated to tools. The mockup by @Julien Kaspar (JulienKaspar) looks like a step back in a scope of cleanup that has been done since 2.8 development started. It would allow the left toolbar to again become "everything bar" of random buttons, which was a big pain in 2.79.

The idea is that we will have a panel in the Sidebar for commands. We really don't want to through loads of commands in the toolbar, because users can also find those commands in the menus, which have become more accessible, so it's no longer necessary to have them always visible. Users can also add commonly used commands to their own custom Q menu, or use the W-menu (which will be right-clicking when using LMB select) with the most common commands.

Adding the tabs to the 3D view sidebar is still planned yes. T56350: UI Tasks (parent task) lists all the UI tasks that we consider required to finish before releasing a 2.8 beta.

An alternative would be the concept of the 3D View Sidebar in the task T55407, described under "2: Panel Addons" but I wonder how customisation this space will be, how it interacts with the N panel and if this concept is still planned to be implemented.

I finally want to share my concerns and suggestions for the current design of the toolbar itself.

"We could combine Extrude Region, Extrude Individual, Extrude Along Normals into same tool, and simply add a tool setting to switch between the various extrusion methods"

Assuming that’s solved then…