Install enough add-ons and Blender's N-Panel overflows into an endless strip of tabs you scroll and hunt through. Simple N Panel puts one heart button at the top of the viewport — click it for a tidy menu of every tab, and jump straight to the one you want.
// simple-n-panel.heart
Simple N Panel doesn't add modeling or rendering features — it makes every add-on you already own easier to reach.
Click the heart button in the viewport header and a clean pop-up lists every N-Panel tab, in your order. Pick one and the sidebar opens and jumps straight to it. Shift-clicking the button toggles the sidebar instead.
The same menu from the keyboard — a single memorable keystroke replaces scanning and clicking through an overflowing tab strip.
Move-up, move-down, and move-to-top controls in the preferences put your most-used add-ons first, so the menu reflects how you actually work.
Give any tab your own display name. Names are aliases only — the real category is always used under the hood, so renaming never breaks navigation.
Export your whole configuration — order, names, visibility — to a JSON file and import it on another machine, or share a curated layout with a team or classroom. Import reports exactly what was imported or skipped.
Refresh scans for newly installed add-ons and folds their tabs in while preserving your customizations. Reset rebuilds from scratch only when you ask.
// the heart button — top of every 3D viewport
The heart lives in the 3D Viewport header — always one click away. It opens the menu; Shift-click toggles the N-Panel itself. Prefer the keyboard? Shift + ` opens the very same menu, and everything acts on the viewport you're actually working in.
// preferences — reorder, rename, hide, export
The preferences screen is a single reorderable list: visibility toggles, custom-name fields, and move controls per tab, with Refresh, Reset, Export, and Import one click away. Changes save to user preferences immediately, so your layout survives restarts.
Blender's sidebar works fine with five add-ons. With twenty-five, the tab strip overflows and every switch becomes a hunt. Simple N Panel keeps the sidebar — and gives it an index.
// the more add-ons you install, the more this matters
Simple N Panel costs nothing and asks for nothing back. There are no external dependencies, no network access, and no scene data — it only reads which panels are registered and stores a small list in your preferences. It ships as a modern Blender 4.2+ Extension under GPL-3.0, from the same catalog of tools behind KIT OPS.
Simple N Panel is the quiet utility in a catalog of Blender tools backed by first-class support since 2019 — an active Discord where a human answers, and years of updates behind it.
A single hotkey replaces the overflowing tab strip. Simple N Panel is free, local, and built for the way Blender artists already work.