Tentacle

A Qt marking-menu launcher for DCC apps.

Built on uitk.MarkingMenu, it ships ~60 Maya tool panels spanning the full pipeline (modeling, UV, materials, rigging, animation, rendering, …) — a starting set you can build on, or replace wholesale with your own — a Blender integration slot library is in progress, and a thin 3ds Max wrapper exists to build on.

Demo

Install

Download tentacle_installer.py — one file for every DCC, no administrator rights, nothing to type:

DCC	Do this
Maya 2025+	Drag the file into the viewport.
Blender 4.x+	Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Add-ons ▸ Install from Disk…, pick the file, enable Tentacle Marking Menu.

On the first start it fetches tentacletk and the engine for your host (mayatk / blendertk)

Drop the file in again to update or uninstall (Blender: the add-on's preferences). Both apply at the next start if the menu is already running.

Developers: pip install -e ./tentacle into the DCC's own Python (see Development), or script it - "<mayapy>" tentacle_installer.py install|update|uninstall and blender --background --python tentacle_installer.py -- install|update|uninstall (update / uninstall land at the next start). The name in brackets of the pip spec is the engine; plain tentacletk has none and the menu will not start.

Activation key

Z by default. Change it any time from the in-app Preferences panel.

Starting Tentacle from your own startup script is two lines — Tcl.launch detects the host and defers startup however that host needs — and key_show names the default it starts with:

from tentacle import Tcl
Tcl.launch(key_show="Z")   # bare ("Z", "Space") or Qt-named ("Key_F11")

Maya: userSetup.py (in ~/Documents/maya/<version>/scripts/); Blender: startup.py in %APPDATA%\Blender Foundation\Blender\<version>\scripts\startup\. Tcl.launch recognizes 3ds Max too and starts TclMax there — the menu opens, but its slot library isn't ported yet, so the panels have no behavior wired. See Platform support.

Bindings

Holding the activation key opens a menu; adding mouse buttons picks which one. Shown with the default Z:

Chord	Opens
`Z`	`hud#startmenu`
`Z + LMB`	`cameras#startmenu`
`Z + MMB`	`editors#startmenu`
`Z + RMB`	`main#startmenu`
`Z + LMB + RMB`	`maya#startmenu`

(In Blender the both-button chord opens blender#startmenu — the native menu sets.)

To change the activation key later, use the in-app Preferences panel or the shortcut editor's Show Marking Menu row — or, in Blender, Preferences ▸ Keymap ▸ 3D View ▸ Tentacle Marking Menu. Either way the whole chord table moves with it and the choice is remembered, outranking the key_show default your launch script names.

The table is built in tcl.py; chord syntax, gesture mechanics, and the full customization surface are covered in uitk/docs/MARKING_MENU.md.

How it works

flowchart LR
    A[Tcl.launch → TclMaya] --> B[uitk.MarkingMenu]
    B --> C[uitk.Switchboard]
    C --> D[ui/*.ui]
    C --> E[slots/maya/*.py]

uitk.Switchboard pairs each .ui file with a slot module of the same basename, then connects each widget's objectName to a method of the same name on the slot class:

ui/materials.ui          ──pairs with──►   slots/maya/materials.py
  └─ widget objectName "b005"  ──calls──►    def b005(self): ...
  └─ widget objectName "b005"  ──setup──►    def b005_init(self, widget): ...  (optional)

That's the whole convention. Widget object names are arbitrary; whatever name a widget has, a method of that name on the slot class will fire when it's interacted with.

Submenu routing: a widget's accessibleName (e.g. "cameras#lower") names the submenu UI to open when the gesture lands on it.

Customization

Tcl.launch forwards anything extra to the DCC's entry class:

Tcl.launch(
    key_show="F11",
    slot_source="my_studio/slots",   # use your own slot library
    log_level="DEBUG",
    bindings={                        # replace defaults entirely
        "Key_F11":               "main#startmenu",
        "Key_F11|RightButton":   "cameras#startmenu",
    },
)

User preferences (theme, repeat-last shortcut, etc.) live in the in-app Preferences panel.

Project layout

tentacle/
├── tcl.py                 Tcl.launch — host detection + the shared activation-key/chord contract
├── tcl_maya.py            TclMaya entry point
├── tcl_max.py             TclMax  (wrapper, no slot library yet)
├── tcl_blender.py         TclBlender entry point — Qt host + keymap bridge + launcher + add-on
├── slots/
│   ├── _slots.py          Slots base — repeat-last-command shortcut
│   ├── maya/              ~60 SlotsMaya subclasses
│   └── blender/           SlotsBlender subclasses (Phase 3+)
└── ui/                    .ui definitions; maya_menus/ + blender_menus/ hold DCC submenus

Platform support

DCC	Status
Maya 2025+	Full — entry point, slot library, all menus wired.
Blender	Entry point + keymap activation live (`TclBlender`); slot port in progress.
3ds Max	Wrapper only (`TclMax`).

Development

git clone https://github.com/m3trik/tentacle
pip install -e ./tentacle
cd tentacle && python -m pytest test/

CI runs test_package.py, test_slot_integrity.py, test_ui_integrity.py, and module-specific suites — see .github/workflows/tests.yml.

API_REGISTRY.md — every public class/method, with file:line links.
CHANGELOG.md — notable changes.
CLAUDE.md — contributor conventions.
uitk/docs/MARKING_MENU.md — chord syntax, gesture mechanics.

License

LGPL v3.

Release files for tentacletk 0.13.83

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Table of built distributions (wheels) for tentacletk 0.13.83
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tentacletk-0.13.83-py3-none-any.whl 646.2 kB Sep 8, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Release files / tentacletk-0.13.83-py3-none-any.whl

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