I don’t think having an eyedropper by every single color box would be a good layout, and I don’t see the difference between that and having the eyedropper by every object box in the ui.
being able to select an object in the 3d view for one of the property windows would be super handy, even if it takes 2 clicks instead of 1
The main issue is that it’s hidden.
EDIT: BTW, it would be nice if you could sample objects also from the Outliner (the object could be out of view, or on an hidden layer, or have hidden visibility in the viewport…)
paolo
I’d like to see the data dropper integrated as “pick whip” (drag’n’drop starting from the dropdown field), as know from After Effects:
http://vimeo.com/32838395 @1:35
Pros: no new element in the UI like a button, fast to use
Cons: if you don’t know you can drag’n’drop this way, it’s nothing you’ll likely figure out yourself
I think that clicking on the field and having all the objects or whatever in the drop down, and a dropper next to that list becomes immediately apparent. I think that if you don’t know about using the dropdown to select an object, having a dropper next to it isn’t going to help.
This is a shortcut, not a primary interaction. Just like the dropper in the color picker. The color picker is the main way to choose a color, but it has the dropper to make it easier to pick colors. The dropper in this case makes it easier to pick objects, but the primary interaction to select objects is still the dropdown search box.
Possibility: you could show the dropper only when the field is empty. instead of the X.
I know you need to remove the item in the field to pick a new one, but its an alternative.
ejnaren that idea sounds solid.
it sounds like a nice little feature, but its not needed, we need less clutter, not more.
Awesome idea!
It wouldn’t have a distracting border (embossing), there’s no extra space required for the new tool, and I’m not concerned at all about that you need to delete in order to use it again - it’s the same spot, it’s just a double-click!
I like the eye dropper. Although, I think the icon should have been a pointer clicking on a circle or something. When I see an eye dropper, I think it has something to do with color. Like, maybe changing the color of the object or something. But whatever. 
I know what it does now and I’m sure everyone will just have to learn.
I’ve heard this anti-clutter discussion before and I totally agree. But, I really feel (and this is going to be hard to swallow I know) that part of the issue with Clutter in Blender is due to the double columns of data and buttons in the properties panel. A long time ago I read about a study that looked at different panel configurations and they found that it was more easy to remember where things where with a single columns of data. Something about only having to read the first few letters to identify the property but when there are two or more, your eye has to work harder to scan across each button/text bit, all while scrolling down the panel.
I have to agree too. For some reason, even though I know where most things are in Blender, I sometimes fail to see them when they are right in front of my face. Some day I would love to see a single column layout for the properties panel. If this proves to just be to much scrolling, we could introduce sub-tabs to organize more related properties into groups better.
I don’t mean to get side tracked but I’d love to see this functionality for setting up “drivers” this is WAY more intuitive!
BTW great idea using the eyedropper and +1 for the icon disappearing once a choice has been made.
Single column layouts were actually tried early on in the 2.5 project (more specifically, the interface would collapse to a single column if the property window was below a certain width), for some reason however, the idea was abandoned and the double column idea was kept.
A narrower layout wouldn’t be all bad as long as you could manage making sure that people which options belong to which operator and that it wouldn’t be made up by twice the amount of scrolling. (There would need to be a balance between how wide people would tolerate an interface and the amount of scrolling they can tolerate).
I moved this comment to the UI discussion thread.
+1 Awesome idea!
It would look like this:
Don’t forget it could also potentially go in the right click menu. A bit like the add driver or keyframe buttons.
sometimes when i have a split window layout (for example UV editing on left and 3d viewport on the right ), I want to givemore space to one of the two. Since there is the toolbar (T) for example in the middle- what happens is that i have no way to destinguish where to drag to resize the 3d viewport. Instead of resizing the viewport, i sometimes resize the toolbar panel instead.
My suggestion is to make viewport borders different in looks from toolbar borders. So people know which border to drag to resize a viewport that contains a toolbar.
this scenario happens in many other cases. Try giving more space to the outliner and you end up dragging the tabs or something else. Try resizing the 3d viewport from the bottom and you end up resizing something else instead. Its annoying to new users and to old users. I am still geting used to finding what to drag on a split layout. These toolbars and panels just keep getting in the way.
my second gripe is with selecting things like faces, edges or vertices. I wish I could just drag-select multiple things. I know that there is circle select, but circle select mode doesnt allow you to orbit around the object. A small thing, but it really adds an extra step to an action that you do a million times. This adds up in the long run
I am work now a bit swamped, so can´t start blender and try the situation, but I distinctly recalls working with a rig, maybe it was something with FK/IK Bones, and I needed to enter the name of a bone, like which bone then + a number for how far the chain should apply IK. Anyways, it was one of the moments where just visually picking the bone (armatures tend to get really bad naming with bones if you just freestyle quickly in a hurry) from the 3d viewport.
Yeah that’s a really good example of what why it’s nice to have a pick button.
@CoDEmanX: That’s also a really good idea too!
@Blurymind: I often have this problem is multiple places too. many times I try to click on the edge of a window to resize it and wind up dragging the contents instead. It seems like the sensitivity threshold of the borders is just set to small. I wonder if there is a tolerance setting somewhere?
Yeah, it seems like it’s harder to resize a panel now than it used to be. I support a wider margin for dragging panels.
This is a nice solution. It makes it instantly clear that the picker relates to the field. And it’s less cluttered at the same time.