tabtabtab

A faster, smarter command palette for Foundry's Nuke — replaces the built-in Tab menu with anchored fuzzy search, per-category colour blocks, node icons, and instant access to every menu item in Nuke.

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Why tabtabtab instead of Nuke's built-in Tab menu?

Feature	tabtabtab	Nuke built-in
Anchored fuzzy matching ("blr" → Blur)	Yes	No — matches anywhere, so "blr" returns dozens of unrelated results
Finds menu items (e.g. File > Exit)	Yes	No — nodes only
Per-category colour blocks	Yes	No
Node icons in results	Yes	No
Keyboard shortcuts in results	Yes	No
Usage-weighted ranking	Yes	Yes — but displays the weight number, which is redundant since ordering already reflects it

Anchored fuzzy matching is the key difference. When you type "blr", tabtabtab matches "Blur" because the letters appear in order from the start of a word. Nuke's built-in menu uses non-anchored matching, which returns every item that contains those letters anywhere — usually dozens of irrelevant results for short queries.

Menu items, not just nodes. Type "exit" and tabtabtab shows "File > Exit". Type "pref" and it shows "Edit > Preferences". No more mousing through the menu bar.

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Screenshots

Node icons in the left column and colour-coded rows by node category:

Category search — type [ to include the category tag in your search (ax[3 → Axis [3D]):

Menu items appear alongside nodes — type anch to find Edit > Anchors commands:

Non-anchored search (leading space) — matches letters anywhere in the name:

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Demo GIFs

Basic usage — open the palette, pick a node, create it:

Anchored fuzzy search — letters match in order from the start of a word:

Non-anchored search — add a leading space to match anywhere in the name:

Colours and icons — colour blocks and node icons in action:

Category filter — narrow results by category using [:

Repeat previous — Tab again after creating a node to recreate it instantly:

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Search modes

Prefix	Behaviour
(none)	Anchored fuzzy match. Each character of your query must appear in order, starting from the beginning of the node name. "blr" matches "Blur" but not "ColorBurn".
one space	Non-anchored fuzzy match. Characters must appear in order anywhere in the name. " blr" matches both "Blur" and "ColorBurn".
two spaces	Non-anchored consecutive substring. The exact run of letters must appear somewhere in the name. " blur" matches "MotionBlur" but not "Blur2".
[	Include the category tag in the search. "ax[3d" narrows results to items whose category contains "3d", e.g. "Axis [3D]". Without [, the category tag is ignored.

Space-prefix repeat behaviour

After you create a node, tabtabtab pre-fills the search field with a leading space followed by the node's display name (for example, " Blur [Filter]"). The next time you press Tab to open the palette, that text is already in the field. Press Tab again without typing anything and the same node is created immediately — no searching required.

The leading space is intentional: it enables non-anchored matching so the full display name (which includes the category tag) matches correctly against itself.

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Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
Tab or Enter	Create the selected item
Up / Down arrows	Navigate the result list
Escape	Close without creating

Ctrl+Tab still opens Nuke's built-in tab menu.

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Quickstart / Installation

1. Download the latest release .zip from the Releases page.

2. Extract the contents into your Nuke plugin directory. The typical location is ~/.nuke/. Alternatively, place the files anywhere on your NUKE_PATH.

   The zip contains these five files — all of them are required:

   • tabtabtab_nuke_core.py — core palette engine
   • tabtabtab_nuke.py — Nuke menu integration
   • menu.py — auto-registration on Nuke startup
   • tabtabtab_prefs.py — preferences persistence
   • tabtabtab_prefs_dialog.py — preferences dialog (Edit > Tabtabtab Preferences...)

3. Start (or restart) Nuke. tabtabtab registers automatically via menu.py. Press Tab in the Node Graph to open the palette.

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Preferences

Open Edit > Tabtabtab Preferences... to access the preferences dialog.

• Enable tabtabtab — uncheck to disable the plugin and restore Nuke's default Tab behaviour. Changes take effect immediately without restarting Nuke.

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Weighting

Each time you create a node, its usage weight increases. Higher-weighted nodes appear earlier in results when multiple items match your query. Weights are saved to ~/.nuke/tabtabtab_weights.json between sessions.

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Colour blocks

Each result row is tinted with the node's tile colour as defined in Nuke:

• The left column shows a solid colour block at full opacity (the node's tile colour).
• The row background receives a semi-transparent wash of the same colour (~31% opacity).
• Text colour adjusts automatically for legibility (dark text on bright backgrounds, light text on dark backgrounds).

Nodes whose tile colour is the Nuke global default (no class-specific colour) are shown without colour blocks.

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Compatibility

• Nuke 13 and later (PySide2)
• Nuke 15 and later (PySide6)

Both Qt bindings are supported. The correct one is selected automatically at import time.

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Attribution

tabtabtab is based on dbr/tabtabtab by dbr, which appears to be no longer maintained. This fork extends the original with multi-monitor support, visual improvements (colour blocks, node icons), PySide6 compatibility, and CI/CD infrastructure.