GSoC 2019: Outliner Branch Testing

[RonanDucluzeau]

Will this be implemented into the official build?

Most of time, when GSOC goes well. That is what happens.
That is a non negligible part of Blender development.

[natecraddock]

@Regnas The windows build is back up Sorry about that

[DanPool]

Nice work so far. This feels very intuitive.

In T57918, under “Dragging in empty areas to box select:” it mentions " Outliner (will be handled in the Outliner GSOC)." But under “Dragging on a selected item should move all selected items:” it mentions the outliner but not if it will part of GSOC. Is this not part of the planned work, or maybe a lower priority?

[TheRedWaxPolice]

After a quick test, yes, the “click and drag on an empty space to box select” is working great. Good job.

Here’s a quick feedback tho…

Extending selections.
The same way we “click and drag on an empty space to box select”, it would be nice if we could do the same to extend selections by holding shift. Currently if you hold shift and click and drag on an empty space to box select, it still tries to parent objects.

Example of how it could work:

Subtract could also work the same way by holding ctrl.

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Also, an option in the right click context menu to invert the selection would be handy.

[natecraddock]

@DanPool Yes, I’m planning on handling the dragging and drop with multiple items in the outliner. I’ve never seen that task before though, thanks for sharing

@TheRedWaxPolice I will add those modifier keys soon Nice idea for a context menu.

[TheRedWaxPolice]

Another thing, no idea if it would be too hard to implement in blender, but in most outliners, when you have many objects and several objects are out of the view, if you start dragging an object and you reach the edge of the outliner, an auto scrolling starts happening so you can reach any objects. Like:

Would be nice to have that functionality.

[Bintang]

I believe we can scroll while dragging though, for me scrolling bit more intuitive instead of dragging to buttom to activate auto scroll.
I experienced this badly using Maya Outliner where I need to press middle click to move object and go down to keep auto scrolling run, though in Maya we can split the outliner into two area to handle such issue, which Blender can do that too.

[JavierVega]

I love this. It’s what I miss in the outliner. Now it’s more productive. Thanks!

[Regnas]

Is Outliner / properties editor syncing planned?

[AbidMaqbool]

Yeah! But it takes some time, I think.
Here is the full list of ideas: GSoC 2019: Outliner Improvements Ideas
If don’t know already…

[natecraddock]

There are now macOS builds! https://blender.community/c/graphicall/zdbbbc/

[Regnas]

Nice improvements.

One question: What this new active highlight color means/indicates?

I mean, the selected object already has it’s color.

[testure]

that’s the active object- the last object that was selected

[Regnas]

Not sure about that. The active object seems to be the one highlighted with orange text, while this blue bar can be anywhere.

[billrey]

Technically it’s the active Outliner item, from which keyboard input eminates from. To be able to navigate using the keyboard, one item needs to be the active one.

[Regnas]

Ah ok. But still, it’s kind of an unexpected/unusual type of navigation. Normally the navigation with the keyboard is to switch the “active object selection” itself, not just the highlight.

Like:

Even most file explorers works like that.

[billrey]

Yes, that comes with synced selection.

[AlanNoble]

I’ve just had a chance to play around with this branch for a bit. Great job! A couple of suggestions:

1. Shouldn’t the Sync Selection be enabled by default? It seems like the more user-friendly option.
2. The “invisible” filter is great, but is there no “render invisible” filter? I often want to re-enable the objects I’ve hidden from the render.
3. In my opinion, the outliner really needs to make it clearer when there’s some kind of filter being applied. I often search for things, forget to clear my search and then get temporarily confused when my outliner isn’t showing everything.

Here’s one way it could be implemented:

I’m not a UI designer, so take these with a grain of salt. But it should be something bright and impossible to miss!

[natecraddock]

After some failed attempts at selection syncing, it should be mostly working now! Still needs some extra features, but the base of it is there and works both directions now. Please test and share what you think!

@AlanNoble In the latest builds synced selection is on by default. Also, I think render invisible could be added to the invisible filter maybe, no need to have two. It would be nice to have some sort of indication on filtering.

@Regnas Try walk selection again, should be syncing now

[Hadriscus]

Hi Nate,

I’m thinking we might want a generic “invert” filter next to the regular filters, so that we don’t end up with a negative filter for each flag (unselectable, un-renderable, invisible…).