GSoC 2019: Outliner Improvements Ideas

I know that is not the first time that I ask for this, But I still asking…

Search sync optionally with the viewport to highlight the objects searched

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To quote someone above for emphasis.

Frozen_Death_Knight
One thing I would like to see is the ability to select everything in a collection by just clicking on the collection itself.

I would like to see the reverse as well. Clicking on an object in the viewport selects the entire collection. Then to edit the contents of that Collection; in the viewport the user can double click on the collection, modifier + MB click, or heirarchy arrow next to the collection in the Outliner.

The way google sketchup handles this is so simple it’s beautiful, and If I was competent past “Hello world” I would do it myself! Yet, alas I am not.

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I have to ask again for Multiple Deselect feature or if you want call it “Subtract Selection”.

I tried latest 2.81 and find that it not implemented. Such functionality can make life much easier when it need to manipulate scenes with hundreds of objects. I already posted here link to my RCS suggestion so I repeat again - we can use Alt + Shift ( as opposite to Ctrl + Shift for “Extend” selection ) to subtract selection from previous clicked with Ctrl to current clicked with preserving the rest of selection.

Sorry for repeating but I really work for a lot with such scenes and sometimes it really much easier to find and subtract something from selection instead of selecting multiple with extend.

E.g. select by one click all the children and IF YOU FIND something you don’t need -
just subtract this items. Instead of deselect all and then manually select again few stacks from all children list except of unneeded few items…

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What if an object is in several collections?
I think the way it is now is quite good. Select an object and then hit shift-g -> collection and in case the object is in several you now select which collection you mean.

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I would like to see the possiblity to use the same name in different collections,
or a new displayname that overrides the name if displayname is set.

That would great improve the readabilty is you use collections for example if you use one Collection for a house, and every windows calls “window X” instead of “window X.YYY”.

just to report a little bug that may have been already mentioned - turning on a layer with sublayers that have been turned off prior turns all the sublayers on. It would be good if the sublayers remember their on/off setting irrelevant of whether the parent layer is on or off.

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please make a bug report

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Good point, thanks, done - https://developer.blender.org/T69812

Update

I’ve created a bug report but it seems that this bug is actually by design, so feel free to chip in on the bug report if you think it should be otherwise.

This behavior is by design for this setting, to make it possible to enable sub-collections without their parents.

to which, I say

If it’s needed for turning on sub-layers it could work in the following way:

  1. turn off main layer
  2. sub-layers get all switched on
  3. turn on sublayer
  4. turn on main layer
  5. sublayers recall initial state prior to setup 1…
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@natecraddock I would not say bullshit … but I am quite convinced that you could start a new project for a painting texture layer system … I am convinced that you would find yourself mostly using the same function and class code as the outliner and collection :slight_smile:

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What a shame :frowning:

Thanks anyway

Few things from 2019-09-18 2.81 build

Walk Select by arrow keys.

Why this walk select do nothing with active object? So how it should be used at all if it can’t change active object. I do some walk and some select by my keyboard but if next to it I want to do some action - I still do it for my active object so all my walk and select was about nothing …

Especially sadly to see it in case or renaming, when I want to not touch my mouse but do some fast navigation via keyboard and rename same from keyboard. But it doesn’t work this way because it leave active object as it is. Please add some " option " to keymap something like " Tooggle All " and " Extend " but " Set Active ". Or maybe make it work this way as default. Anyway it should change ative, else it have no sense.

Multiple Expand/Collapse

For both, mouse and arrow keys, it work wrong.

For arrows as you can see in GIF it expand only last item + deselect all other in multiple selection.
I think if user do multiple select with Shift + Arrow Up/Down and then press Shift + Arrow Right/Left it should expand/collapse all items in selection.

Right now this Shift + Arrow Right/Left have some " Toggle All " checkbox enabled but it do nothing…

For mouse what I expect t o see - I select multiple by Shift + LMB ( now I have some multiple items as selection ) , then I still hold Shift and click on " Expand " triandle of one item from my multiple selection, I get all item in my multiple selection expand/collapse.

Right now it just expand one item. Only way to expand/collapse multiple is to do this action for some " top container item " ( like collection), but what if I have 500 items in this container and I want to expand only some 50 of them?

You don’t see mouse cursor here because of Windows UI scaling, but it’s above " gray " line

Delete from Outliner?

I want to delete from outliner… Imagine if I will use only keyboard to navigate outliner, I found some unnecesarry item and want to delete it. But I can’t!!! I have to take my mouse, move mouse cursor to viewport, press `X’, click to confirm …

OMG, why not just press same X in outliner and then some Enter to confirm delete? Why I can delete Collection by X or Delete but I cant do same for other items?

Stupid question but - anybody here? Is it still valid to write here thoughts about Outliner or this " Outliner rework quest " is complete?

Hello! Your question isn’t stupid, I have been rather quiet lately.

I have just started a new semester at my university, so I have been far busier than I was in the summer. On top of that, there are some Outliner tasks that are higher priority than the recent suggestions here (not that those suggestions are bad!). A refactor of the selection functions in the outliner needs to be patched first to add properties syncing (the first request on this thread actually), mode toggling, better walk select, etc. I’m still reading the thread, but as the Google Summer of Code has ended, this topic for feedback isn’t really priority anymore.

Suggestions are still welcome here, on right-click-select, and on separate topics on Devtalk.

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So maybe it have sense for someone from dev team who continue work on Outliner ( if exist ) create some new thread for suggestion, discussions and etc.?

Create new posts each time when someone have few thoughts about Outliner is inefficient way - they will drown under all conversation/suggestions around. We need some living " general " thread for Outliner where exist some active developer.

Oh, I’m still working on the outliner, but it isn’t my high priority like it was during GSoC. So I’m hoping to add lots more in the months to come :slight_smile:

But yes, a topic for outliner would be nice, but it might be nice to start a new one eventually.

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Please start a new thread and close this one!

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Yes I second that!. That’s usually what the devs want once a GSoC project I finished and people want to discuss more.

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Suggestion: Collect all suggestions in this thread that haven´t been address yet and transfer over to the new thread.

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Hi @natecraddock,

You did a great job improving the Outliner. :ok_hand:

I’d love it if selected objects would automatically become part of a newly created Collection when you press the Outliner’s New Collection button, in stead of having to move the files each time you’ve created a Collection.

Thanks.

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I’ve started a new topic specifically on some of the current paper cuts on the outliner in regards to visibility resets of collections and objects when toggling collections on/off - Outliner & objects/collections visibility paper cuts

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