Outliner GSoC Follow-up Feedback

Pretty sure it can be done by creating an add-on.

Well there is a addon for that somewhere i think, but the problem of over increasing number of addons for anything and everything blender related is becoming a problem, especially when i have to install over 20 addons for various things i really dont need an extra mini addon for this.

Especially since its a “basic” accessibility papercut issue not something thats complicated, which would suit being in the main blender branch, well that’s how i see it anyway.

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Well. That would be less satisfying for people making workspaces with multiple properties editors.
What is the point to have several of them if they are showing same thing.

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Not really… In c4d, the object name and the icons are separate in (resizeable) columns… so stuff don’t disappear when you have long names, unless you deliberately do so…

The new behavior is just a little bit less intuitive and more slow…

That’d be nice. doing it with an addon myself as well, but many addons can create a clutter

While we’re on the subject, it’d also be nice to be able to key viewport visibility (not just enabling/disabling) of objects, and make it consistent between objects and collections.

This might not be outliner related though.

This seems like a pretty good compromise. While it’s a bit hidden, so are other cool features of the outliner, imo it’s just something that people need to discover when learning Blender.

Thanks for your work on this Nathan! Really happy to see you sticking around.

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Not that it matters, but you could add your voice to this thread:

Yup. I also scripted a custom “synch” button for this, which feels very silly to have to do…

Ah ok. I can only refer to an old R15 version, where the columns afaict are not resizable

True, but it wouldn’t be an issue anymore if we could deactivate synchronization from the properties editor.

Thanks for introducing the clicking on icons Nathan, it feels way more flexible now!

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This has been suggested a few times, and it is a good idea. But let’s keep this topic focused on feedback of outliner changes in 2.91 and 2.92.

I’m working on making the all the icons highlight on mouse hover so it’s more clear that an action will happen when selecting the icons.

We also discussed making the heuristic smarter for syncing, before adding a toggle. I think a toggle will likely happen, but perhaps there is a way we can avoid an option. For example, if there is only one outliner in the window, always sync even if it doesn’t border a properties editor. I think it is possible we could think of a strategy for syncing like this, so if you have any ideas let me know. This does loose the flexibility of complete control so a toggle is the final solution if nothing else works.

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Like the idea, wondering if it would be good if the highlight remains on the icon after you clicked it, as a way to “stay” in that property until you change.

I came here to complain about the old behavior but saw it was already fixed. Icons to switch to different contexts is fine and consistent! Why would selecting the object name jump to object properties? Instead selecting the object icon makes total sense since it’s something you would do more mindfully. No need to overthink this more IMO or worst add another option. I don’t care what C4D does.

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Yes! That is also so true

Hey beware, facepalms and sarcastic laughs fly around these forum sometimes :wink:

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It’s a cool idea, but it wouldn’t work in practice. There can be multiple properties editor and outliners so it’s impossible to define when a tab is selected and the icon should be shown highlighted.


If you haven’t seen the UI team meeting notes yet, we decided on a solution for outliner to properties tab switching that I think will satisfy everyone. It’s working well already in this initial state.

Each properties editor has a popover menu for settings. A dropdown (defaults to auto) can be used to set the properties sync behavior. Auto is the shared edge behavior which works for most cases, but when you want to enable it or disable it always the option exists. I think this small patch can get reviewed and merged this upcoming week :slight_smile: Thanks again for the feedback on this feature!

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Hi,
Is the manual sorting still not implemented?

So when it is set to ON what behaviour do we get? I mean what is the click focus? On icons, as lately or on the whole name, as previously?

Sync with icons is the definitive behavior, the difference between ON and AUTO is that with AUTO sync happens only with properties/outliner sharing an edge, with ON it happens regardless if the two editors are attached or not.

I’m really liking this. The Outliner-Properties-Sync has been a great time-saver for me :slightly_smiling_face:

Though I think it’s a little awkward to have a dropdown within the dropdown, when it’s the only setting that’s there.
Are there already plans to populate that menu? Otherwise I’d propose changing the outliner sync setting to toggles to avoid unnecessary clicks:

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I’ll always prefer toggles to dropdown menus!
Though, apparently the popover menu will eventually be the place also for other options: https://developer.blender.org/T83326

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Sadly no. It did work in the gsoc branch, and we could potentially merge it in, but it’s not a completed feature and we want to redo it for a few reasons.
Mostly because it was actually reordering objects within the lists of Blender internal data, and we would rather sort data on the UI level. Another problem was manual object sorting did not work for object children or bones.


We are still using the icons only for the sync click target. The option in the properties editor is to determine if the properties editor will react to the sync.

Yes we do have plans to add more to the popover, but an expanded toggle does look better here, thanks for the suggestion!

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Glad to see that Outliner is still improving!

Recently I’ve found one case that can be changed for better.
Issue is with selecting multiple objects from multiple collections that are folded (with an arrow on the left). You can select all objects from one collection with RMB and ‘Select Objects’, but it’s not possible to do it with multiple collections.
That should be possible as with growing numbers of assets it’s easier to select many of them that way than do Shift + Arrow.

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