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.
hover-highlight
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 
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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 
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 
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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The outliner is very good at showing the blender file structure, could it also be used to show and let the users navigate in the structure of the API?
@silex Thanks for the feedback, and that is a good idea to allow selecting the contents of multiple collections more easily. Keep in mind that this thread is supposed to be focused on feedback for the new features in 2.91 and 2.92
We do have a Data API view in the outliner. Are you referring to the python api?
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Yes, I mean the Python API, as it is a recurring request by new add-on devs to have access to the full picture of the Python API, but since the outliner still comes with “Not implemented yet” features, I guess that stuff should be on top of the to do list.
Hey Nathan, I know it’s unlikely to see new features in the immediate future considering we just entered in bcon2, but I wanted to ask if the idea of setting the active camera with an icon in the mode column will ever be brought back?
I remember it from the early stages of the outliner’s gsoc, and because clicking on the camera data icon will eventually only activate the properties editor, I think it’s very handy to quickly set the active camera from the outliner without using the right-click menu.
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I did not notice any difference since 2.90 with Green Camera icon, it always set active camera by clicking
Just noticed that duplicate any object in scene we can only in 3D View by Shift+D and dragging and drop from Outliner to 3D View.
But duplicate in Outliner we can’t, there is no option in object RMB.
Can we expect to see this in future?
Why I want it to be in Outliner, because if we hide “Object Types Visibility” we can’t duplicate this type of object with Shift+D, only with dragging and drop from Outliner to 3D View but this will change object position (which is fine with this method).
ADDED: found that we can Ctrl+C/CtrlV in outliner and this way duplicate objects…
so many hidden features…and inconsistent…
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Yes, and for now is still like this, but afaik because of outliner/properties syncing, clicking on the green icon will eventually only switch the properties but not make the camera active anymore, putting the functionality in the right-click menu https://developer.blender.org/T82233. Because of this, I wanted to ask about the plans for this on time, in order to possibly have a new icon for it sooner than later.
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