I don’t think I would want that to happen in most cases, but I guess it could be useful in some ?
what else would you want to happen if you click on them then ? If I am checking the outliner I can,while Im there, to already opened the relative tabs in the Properties panel. Also if properly implemented this would spare me to firstly having to click and activate the object I wanted to work on in the Properties panel by directly activating the object with the corresponding tab in the property editor by simply clicking that tag, data icon in the outliner.
Its about making the outliner more interactive and working together with property editor and more than only a table with infos on it.
In every software I worked there is a live connection between the outliner (object manager etc) and the property editor (atribute manager call it how you want) and this is kinda the natural behavior you want to happen. Ofc there should be an option to turn this Off but I dont know why you would want that.
I see there is an option in the outliner now by right clicking for the modifiers and constraints data at least called Select but there is a warning message that is not yet implemented. Is this supposed to be the feature Im talking about ?
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Oh, I skipped that you were talking about object data, apologies. That does sound useful - right now the presence of modifiers/constraints within the outliner is only informative, there’s no such shortcut (that I know of).
Clicking the mesh data icon brings you to edit mode, would it activate the mesh data panel in addition to this ?
kinda stranger to terminology so I just use the term icons. Simply when you click on the modifier icon in the outliner or on the material icon, the respective tab in the Property editor should change accordingly to this to show the modifier stack tab or material tab.
For now I see when you click the triangle mesh data icon in the outliner bring you to edit mode. Dont know if I also want this for other icons. Some modifier worked also (only) in edit mode ? If so depending to what modifier icon you clicked should switch back and forth on edit and object mode I guess.
In addendum , for the modifier tab at least, If you click a specific modifier icon in the outliner, the modifier stack should autoclose the others non selected and expand only the one selected in the outliner.
here you go a similar proposal in the rightclick select forum https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/0Wcbbc/
Also can you check that "Not yet implemented "Select feature I was mentioning about !
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Yes, this does not exist yet, but is part of the synced selection. Synced selection will be the largest part of the summer of code project, with other improvements being added on the side.
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I would love to be able to collapse all in the outliner. I have multiple collections that I
collapse and each time I reopen a file, all the dropdowns are uncollapsed. Maybe
it can remember the position when you reopen a file.
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believe me, I was testing the outliner right now and I was thinking about this need
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whats the other part of synced selections ?
This is my opinion:
Clicking Down/Right Arrow in the Outliner shouldn’t initiate drag behavior. It should open or close the element, and when dragged, it should open/close the new row the mouse is hovering. Instead of moving the entire collection. That behavior should be left to dragging on the name.
click+drag box select
clic, wait 100ms, drag, move
just got new idea. would be nice if there would be icon before name of object like max left in outliner… that if we click it. it opens that object in local mode.
Hi Nate,
I love to hear that you’ll be doing some work on the Outliner this Summer. Below are a couple of ideas I believe would make the Outliner a better tool and I don’t think others have posted yet.
-X to delete. Just like in the Viewport, if we have an object selected in the Outliner and hit X, it should delete it
-Material Outliner with preview. It would be nice to have a dedicated Outliner mode to see the materials in your scene. Ideally with a preview window built in. This would allow for a more intuitive drag and drop workflow for materials. Right now, you can kind of do it by setting the Outliner to Data API and dragging the materials from there, but it’s not very intuitive and you can’t see the materials before hand.
It would also be nice if it was possible possible to select the material in this Outliner and see the material tab in the property editor. But this might go against blender’s design philosophy.
-Parent to empty. I would like to have the ability to select a couple of objects and parent them to a new empty with a click of a button. This empty would be position at the median point of these options. This would allow for quick interactions, but also to easily animate that empty and therefor all it’s children. This of course, can be done manually, but it would be nice to have an outomated way of woing it.
Thanks for your work and good luck
@Jomo, material outliner preview sounds like the asset manager, that’s a different project. Parent to empty also seems not specifically related to the outliner.
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Hi Brecht,
Thanks for the quick reply.
I guess adding a full preview would make it similar to the asset manager… I didn’t think about it.
Would it make sense to at least be able to select materials in the current outliner and have them show up in the properties panel/node editor?
What I’m trying to get to is a way to quickly adjust and assign materials without having to select objects they’re already assigned to.
Having used other softwares that have an asset managers, I often feel the asset manager is not always the best way to do everything. Having a simpler way to handle the materials in your scene without having to go to a full asset manager is preferable.
As for the parenting to empty. Got it, adding an empty and creating parenting relationships is out of scope for the outliner.
What do you think of having as a default behavior when you click a collection to be “select hierarchy”? That would partially solve that problem.
The display view layer icon is the exactly same to the one above, I propose merging the button with the filter icon to the right of the search bar
The search bar should be dynamic and responsive to the width of the outliner menu. This would make all the buttons viewable on smaller screens, instead of having to scroll to the right in order to add a new collection.
Lastly, the scene collections should be moved a bit to the left so it is centred with the current editor type.
That is not actually true. The one in the top bar changes the active view layer, while the one below changes the Outliner view mode.
That said, yes, this part of the UI could be made nicer.
Could do:
- Turn View Layer and Scene ID selectors into simpler popovers
- Add active view layer to the top of the Outliner when in View Layer mode
This would both simplify the UI, while adding clarity
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Well, it’s the same icon but that’s kind of the point isn’t it ? They refer to the same thing, ie View Layers.
Great to see the Outliner will get some (more) love.
One thing that I would really love to see is the ability to use the Eyedropper tool in the Outliner to select objects. When a lot of geometry is sitting on top of each other it would be a lot easier to pick it from there rather than the viewport.
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@Kranos The other part of synced selection is to sync the selection completely with the 3D view. That way whatever is selected in the outliner is selected in the viewport and vise versa. There will be a toggle to enable or disable synced selection in each outliner.
@Bobbin If you are referring to dragging on the disclosure triangles, I believe the devs are aware of this. ⚓ T57746 Outliner: Dragging over disclosure triangles moves item rather than opening/closing Thanks for bringing it up 
@Jomo About selecting materials and having it show up in the properties panel, that is part of synced selection. The priority is to sync the selection with the 3D view, and other editors will be added as time allows. During this week I plan to make a thorough plan of all features I intend to complete over the summer.
Also, selecting the hierarchy when selecting a collection is an interesting idea, though it may not be the most desired behavior at all times.
@MichaelHermann This is already planned, and won’t require the eyedropper tool. Synced selection will allow selecting objects in the outliner just by clicking/box select/etc.
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Not sure if we are on the same page here. I’m not talking about selection at all. I don’t want to select anything. This is specifically about the eyedropper tool. (To pick a target object for the “Track To” constraint for example)
It currently only works in the viewport and it would be very nice if that were extended to the outliner.
Sorry if you did mean this with your answer. But I hope this clarifies what I meant to ask for.
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