Improving the interaction design and layout of the View Layers and Collections in the Outliner.
Outliner layout
For Blender 2.8, we've introduced the concept of Collections to replace the limited layers we had in the past. This means that users are more likely to use the Outliner, and som we want to make some improvements here.
First, we want to make it easy to add new collections. We will do this by re-arranging the Outliner header, and adding a Plus button for adding new collections:
If users want to search, they can press Ctrl+F, or pick Search from the View menu. This displays a search field below the header, like so:
Outliner features
There are several features we want to make easier to do in the outliner, by making things more consistent with the rest of Blender. Here are some features we will add to the Outliner:
| Move item to Collection | Drag LMB |
| Add item to Collection | Ctrl + Drag LMB |
| Parent | Ctrl + P |
| Unparent | Alt + P |
| Delete | Del |
| Duplicate | Shift + D |
| Duplicate Linked | Alt + D |
| Local View Solo | Alt + H |
| Local View Exclude | H |
Local View
Another thing we want to improve is making it easier to visualise which items you have set to Local View. The highlighted items are set to Local View, and the headphones icon lets users toggle it off and on. It also makes it possible to include or remove items from your current local view:
3D View mini-Outliner
In each 3D View, we will be providing a mini-Outliner in the sidebar (N key). This gives users access to the same settings as in the Outliner, but is useful if the Outliner is not visible, or when working in full screen mode. This list only shows users a list of collections. Individual objects are not included, in order to keep the list concise. If users want to have different visibility for 3D View, they can 'unsync' the view visibility.
