Very nice! For me personally it is much more readable now, thanks for the effort.
Also, a good idea to make it a preference thing, since no all-round solution has been found yet.
On the section name - i did have to spend a couple of minutes finding the setting, and perhaps that could be the name of the section - ‘Settings’ or ‘Quick Settings’ (unlike ‘Preferences’ in the addon tab). Also, a clockwork wheel icon could help in visually locating it.
Yes, that depends on context of use.
Wow, it is nice to see it as an option! Good move)
Yes, such solution immediately requires rows, like in outliner, that is pretty much flooding interface.
Also I thought that it will be a problem to add vertical hierarchical lines as you planned.
Can they be mode dependent as well? (Skew is the way to aviod them)
About “set and forget” - I thing that it is, but we need to figure it out.
So let it be like this for a while, at least during testing period. There is no problem to move it anyway.
Not sure, that I got it. I see no difference)
Can you show 3 clicks?
The way I see it:
Ctrl+Alt+Shift adds/removes nesting selection
Ctrl+Alt only adds
So in theory there should be no infringement if we will clean Ctrl+Alt, and will place Ctrl+Alt+Shift action instead of it, to a shorter shortcut. I didn’t found cases it something violates. Am I right?
Thank you for the QCD!
Your welcome. 
@Okavango Quick settings could work, for now I’ve tried Display Options centered at the top of the panel. As to the gear icon, I could use it instead. The reason I’ve used the “filter” icon so far, is because the outliner uses it for similar settings.
I could easily have them only there when the operators are aligned right, but that only half solves it. What I’ve done for now is to have them start after the collection icon so they don’t get in the way of the hierarchical structure. I think this helps for when they’re skewed as well because the “Remove” operator is always right aligned.
Also there are some cases where the vertical hierarchical lines don’t align properly, so they may not currently be viable. Needs more research.
I’m not very familiar with doing this sort of thing, so let me try to explain it better first. If that doesn’t work I’ll come up with a gif or video.
Currently Ctrl+Alt “isolates” (deselects everything then selects the target) – not adds – so if we only have the option to add/remove nested, and you have a current selection, and then if you want to isolate a nested set of collection’s objects you have to Alt+Click on the parent collection (isolate – not nested), Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Click on the parent collection (removes the selection because the collection’s objects were already selected), and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Click again to select the parent collection and all of its sub-collections.
As for why you would want the “isolate nested” functionality, say you have an empty character collection to act as a group and it’s sub-collections contain the body and clothes and props and stuff. I think you might want to be able to just Ctrl+Alt+Click the empty character collection to select the entire character while deselecting everything else. (Now maybe a character is a bad example because it’s usually parented to an armature, but hopefully you get what I’m going for here.)
Multi Align Test:
Collection_Manager_multi_align_test_02.zip (35.3 KB)
Object Selection Test:
I had considered leaving the “Set Selection” icon always as a dot and using the LIGHTPROBE_CUBEMAP icon on the “Set Object Collection” operator to show unselected objects are in the collection as opposed to no objects, but I found it made things more difficult to discern.
Now I know that this test is not as safe as with it attached to the “Set Active Collection” operator, but it does provide numerous benefits that simply wouldn’t be compatible with “Set Active Collection”. So even if we don’t use it I think it’s good to try it out.
Aw, now I’ve got the difference - indeed it isolates)
Thank you for clarification)
So the choice is between ability to isolate and use simpler hotkeys without the ability to isolate nesting immediately.
At first I thought, that ability to isolate nested selection is not critical, it is more handy to provide selection with simpler well known tools, than remember difference between complex hotkeys before using them - that’s the way I felt it.
Yes, we perform 3 clicks this way in some cases, but they are simpler clicks, that are easier to remember, apply and operate with, keeping concentration on complex hierarchies during operations.
Adding/removing will be used much more often for “carving out” some parts of complex hierarchical selections, that requires more attention and, as a result - simpler shortcut, than isolating (that is usually performed once to reset selection before carving). I mean, if you have to make some selections directly from CM at some point, it will be definitely more likely complex one, because you can perform isolating selection from the outliner.
I need some time to try to figure it out more properly.
Yes, I messed several times with misclicks during quick test)
I like that they displays availability of possible selection, they allow to expect a selection before press, but don’t like they contradicts with QCD, providing same visual feedback for different actions, so you have to interpret same icons differently each time during work. Sort of an issue)
I also thought about solving selections as separate icon, but didn’t found a solution which would not clutter up the interface with yet another set of icons, as opposed to use Active icon.
Functional minimalism is always hard to reach)
Maybe I am doing something the wrong way but I have the feeling that Collection Manager no longer Renumerates the collections in digital order.
Could you add an option to delete all empty (and so… unused) collections?
Mock-up:
I think that the Phantom mode needs more explanations.
At first, after pressing the button, I told myself “hmm… ok it fades everything out but why?”
Then I found this explanation: Collection Manager Feedback - #19 by Imaginer
Note: I am using “o.b.j.e.c.t. .s.e.l.e.c.t.i.o.n. .t.e.s.t. .0.2”
First of all, I am not a long-time user of Collection Manager so, please, excuse my noobish experience, these comments are just my “feedback feellings” (my first impressions) while using this addon.
To be honest, I find the LMB - Isolate hotkey quite annoying.
When I LMB-click on a QCD slot, I would expect it to make the Outliner select the collection. In Blender 2.79, was “isolate” the action that was performed when clicking on a slot?
Also, once a collection gets isolated, I find myself searching for the way to un-insolate all collections as they where before in the Outliner.
Maybe ALT+LMB (on any QCD slot) could revert (undo) the isolation?
I have tried this hotkey (on the QCD slots) but it just toggled the QCD slot on/off.
And weirdly, in the Info window, I saw bpy.ops.view3d.view_move_qcd_slot(slot="3") …
This hotkey moved my selected object to another QCD slot (to another collection).
This hotkey seems to add/remove my selected object onto other collections.
I haven’t answered earlier because I have had a hard time trying to follow your discussions (english is not my mother language). To the point that I am a bit lost between “hotkeys / QCD slots / collections / isolate nested functionalities” and all these terms. What I mean is that I think that a few hotkeys are welcome but not a ton, it could confuse new users of the addon.
**Animated GIFs would be welcome to understand how the new features (hotkeys and options) work.
It follows default Blender numeration (from root to branches) and represents hierarchical numeration.
Also, several numerating modes are planned (for example, linear as on your screenshot via Ctrl+LMB press)
It will be explained in the video (it is in progress)
Alt+LMB in QCD already performs a selection.
That’s one of the advantages of being Active Icon as selecting icon - same selecting shortcuts for CM and QCD parts. They are different in latest test version, that could be confusing - you have to remember which hotkeys in what part are used.
The Collection Manager has always used a “breadth first” numeration pattern. What you’re asking for is a “depth first” numeration pattern, and as @1D_Inc said, it is planned.
Yes.
The documentation needs updating, but there is a section on it in the manual: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/addons/interface/collection_manager.html
This is the relevant section:
Phantom Mode
All visibility changes made in this mode will be discarded when it’s disabled.Enabling Phantom Mode saves the current state of your restrictions and allows you to edit them without fear of losing your current state. When finished, disabling Phantom Mode will restore the saved state.
Note: You will be unable to edit anything other than the collections’ restrictions while in Phantom Mode.
Yes, this is how it worked in Blender 2.79. Some day there may be a way to customize this in the preferences, but probably not soon.
Because of the way QCD is designed undoing the isolation would not work well. What is planned is to have a hotkey to view all QCD slots.
The hotkeys I stated are for the new “Set Selection” operator in the Collection Manager popup window that I’m testing, not the QCD widget in the 3D View. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clearer.
Whenever you click a button in blender it calls an Operator.
bpy.ops.view3d.view_move_qcd_slot(slot="3") is the operator that gets called when you click on a slot.
That’s fine. @1D_Inc and I have been working closely on this for months; so we’ve developed terms to quickly describe functionality. If you don’t know what a term means just ask; I’ll be happy to explain it to you.
All hotkeys are documented in the tooltips, except sometimes when features are in early development.
I have thought about having a way to access all functions through the user interface, but it’s not done yet.
I think it’s a good idea to have isolate, so maybe instead of removing one we should switch the hotkeys so that isolate has the more complex shortcut.
I know, I had similar thoughts, but I needed something to test it with.
It’s proving that way with this one. Everything I’ve thought of so far has problems.
Just confirmed it with feedback)
I think it could work as an indicator, available for enabling in RTOs filter list, and Active button can be selecting button to keep both QCD and CM selecting hotkeys the same. Also keeping safety and minimalism.
That kind of solutions come into my mind when I think about it.
Yes, you are right, isolations are nice to have.
I also thought about inverting, since it keeps both, but I think it can be inverted logic’s mess)
Let it be as before - Ctrl+Alt and Ctrl+Alt+Shift.
I need some more time to figure it out =)
If you’re talking about the DOT icon, I’m not as fond of it anymore. I may have found a more suitable way of showing all the object states on the Set Object operator icon by using the GRID icon for collections without objects.
This whole issue is more complicated than it first seemed because we should consider object management in general, which will probably include a popup that will be called from some icon with it’s own object treeview. I’m playing with lots of ideas, so this is going to take a while.
One thing I’ve been thinking about is using a hotkey to pop up a menu with more advanced operations. This would use fewer hotkeys and the ones that were used would be simpler, while only sacrificing a small amount of speed. Although, I thought of this in regard to selection because of how many functions can be applied to it, it could be used in other places as well.
Another thing I’ve been thinking about is whether we should switch the default select and move actions from isolate to add. All of our RTOs use shift to isolate and click to add/remove, but our two operators that deal with objects do the opposite.
Guys, on the indented option - i don’t know, have you tried something like this? Seems pretty solid, and the hierarchy and the ‘look flow’ are still there…
# indent child items
if laycol["lvl"] > 0:
for _ in range(laycol["lvl"]):
#row.label(icon='BLANK1')
row.separator()
For sure, it is neat design task. But I am not sure that we should go that far to objects treeview display.
Because othervise we will be forced to support objects as well.
The menu can be made as duplication of functionality, for example, to contain hotkeys description.
I still think that keeping same selecting keys for QCD and CM is a good idea)
Yes, that’s exactly that mess I was talking about)
So I would also prefer to not to switch them because of overall consistency, complex shortcut is better than inverted shortcuts logic.
Yes, there was such kind of design. And the problem is that it looks pretty much druggy, especially when the structure is way more branched and long.
It allow to understand, that there are some hierarchical shifts, but makes it hard to read them properly.
I agree with 1D_Inc on this one. While I understand wanting the rows to be as short as possible, and the separator sort of works for that, it doesn’t allow you to easily grasp the structure.
Having a separate indent row (which includes the expander triangle) and uniformly scaling it to 0.5 isn’t as short as the separator, but seems to show the structure a bit better. If I can get vertical lines that show sibling relationships working reliably, then shortening the rows could be viable, but until then the space is needed.
See https://developer.blender.org/T69577#914611 for a test of visualising the tree view structure with vertical lines.
Full object support has been tentatively planned for a while now. I’m not sure yet what that looks like exactly (or when it’ll get here), but I’m not thinking of mixing objects and collections in the one tree view, in case that’s what you’re thinking. What I have in mind right now, is a button for each collection that will pop up another window to display objects.
It’s just a thought. I’ve yet to try it, but the menu may be useful as part of the principal design. But I don’t think there are enough hotkeys (or room on the tooltip) to use all hotkeys plus a menu.
I don’t think the hotkeys for selection for QCD and CM have to be exactly the same. They are different systems with different capabilities and needs. We already use different hotkeys for moving objects in CM than we do with QCD. That doesn’t mean they can’t be the same, but I don’t think it will hurt the user experience if they’re different.
Oh, I didn’t realize that’s what you were talking about. You’re probably right about keeping isolate as the primary action. I was just thinking that now was a good time to look at these kinds of things.
I think that object support should follow after a full collection support cycle.
Otherwise, you do not give a chance to core developers and outliner)
What about reassigning RMB?
It is pretty much industry standard, and doesn’t contain anything useful in that context at the moment.
Or it can be tricky?
Well, yes) You are right.
I love QCD keymap though.
It turned out good in my opinion.
Well I’ve certainly got enough other things to do 
, but people have asked for it (mostly for RTOs). In general I just think we should take a larger support of objects into account when developing things like object selection. As we’ve discovered, increasing interaction with objects is difficult with our current setup and, so I think it’s prudent to investigate a way that will allow for increasing object interactions, while keeping things fast and safe. We don’t have to add object support all at once (I’m quite happy to add things a little at a time), and I don’t know what we’ll end up with, but I think keeping a unified object system in mind may offer us insight as to better ways to solve current problems.
Short answer:
I don’t think RMB is a good idea right now.
Longer answer:
Operators called from GUI buttons only get triggered after the RELEASE event of a left click. This means that we can’t do things like click and hold to call a menu, or do things in a direct response to RMB or MMB 
(double click may be possible, but it’s difficult). We could add stuff to the Right-Click context menu, but the way this is set up internally in blender means that any addon could overwrite our additions to it. I suppose we could add stuff to it so long as it’s not only present there, that way if it’s not there you can still access the functionality by hotkey, but since there’s no guarantee it’ll be there I think we’re better off not to for now.
Yep. I’m very happy with the QCD keymap.
is this the latest version? Cheers!
Not quite. You can always get the latest version from a daily build. I only do zip releases here after I have accumulated a number of small fixes/improvements or after anything major. That being said, it’s about time I released a new zip.
