I would like more than just Expand All and Collapse All in the Outliner. With big models, Expand All just creates a huge, unmanageable mess. I want to select one (or more?) objects, and say “Expand Selected” and expand just that thing all the way down through every level. You can get there eventually now by hand clicking - every - single - expand - arrow, click, after click, after click, but I just want a one click command to do them all without doing the whole model.
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If you had a single chevron to open one level and a double chevron next to it to expand all subs, would that fit the bill?
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That seems like good idea. Less work than either a flyout menu or Control/Right click menu.
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Or, what about a ‘Skeleton Outliner’ where anything that is a parent would always be visible? Somewhat like a folder tree where you can always see all of the folders and then click to see what’s inside. The list would be longer because all parents would always be visible. Would that be a worthwhile trad off?
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Problem: When exploring the model with Outliner “Collapse All” and “Expand All” don’t work as expected. At present all they do is operate on the top level and ignore the state of everything below.
Solution: If nothing is selected then Collapse and Expand would work on all branches, including collapsing or expanding sub-branches. If a Group or Component is selected then Collapse and Expand should only operate on the selected branch(es) and their sub-branches.
The arrow option would continue as normal to let you to manually expand/collapse the branch you want to explore.
I don’t think it needs any changes to the user interface (or an Extension), it just needs the Collapse & Expand functions to operate in a more intelligent way.
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Doh! (another one for the Doh! Book?)
I was just thinking that another possibility would be that clicking the arrow continues to work as it does, and Option/Ctl click on the arrow expands all within. I tried it for laughs, and it does that! How did I not know that! My bad. I’m on Mac. Anyone want to check Windows?
Ctrl+Expand All does expand all nested objects.
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On Mac the top right Outliner menu Expand All works, Collapse, only collapses the top level.
I found on Mac you only need to use the Option key with the arrow to expand or properly collapse a branch.
So thanks @RTCool for spotting this. I’m pretty sure I tried something similar a while back, I obviously missed this little gem.
It does however raise a few points:
- Why doesn’t Collapse All actually collapse all?
- Why isn’t the Alt + > mentioned in the help files?
- Would users benefit from seeing Collapse Branch & Expand Branch in the menu?
FWIW, Ctrl+Collapse All does collapse all nesting levels on PC. Perhaps as they continue to align the UI on Mac and Windows this will carry over to Mac.
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Just checking @DaveR , but on PC if you use Expand All and then Collapse All, what do you see if you then immediately click on a branch arrow? On Mac I still see the fully expanded contents of that branch.
Yes to more outliner display options! I would vote for some more options on how the Outliner expands and collapses with selections. I made a little script to display my own version of the outliner as an overlay on the screen. It auto expands any selected group or component to its first nested layer, but if opened for editing it isolates the current context and tracks the pathway back to root with indentations as you dive deeper into nesting so the pathway to the current context is always displayed. I would love to have a version of this kind of auto expanding context sensitive behavior on the native outliner, but possibly it’s just good for my brain so should be a switched option I think.
I also display any component only once in my outliner, followed by the number of total instances in the current context in parentheses instead of repeating the listing for every instance, this makes the text stack much smaller and tidier in larger models, another option I would like to see on the Native Outliner
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I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking but clicking on the “branch arrow” does expand the component to show the parent components. That’s the behavior I would expect.
I see that on a Mac as well. I think @DGSketcher is saying that’s not the behavior he would expect - more like expecting that Collapse All would reset everything so that clicking the arrow afterward would just open one level of nesting. I never realized it did this behavior before, so I see what he means.
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You are seeing the same behaviour on PC as Mac. Basically Collapse All doesn’t do what is expected, if it did then clicking on the arrow would only expand the next level down, everything else would remain collapsed. Thank you for confirming.
That’s what I see when I click on the arrow.
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The behavior of the Outliner makes sense to me as far as remembering collapsed/expanded states when navigating the Outliner except when using the Expand All and Collapse All commands at the top (Big Arrow) because the Outliner can’t save custom states and Expand and Collapse All at the same time.
I made an Expand/Collapse All version of the outliner (modification of Outliner Options on EW). I tried to get the ‘best of both worlds’ by using Expand/Collapse All icons while maintaining the normal arrow of Outliner. So, it can expand and collapse all, or keep expanded/collapsed states while allowing expanding/collapsing all sub-nested G’s and C’s.
Something that’s pretty cool about Out Front is the ‘Headless’ nesting structure where the top of the hierarchy doesn’t clutter the view of the selected object. I tried something similar with an ‘Isolation Mode’. It doesn’t ‘chop off the heads’ of all parents (which sounds better than the alternative in a way), but it isolates children by removing parents (maybe that could be phrased differently). Anyway, a bit of a book-marking effect:
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Your extension says Windows for OS support. Is there a specific reason for that or just not tested on Mac?
I just don’t have a Mac to test on. If you would give it a quick test I’d be interested to know if it does work. If it does, I could send you the version with the expand/collapse all feature. Otherwise, I’ll ask a friend who may have time to do the Mac related incantations to get it going.
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Well, I’ve installed in on the Mac 2025 version and so far so good. Love the tag labels.
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Awesome! This was a good thread… I updated the extension based on suggestions made here.