Collections / Layers

layer system of blender 2.7x was the most outstanding feature, which I love a lot. When2.8 came out, layer system had no replacement (at first sight and reading manual). Opening a file created with 2.7 leaded to an unusable mess. Doing the same with 2.9 looks much better, nearly as usable as before. But stil no layer system available. Searching through all available menue options or reading online manual didn't help. -L0Lock- showed a picture with the 20-layer-box replacement, but I couldn't find that.

Then - accidentally - I discovered the collection shortcuts (undocumented and unchangeable) 1 2 3 ... ... which then made the missed 20-layer-box appear.

What a mess - the most attractive feature of blender is hidden and unavailable by default.

Then I tried to use the collection shortcuts, which replaced the layer system and it felt wrong. Don't take me wrong: I like the collections improvements. But using collections as layer replacement is wrong.

In my oppinion, collection is a model property . No matter how many or how nested they are, they are always part of the model. Opposed to that, layers are application property . I use layers like virtual desktops on my linux box. I can configure, how many virtual desktops I'd like to have and then they are always there. No matter, what I work or which application I use, the virtual desktops are always accessible. And the virtual desktops are always accessible by the same single hotkey, no matter whether it contains active applications or not.

I'd like to have same possibility in blender too. 2.8 had no layers, but 2.9 reinvented the layers. So this -imho- was a step into the right direction :)

On my linux desktop I dedicate each virtual desktop to tasks. Like "system investigation", "communication", "research" and "work". At blender (2.7) I use layers the same way: one layer for overview, one for each of the main assemblies (which then get used in the overview as group instances) and a scratch layer for temporary objects that get used for boolean modifiers or the like.

Current state is, that different collections have their internal hotkey. But if you give collections a meaningful name and rearrange the order of the collections, you don't know the collections hotkey. I found a menu entry to set an hotkey, but that did not work on my system (2.91 preview).

I tried to create multiple layers to check whether old workflow would be possible. But layers can be selected through combobox only and object outliner does not change to show active layer objects. Old 2.7 has a nice outliner filter: "visible layers". Would be nice to move collection hotkeys and collection visibility filter of outliner back to layers ;)

Then I discovered a very odd behaviour. I was searching for a way to configure collection and on any click at the outliner, a new collection was created. I very hope, that this is a bug, as the function would be very annoying.

... and last not least: would be nice to extend manual to really describe current ui. I can't be right, that such an important feature like collection shortcuts or the 20-layer-box replacement are not mentioned in manual.