Collection Mode
It would be awesome if Blender could have a way to manipulate collections similarly to objects. What I thought is maybe there could be a "Collection Mode" for manipulating collections, just like Edit Mode for manipulating vertices, Object Mode for manipulating objects; Collection Mode would just be the next tier up.
Of course, the big question is, how do you select a collection in the viewport? I think it would clutter up the viewport to add any extra visual collection identifiers; I think what would be best is if it displays just like in object mode; the way you would select a collection is just by clicking on an object in that collection (and of course all the objects will be highlighted all together). What if the object is in multiple groups? Well, here is where I think the new Object Select menu (alt-LMB, brings up a menu of all objects under the cursor) coming in 2.93 is a gift from heaven, because using that same functionality for this challenge in Collection Mode makes complete sense.
Of course, the problem that the Object Select menu was introduced to solve (difficulty specifying which object to select when multiple objects are under the cursor) would be no less present in Component Mode, so an objection could be raised to replacing this functionality. One idea I came up with is keeping Alt-LMB as it is, but then Alt-clicking again on an item from that menu to specify the collection. However, I think that's more trouble than it's worth. This issue will probably require some discussion.
4 Comments
Better: as already requested plenty of times before, collections should be actual "container objects", with an origin and transform value, and carry out properties to their children like hiding states, and why not even modifiers.
* @-L0Lock- * That's actually technically already possible with geometry nodes as early as 2.92, I've done it. Just ignore the container object's Input node and instead wire the Geometry output of an Object Info or Collection Info node (and maybe join multiple objects/collections together using the Join Geometry node) into the final Output node.
* @-L0Lock- * Are you aware that a single object can exist in infinite different collections simultaneously? Collections are the equivalent of layers in Maya (and probably layers in Blender 2.79) and are not meant for 3d space location/heirarchy tasks. You want regular old "groups" (parenting) for that stuff.
* @thinsoldier * I am aware that Blender's collections are a mess that try to fulfill a lot of different purposes without going really deep enough for half of them and some of which competing each other.
Cf this old discussion devtalk.blender.org/t/layers-maniphest