| Richard Antalik (ISS) |
| Andi McClure (mcc111) | |
| Sep 8 2020, 3:42 AM |
| Andi McClure (mcc111) |
| Campbell Barton (campbellbarton) |
| Richard Antalik (ISS) |
System Information / Blender Version
Operating system: Mac OS X 10.13.6 (17G10021)
Graphics card: Intel Iris Graphics 6100
Repro'd on:
2.9.0
2.83.5 (LTS)
2.91.0-5c2ac8520e07 (nightly)
Also repro'd on: 2.29.0 on Windows 10 18363 with Radeon R9 390
Exact steps for others to reproduce the error
Hi Richard,
I agree that when the script is run, the object is not drawn as selected in outliner.
Can you help me understand, how could I detect that an object is "selected" without it being drawn as selected in the outliner? When you say "it selects object 'zap'", how did you tell that the object is selected?
As far as I can tell, the object is *not* selected. Here is my reasoning.
Say that I open my mirrorroom-fixed5.blend test file. I go to the scripting tab, and I add the single line bpy.ops.object.duplicate() to the end of the script. So the script is now
import bpy # MUST SET ZAP RENDERABLE BEFORE RUNNING, THEN UNRENDERABLE AFTER RUNNING # Find objects zap = bpy.data.objects['zap'] # Clear old zaps bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT') bpy.ops.object.select_pattern(pattern="zap") zap.select_set(True) bpy.ops.object.duplicate()
Testing in 2.9.0, if the eye icon next to "zap" in the outliner is closed, and I run this script, nothing happens. Nothing at all.
If the eye icon is open and I run the script, "zap" is duplicated and a new object zap.001 appears in the outliner and also in the viewport.
I see the same results in 2.91.0-5c2ac8520e07.
So the object is not indicated as selected in the GUI. And when I run a scripting operation on the selected object, the operation does not recognize the object as selected.
It does not seem the object is "selected" in any meaningful sense. Am I missing something?
"Issue in this case is that bpy.ops.object.duplicate() will not operate on hidden object"
This is not a documented property of bpy.ops.object.duplicate.
https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_current/bpy.ops.object.html#bpy.ops.object.duplicate
So I think there is still a documentation issue, that functions that do not duplicate viewport-hidden (not the only type of hidden!) objects are not documented as doing this.
Should I file a separate issue for that? (Since this is now officially a bug for the outliner.)
If we get to such details, it is probably better to look at the actual implementation. Looking at description of other operators I see very short brief sentences that would certainly not be unconditionally correct.
I don't think we can accept such report really, because current description is good enough for current "standard".
As noted in my original bug report (which appears to have had most of its text deleted?) my expected behavior is that viewport visibility (which is after all only one type of visibility) would have no bearing on whether operations can be performed through the scripting interface (since it has no bearing on whether they can be performed through the GUI— the GUI can select and duplicate viewport-hidden items). If there is some historical reason why this is not the case, I would expect to be given a trap door, like a visibility="ALL" argument, to let me operate on the viewport-hidden items. And if there is some design reason why this is not given, I would expect it to be documented that viewport-hidden objects are excluded from certain operations, and which ones— I would expect this to be listed in the function documentation, and if not there, somewhere else. It was not "assumed" by me that viewport-hidden objects can't be operated on because this fact is not documented anywhere I can find.
My use case is that I had a .blend file with a hidden "template" object and a desire to write a script that made many copies of the template object in various locations. The template object was not intended to be seen or rendered, only to be used as a basis for the script. I skimmed the various quickstart/overview/best practice documents https://docs.blender.org/api/current/index.html, looked at some sample code, and looked at the function references. And then wrote a script (bpy.ops.object.select_pattern(pattern="zap") followed by bpy.ops.object.duplicate()) that did literally nothing, and I lost a number of hours trying to figure out why nothing was happening. I had no reason to believe that clicking the little eyeball icon was somehow highly significant to the scripting interface.
I now find out from Mr. Antalik that select_pattern/select_set on a viewport-invisible object in fact *half*-selects the object?— it sets it selected in some sense?, but it does not highlight it in the scene view. To me, this is the most unexpected thing of all. My *general* expectation— primed by the Python functions that are printed out in the scripting tab— is that the GUI and the scripting interface are operating on the same data and use the same primitives.
"Viewport-hidden objects can't be selected" is a surprising rule to me, but once it is explained to me I understand it. "Attempting to select a viewport-hidden object puts it into some strange state the GUI does not reflect" sounds alarming. I would expect *everything* I do in a script is reflected in the GUI. I think even if none of my expectations above are correct, Mr. Antalik's expectation that selections are reflected in the outliner is.