On 26 October 2016 at 06:14, Brynn <brynn@...3089...> wrote:

I notice that whenever I select an object, (when the Objects dialog
is open), the layer where the object resides is expanded, whether I want to
edit the object or not. If the selected object is a group, the group is
expanded as well. So just looking around the canvas at a couple of objects,
the dialog is already scrolling.
I find it quite confusing with everything expanded. And this is
still a relatively small file, with 4 layers and 25 to 30 objects. Of
course I realize the purpose of this new dialog is to help make things less
confusing. But I just mean the visual appearance is confusing. I can
understand how this automatic expanding of layers can be helpful. But how
can Inkscape know why I've selected an object? For example, when I'm
helping someone in the forum, I'm not planning to edit the file at all -
just look at it.
I wonder if it would work to make the automatic expanding optional
(in Inkscape Prefs)? Or, I wonder if there would be any way to make it so
that whenever you select an object in a different layer from the last
selected object, the layer of the last selected object is collapsed, and the
layer of the new selected object is expanded. Could that work?

I agree that the automatic expanding can make the structure confusing and lets you lose the overview.
Though an automatic collapsing is a bad idea, in my opinion. I wouldn't want the structure to collapse if I expanded it manually within the dialog.

I could imagine to let the dialog work one way, i.e. only select the object in the viewport when it is clicked within the dialog but not select it in the dialog when it is selected within the viewport. To select an object within the dialog from the viewport you would then have a context menu entry similar to the 'Inspect Element' option in browsers to select the element within their devtools.

On the other hand, this would then work differently to the Layers dialog where the current layer is also selected when an object is selected in the viewport. And it might be confusing if another object is selected within the Objects dialog when selecting one in the viewport.

So, that's a difficult UX decision.

Different from expanding layers, I see the HL column, with all those
tiny red color chips represent the highlight color for the path outline. If
the user has disabled the path outline, could this column be hidden?

+1 for that.

Sebastian