How to Toggle Selected Objects Visibility with H shortcut as in Maya

Question

I want to be able to toggle the visibility of selected objects with a shortcut (H) the way you can do in Maya and XSI, shown in the GIF. I'm guessing scrippting is needed. I've tried to do it my self but I'm new to Python and Blender and as soon as the objects are hidden they seem to no longer be in a selection state/list. Eg if I manually select the hidden object/s in the Outliner and try to print the selected object to the console, none seem to be selected. Is this possible to do with the current state of Blender 2.8?

Answer 1

iceythe provided a solution over at https://blenderartists.org/t/how-to-get-selection-objects-list-in-outliner/1184175/3?u=joelart

Toggle Hide Addon:

# ##### BEGIN GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####
#
#  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
#  modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
#  as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
#  of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
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#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
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#  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
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# ##### END GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####

import bpy
bl_info = {
    "name": "Toggle Hide",
    "location": "3D View / Outliner, (Hotkey J)",
    "version": (0, 1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 81, 0),
    "description": "Toggle object visibility of outliner selection",
    "author": "kaio",
    "category": "Object",
}


class OUTLINER_OT_toggle_hide(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "outliner.toggle_hide"
    bl_label = "Toggle Hide"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    @classmethod
    def poll(self, context):
        ar = context.screen.areas
        __class__.area = next(
            (a for a in ar if a.type == 'OUTLINER'), None)
        return __class__.area

    def execute(self, context):
        objs = context.view_layer.objects
        sel_objs = {o for o in objs if o.select_get()}
        hid_objs = {o for o in objs if o.hide_get()}

        # Hide selected
        for o in sel_objs:
            o.hide_set(True)

        # Unhide hidden
        for o in hid_objs:
            o.hide_set(False)

        # Select objects marked in outliner
        bpy.ops.outliner.object_operation(
            {'area': __class__.area}, type='SELECT')

        # Re-hide others
        for o in hid_objs:
            if not o.select_get():
                o.hide_set(True)
        return {'FINISHED'}


addon_keymaps = []


def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(OUTLINER_OT_toggle_hide)
    wm = bpy.context.window_manager
    kc = wm.keyconfigs.addon.keymaps
    km = kc.get("Object Mode")
    if not km:
        km = kc.new("Object Mode")
    kmi = km.keymap_items.new("outliner.toggle_hide", "J", "PRESS")
    addon_keymaps.append((km, kmi))

    km = kc.get("Outliner")
    if not km:
        km = kc.new("Outliner", space_type="OUTLINER")
    kmi = km.keymap_items.new("outliner.toggle_hide", "J", "PRESS")
    addon_keymaps.append((km, kmi))


def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(OUTLINER_OT_toggle_hide)

    for km, kmi in addon_keymaps:
        km.keymap_items.remove(kmi)
    addon_keymaps.clear()

Here's as link to the githup addon/script page: https://github.com/K-410/blender-scripts/blob/master/2.8/toggle_hide.py

Answer 2

In Blender, the way selection works is a bit different. You can't really have something "selected" when it's hidden in the viewport.

You can hide an object with H, but to unhide, you generally either undo or alt-H to unhide all hidden objects. To have the same shortcut key do both an action and its opposite is pretty uncommon in Blender. The only thing I can think of is selecting all (A for select all AA to deselect all, but they are moving away from that by making alt-A deselect all).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SXSIQpYnl8

Answer 3

Here is my solution, you can use this script as an addon , then register a new keymap with H key using object.toggle_visible operator , then disable the default H keymap.

import bpy

bl_info = {
    "name": "HideShowToggle",
    "blender": (3, 10, 0),
    "category": "Object",
    "author": "Gumoumoumou",
    "doc_url": "https://space.bilibili.com/22223199"
}


def GetAllSelectedObjects():
    visibles = bpy.context.visible_objects
    bpy.ops.object.hide_view_clear()
    selecteds = bpy.context.selected_objects
    for o in bpy.data.objects:
        if not o in visibles:
            o.hide_set(True)
    return selecteds

def main(context):
    objs = GetAllSelectedObjects()
    for o in objs:
        o.hide_set(not o.hide_get())
        o.select_set(True)


class HideShowToggle(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Tooltip"""
    bl_idname = "object.toggle_visible"
    bl_label = "Toggle visibility of objects"

    def execute(self, context):
        main(context)
        return {'FINISHED'}


def menu_func(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(HideShowToggle.bl_idname, text=HideShowToggle.bl_label)


def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(HideShowToggle)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_object.append(menu_func)


def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(HideShowToggle)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_object.remove(menu_func)
```