Keeping Object Selected In The Outliner After Deselecting It In 3D View

I've created my own Graph Editor and Outliner, my problem is that I want to be able to keep the previously selected object selected in my Outliner so that it continues to display

Solution 1:

@Adam, the technique you have proposed works but interferes with the active selection also, which is not ideal. Ideally, your window and what's selected after your window is open must be decoupled. The way you can do that is by:

1. Making a selectionConnection. See the docs.

EDIT: This selection connection need not be locked. To do this:

sel_conn_name = "graphSelConn"
if cmds.selectionConnection(sel_conn_name, q=True, exists=True):
    cmds.deleteUI(sel_conn_name)

cmds.selectionConnection(sel_conn_name, lock=False)

Note: selectionConnections are physical UI objects, whose names need to be unique to be re-created, just like windows. Hence we do the exists check as seen above.

EDIT: This will be the selection connection that your outlinerEditor would be using.

We make another selection connection that the animCurveEditor would be using:

sel_conn_curves_name = "graphSelConnCurves"
if mc.selectionConnection(sel_conn_curves_name, q=True, exists=True):
    mc.deleteUI(sel_conn_curves_name)

mc.selectionConnection(sel_conn_curves_name)

Why do we use 2 selection connections and what are the mainListConnection flags for?

The mainListConnection would be the selectionConnection that will be used as the primary/initial source for this editor. The selectionConnection flag will hold the selectionConnection object that will receive/hold the objects that are selected on this editor.

So in our case, the outlinerEditor will have 'modelList' as its mainListConnection because it needs to start off showing objects that were selected/active. The animCurveEditor would need the objects selected on the outlinerEditor as its primary source, so we use the outlinerEditor's selectionConnection holder.

2. Feeding the selectionConnection to your respective outlinerEditor and animCurveEditor. This can be done by passing our sel_conn_name to the selectionConnection flags of both the outlinerEditor and animCurveEditor.

3. EDIT: Locking the selection connection ONLY for the outlinerEditor, so it won't be affected by changes to the active list. You do this by setting lockMainConnection=True for it. Check the docs. You then feed the outlinerEditor's selectionConnection, which is sel_conn_name to the mainListConnection of animCurveEditor. You give the animCurveEditor it's own selectionConnection to work with, in this case sel_conn_curves_name. It is important to unlock main connection of the animCurveEditor as we want it to reflect selected attributes. We do this by setting lockMainConnection=False.

Here is the modified script for you:

import maya.cmds as mc

mc.window(w=500)
mc.paneLayout(configuration='vertical2', swp=1, ps=[2, 70, 0])
mc.frameLayout(w=150, h=100, lv=0)

sel_conn_name = "graphSelConn"
if mc.selectionConnection(sel_conn_name, q=True, exists=True):
    mc.deleteUI(sel_conn_name)

mc.selectionConnection(sel_conn_name)


sel_conn_curves_name = "graphSelConnCurves"
if mc.selectionConnection(sel_conn_curves_name, q=True, exists=True):
    mc.deleteUI(sel_conn_curves_name)

mc.selectionConnection(sel_conn_curves_name)

mc.outlinerEditor(mainListConnection='modelList',
                  selectionConnection=sel_conn_name,
                  lockMainConnection=True,
                  showShapes=1, 
                  showReferenceNodes=0, 
                  showReferenceMembers=0, 
                  showAttributes=1, 
                  showSelected=0, 
                  highlightActive=1, 
                  showAnimCurvesOnly=0, 
                  autoExpand=1,
                  showConnected=1, 
                  showDagOnly=0, 
                  ignoreDagHierarchy=1, 
                  expandConnections=0, 
                  showCompounds=0, 
                  showNumericAttrsOnly=0,
                  autoSelectNewObjects=0,
                  doNotSelectNewObjects=1,
                  transmitFilters=0,
                  showSetMembers=1,
                  setFilter='defaultSetFilter'
                  )
mc.setParent('..')

mc.frameLayout(w=1, h=100, lv=0)

mc.animCurveEditor(mlc=sel_conn_name,
                   slc=sel_conn_curves_name,
                   lockMainConnection=False,
                   dak=0,
                   di=0,
                   dat='off')
mc.setParent('..')
mc.showWindow()

Hope that was useful.

Solution 2:

Update

Ok, I think I've got an answer for this:

import maya.cmds as mc

Xsl = (mc.ls (sl=1, sn=1))[0]

def toastFUNC (arg=0):
    mc.animCurveEditor (curveEditor, e=1, lck=1)

mc.window(w=500)
mc.paneLayout( configuration='vertical2', swp=1, ps=[2, 70, 0] )    
mc.frameLayout(w=150, h=100, lv=0)

mc.outlinerEditor(mlc='modelList', slc='modelList', showReferenceNodes=0, showReferenceMembers=0,    showAttributes=1, showSelected=0, highlightActive=1, showAnimCurvesOnly=0, autoExpand=1,
showConnected=1, showDagOnly=0, ignoreDagHierarchy=1, expandConnections=0, showCompounds=0,   showNumericAttrsOnly=0,
autoSelectNewObjects=0, doNotSelectNewObjects=1, transmitFilters=0, showSetMembers=1,    setFilter='defaultSetFilter', lck=1, sec=toastFUNC)

mc.setParent('..')

mc.frameLayout(w=1, h=100, lv=0)
curveEditor = mc.animCurveEditor(mlc='modelList', slc='modelList', dak=1, di=0, dat='off', lck=1)
mc.setParent('..')
mc.showWindow()

If anyone has any tips for using the selectionConnection I'd still love to hear some :)