Change active collection

Question

Is there a way to change the "active" collection? I can check witch collection is currently selected with this code:

>>> bpy.context.collection
bpy.data.collections['My Collection']

But I can't change it using this property because is read-only. Is there a way to do that?

EDIT

After some research I found out part of the solution. I can use this code to get and set the active layer collection.

# Get the current active layer collection and store it in x
x = bpy.context.view_layer.active_layer_collection
# Select another layer collection from the outliner,
# then use this code to restore x as active
bpy.context.view_layer.active_layer_collection = x

the new problem is that x is not a Collection object, is a LayerCollection and we can't pass any collection created with the method:

myColl = bpy.data.collections.new('My Collection')
bpy.context.scene.collection.children.link(myColl)

So the refined question is: How to obtain a LayerCollection for a particular Collection to change the Active Collection?

score 11 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 14 '19 at 12:08

11

In Blender 2.80, I've had some success with something simpler that previous @johnzero7's solution :

collection = bpy.data.collections.new('My Collection')
bpy.context.scene.collection.children.link(collection)

# NOTE the use of 'collection.name' to account for potential automatic renaming
layer_collection = bpy.context.view_layer.layer_collection.children[collection.name]
bpy.context.view_layer.active_layer_collection = layer_collection

answered Oct 14 '19 at 12:08

rotoglup

353
2
10

1

It doesn't work for collection that is inside another collection, does it? – cppBeginner Oct 08 '20 at 04:27
1

That's possible, this answer does not indeed fit a generic "change active collection" solution, it assumes that you created/linked the collection so there's no need for a full search in all layer tree. – rotoglup Oct 08 '20 at 07:45
OK, thanks for clarifying. – cppBeginner Oct 08 '20 at 09:07

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 03 '19 at 01:59

The only way I could find to obtain the LayerCollection for a particular Collection is to transverse bpy.context.layer_collection looking for the name I want

#Recursivly transverse layer_collection for a particular name
def recurLayerCollection(layerColl, collName):
    found = None
    if (layerColl.name == collName):
        return layerColl
    for layer in layerColl.children:
        found = recurLayerCollection(layer, collName)
        if found:
            return found

#Create one collection
myColl = bpy.data.collections.new('My Collection')
bpy.context.scene.collection.children.link(myColl)

#Create another collection
myColl = bpy.data.collections.new('Another Collection')
bpy.context.scene.collection.children.link(myColl)

#Change the Active LayerCollection to 'My Collection'
layer_collection = bpy.context.view_layer.layer_collection
layerColl = recurLayerCollection(layer_collection, 'My Collection')
bpy.context.view_layer.active_layer_collection = layerColl

#Change the Active LayerCollection to 'Another Collection'
layer_collection = bpy.context.view_layer.layer_collection
layerColl = recurLayerCollection(layer_collection, 'Another Collection')
bpy.context.view_layer.active_layer_collection = layerColl

It's weird to have to iterate over all collections to get or set the exclusion state of a particular one... — Gorgious, May 05 '21 at 07:02
@Gorgious but that is the only way currently to also capture nested collections? but it does not solve this problem https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/302094/how-can-i-fully-select-a-collection-using-python-with-blue-highlight — Harry McKenzie, Oct 03 '23 at 01:28
@HarryMcKenzie yes, it also doesn't take into account that a collection can be linked in several layer collections in a single view layer. This solution only selects the first one it found. You might be interested in my discussion over on devtalk — Gorgious, Oct 03 '23 at 08:29

Change active collection

2 Answers2

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