[Blender] Why do we have to right click and delete scene objects rather than use the delete key?
polycounter lvl 11
I understand that I can delete scene objects by right clicking them and pressing delete. I also understand the concept of don't fix what ain't broke but it sounds to me like a lot of extra meaningless steps.
Why won't the delete key work? Since it sounds like the most obvious way to do things, I'm sure the Blender devs had a reason for restricting this hotkey. What is that reason?
Replies
Blender has some really strange defaults, this might be one of them. Reasons? Probably historical, worst case its because its overlapping with some other function you never even use.
The great thing about Blender on the other hand is that it is extremely customizable if you can be bothered.
Just have a look for the Delete key bindings in the preferences and turn off what you don't need. 'object.delete' and 'outliner.delete' are what you'll want to map and activate (checkmark). Turn off the optional delete confirmation for the former and activate hierarchy delete for the latter and it will all behave in a sensible way.
That's what I thought to and that's normally the case. But Blender 2.8 re-did everything. All the menus, HUDs, all the API's, all of it new. This tells me that they have no problem changing things and getting people to relearn the tools as long as the change makes sense. That is a mindset I deeply respect. But the point is, we should be able to use that to conclude that everything that is there must be there for a reason. Right?
For me, delete works (3.0.1); I haven't changed any settings. Blender's docs seem to agree:
Not sure why it isn't working for you!
I'm talking about deleting objects from Blender's outliner. I have no problem deleting objects from the viewport with the delete key.
It works for me in the outliner as well
This works since 2.90 (August 31, 2020; just checked on linux) so you are using 2.8 LTS (released June 3, 2020) ??
(So it's already superseded by another LTS version .. 2.93 LTS (June 2nd, 2021) and now 3.3 LTS (September 7, 2022) .. )
Nothing wrong with using an older version if that does what you need it to. I use 2.93 as my main, currently moving to 3.3 but I also use 2.83 for a specific purpose because some behavior changed in newer versions, ruining some aspects of existing scenes I have to access regularly.
Of course not.. i do have a 2.49 version installed 😀 .. but if someone is wondering about some behaviour while this was changed.. does make me wonder.. so the question: Why do we have to.. (it wasn't: how to change the behaviour of older 2.8... and i tried.. it doesn't work) seems a bit.. well.. blue-eyed.. No software ever does the things it does from the start.. and if there is a reason for using the older one... well then you have to live with it.. 🤷

Turns out, I am still on 2.8. Time to update.
All good - as long as the DEL key behavior is not the only reason to update (there are plenty of reasons, really).
Because you can definitely change that in 2.83. At any rate - whatever version you decide to update to it wouldn't hurt to go into Preferences - Keymap and look for outliner.delete as 'Name' and activate the hierarchy option. That deletes entire hierarchies if you select the parent.
The default behavior is Blender-weird (in my opinion anyway) and will only delete the selected parent and sort all the children into the hierarchy next level up.
That's because just
deletedeletes the collection and not the content of the collection.. objects can be in multiple collections.. therefor there is the delete hierarchy.. (some times other vocabulary really means something different.. and sometime not 😉)And yes: the good thing in blender is: you can change it very much.. and also you can have mutliple versions installed because they work directly after unzipping (even only shareing the same config in major numbers but you can even start it with individual configs).