First let me say that I love the Instance Bar feature, and even if nothing changed it would already be a big help. That said, here are some things that would IMO help to improve it further.
I like all the functionality but the UI/UX needs to be improved IMO. The view feels pretty cluttered with lots of repetitious information, and I think the switching between different "show more info modes" is unnecessary.
Why write "Showing more information for: Something" at the bottom when that space could be used to actually show more information.
Putting a general infobox at the bottom similar to how it already works in the Properties Bar would free up the clutter a lot. It's important to easily get to info quickly, but that doesn't mean it has to be everywhere all the time.
Here is a mockup of my improved UI/UX suggestion:
Every menu item is made up of 3 sections, furthest left are the layer icons ( Locked / Hidden / Global ), in the middle is the actual object with the icon and its name, and on the right are all the extra icons ( Hierarchy / Template / Timeline / Plugin / Mesh ). The extra icons on the right are always visible if they apply, so if the object is in a hierarchy the hierarchy icon is always visible, no switching between "info modes" needed, if there is a mesh on the object the mesh icon is visible (forgot to add the Mesh icon in the mockup), etc. All the other text for more info will be shown in the bottom infobox when an object is selected
In addition to that icons are clickable too. It really speeds things up having the most used functionality just one double click away instead of having to right click and search through a long list of options (which is also great for more fine control).
Double clicking on these icons would do:
- Hierarchy icon = Select all children.
- Template icon = Apply changes to all replicas ( Maybe a bit too dangerous? ).
- Replica icon = Sync this replica with template.
- Timeline icon = Open timeline.
- Plugin icon = The same should happen as if you double click that object in the Project Bar.
- Mesh icon = Toggle between edit/stop edit mesh.
- Object name = Rename object.
I'm sure I forgot something, but I think it gets the idea across.
Show all relevant icons at the same time,
split the icons between left and right side of the object,
double click on icons has functionality,
additional info text goes in the bottom infobox.