Matalogue by Greg Zaal makes it easier to switch between different materials while shading, and different compositing setups while working with multiple scenes.
I’ve actually been working on this on and off for a little while, and find it to be super helpful to manage large scenes…
All it is is a list of materials (and lights and compositing trees) in the toolbar of the Node Editor.
Clicking on an item will switch the Node Editor to that material/lamp/compositing tree.
Yep, that’s it ?
There are multiple sources of node trees in Blender, namely:
By clicking on one of the listed items, the Node Editor will switch to that tree and select the related objects.
Lists all the materials according to the options below. Click on a name to switch to the nodes for that material.
Lists all the node groups, including both shader node groups and compositing node groups (separated by a short gap).
Clicking on one of the groups will open it up and allow you to edit the nodes inside without actually adding the group node anywhere.
If you’re currently editing shader nodes and you click on a compositing node group, you will be switched to the compositing node tree first and will need to click on the group again in order to open it. This is a known limitation, and I can’t figure out a way around it.
Lists all the lamp data in the current scene, as well as the World nodes. Click on a name to switch to the nodes for that lamp.
Lists each scene – clicking on one will take you to the compositing nodes for that scene.
When switching to a material that is not actually used by any objects, a dummy object (which has no vertices) is created. This is because the only way to control what material is displayed in the Node Editor via Python is by selecting the object that material is assigned to.
The dummy object is automatically deleted once it is no longer needed (though only when you switch to another material).