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Quick selection of connected nodes


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Hi there,

Has this been improved - or is it on the horizon for development? I need a quick way to select all the neighbouring nodes on a path so I can delete them (like option+ click with the node tool in Illustrator).

I don't want to spend time click-selecting individual nodes or trying to select them with a lasso tool. 

I'm still having to paste AD work into Illustrator to do this kind of thing. It literally takes a second to do it within Illustrator whereas it can take minutes to select all the nodes manually in AD - particularly with complex designs.

Is there is a way to do this that I've not understood? 

 

Cheers

 

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On 7/15/2020 at 6:33 AM, douglasrthomson said:

Hi there,

I need a quick way to select all the neighbouring nodes on a path so I can delete them (like option+ click with the node tool in Illustrator).

 

So you can delete them?

In Illustrator, if you alt-click a path with the Direct Selection Tool, it will select all the AnchorPoints of that path. But then tapping Delete deletes the whole path, not just the AnchorPoints.

In Affinity, if you just select a path with the Node Tool, the nodes highlight, but no nodes are 'selected'. Nonetheless, tapping Delete still deletes the whole path.

Or am I misunderstanding your intent?

In Affinity, if the path(s) of interest are unselected and you want to select them with the Node tool and then move the whole path(s),  you can:

  1. Click an un-selected path with the Node Tool (and shiftClick to select others).
  2. Tap Ctrl-A to 'select all'. That will select all the nodes of the highlighted path(s), but nothing else.
    OR
    Without changing tools, drag a marquee selection around highlighted path(s), or a portion of them. Doing this will not select other un-highlighted paths, even if they are fully within the selection marquee.
  3. Mousedown on any of the nodes to move the selection.

So you can arguably do steps 1 and 2a within a second, too, once you're accustomed to it.

The problem with Affinity's behavior in this regard is that, with a path already selected with the Move Tool, merely selecting the Node tool highlights all the path's nodes, but selects none of them (which is unintuitive to begin with), thereby changing the selection state of the current selection. To my mind, this is not justified. When a path is selected by the Move Tool, the whole path is selected (i.e., all its segments and nodes). That should not change by merely switching to a different selection tool. In other words, when a path is already selected by the Move Tool, switching to the Node Tool should leave all the nodes selected, not deselect them all. As a general rule, merely changing to a different tool has no business changing the current selection's selection state.

So I'm not defending Affinity's interface in this regard. Both programs' interfaces sometimes violate the base concept of "selection." But as always, Illustrator's interface is not the one to emulate or to aspire to. In multiple scenarios, Illustrator's behavior treats 'AnchorPoints' (nodes) as if they are separate and distinct entities from segments. But of course, a segment cannot even exist without nodes. There is no such thing as a 'node-less' path or segment. This is why Illustrator is more prone to creating so-called 'Stray Points' than any other program in class. It's also one of the many things that makes Bezier-based drawing seem so needlessly confounding to newcomers.

If you haven't yet, you should also get fully acquainted with Affinity's Point Transform Tool (F). Once acustomed to it, you may find this a refreshing change from Illustrator.

JET

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It would be nice if node selection worked like selecting files in file explorer; shift+click selects all the nodes between two and ctrl+click multi-selects one node at a time. Currently shift+click multi-selects one node at a time and selecting multiple nodes in one sweep can only be achieved by click+drag - both of which are fine, they're just less convenient. Also, if I delete a node, I'd like the following node to automatically be selected, like on DrawPlus. Again, not a necessity but for convenience.

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11 minutes ago, Cara said:

shift+click selects all the nodes between two

Perhaps Alt+Drag for lasso node selection is boosting up node selection a bit?

------
Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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21 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

Selecting direction clockwise or counter-clockwise?

I suppose clockwise in closed shapes would make the most sense but whichever as long as it's consistent.

21 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

Perhaps Alt+Drag for lasso node selection is boosting up node selection a bit?

Yes! Sorry, I'd forgotten to mention that in my previous post. Alt-drag is helpful but shift+click for multi-select would be a helpful option too, especially with complicated shapes.

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10 hours ago, JET_Affinity said:

Tap Ctrl-A to 'select all'. That will select all the nodes of the highlighted path(s), but nothing else.

This is what I meant. Thank you. Having used Illustrator for years I have a lot of 'muscle memory' and I couldn't figure out how to do something as simple as this.

It would be nice if there was a key+click combination to select all the connected nodes (and paths).

 

I had posted a couple of videos explaining what I was trying to do. I've edited that post and removed them as you have answered my question.

Cheers.

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