[1.9.0.733] "Select Same / Object" suggestions

[Mithferion]

58 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

A simple "Select Inverse" command nested with the existing Select Previous and Select Next would work for that. It doesn't need to be associated with any 'Select Same..." feature.

It could be as simple as that, I agree. But not for all scenarios, sin maybe I want to select within a certain kind of objects, like Text-based ones.

 

58 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

For those not familiar, FreeHand's Graphic Find and Replace was not a clutter; it resided in a single but powerful palette. It could select combinations of attributes and ranges where appropriate.

That would be a "mee too" feature, even if it is for a very powerful tool. I don't say it's not powerful (I take your word for it), but I am open to explore other options.

 

58 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

SQL is fine for databases. I also use it everyday. But if you want to provide for user-defined logic for finds (yeah, I'm a FileMaker guy), in a graphics program, you can kill that stone—and countless more—with one bird: a JavaScript object model, API, and documentation.

And that would work for those who are familiar with those technologies, but not everyone wants to spend time learning it, so I thought it might be a good idea to have a complex search windows for those in between simple Selects and the most advanced ones.

 

58 minutes ago, JET_Affinity said:

Hope for making it something better at this point just constitutes more Feature Request discussion.

And I am happy to discuss this things, since that's the purpose of the forums. Even if it doesn't get applied, I am happy to do it.

Best regards!

[CLC]

On 9/20/2020 at 1:18 PM, Mithferion said:

Well @dominik and every body watching, these are the first mockups I came up with. The main purpose is to think about all of the possibilities of how good can this feature be...

...

Hi @Mithferion, pretty good UX job I think, such a panel would be something awesome. Thank you!
Let's hope Serif will appreciate your enthusiasm and will incorporate something like that in all the software 🙂

Anyaway, IIRC, @MattP said that current implementation is rather simple and he's planning on expanding it further, so I'm not worried that such a useful feature would be left unattended when it was already implemented 😀

[Intuos5]

On 9/20/2020 at 1:18 PM, Mithferion said:

Well @dominik and every body watching, these are the first mockups I came up with. The main purpose is to think about all of the possibilities of how good can this feature be.

• This would be the main and basic view of the Panel. Bottom part can be for some of the very specific search conditions that some mentioned
• The first Filters could appear after selecting and object, to ease the use

A bit of an explanation:

1. The first combo list could be populated with the Columns that are on the Table that appears on my previous posts
2. The second combo list would contain the operators, according to the previous combo list option selected
3. The third combo list is for the attributes. In this example, the color is shown as in many parts of the program, but in the following screenshots you can see what the other options could contain
4. Plus icon to add a filter
5. X icon to delete a filter
6. R is explaine below
7. The AND that appears could be changed for an OR when clicked

This is an example of what the first and second combo list could contain:

• What if there are no objects and we want to put filters from scratch? This could be the "empty" panel view, and the plus symbol could be there to add a new Filter:

• The next thing, how could we replace the content. Well, I propose the "R" button on the right part of the Filter. If activated, it could look like this
• The "Select / Replace" button could do only the Select or the Replace operation, according to the R button being activated or not

• Now, remember I mentioned values? This is how it could look like, with the Replace option activated:

• And this is how a very populated Panel would look like. Notice that the Filters have the Columns (with a few corrections) of the Table that appears in my previous posts:

 

• Lastly, the hamburguer menu could be to Select all Filters and Save the Filters, to have them as Presets for future selections.

I hope you excuse the lack of further detail, and that I couldn't do a longer explanation, but I hope this gives you a good idea of what I am proposing, for the benefit of all.

Best regards!

Personally, I like this approach, it reminds me of filters the way they are applied in Revit and Autocad. It has a simple UI and makes it easy to get started.

However, the thing I dislike, especially in the more sophisticated approaches that were presented throughout this topic, is that Affinity is not a CAD program, nor a database. I want to make changes to my objects in a quick and easy manner with the least amount of clicks, which is why I also propose to add more filtering options to the Select > Same menu:

Furthermore, what I am missing in particular is to apply a certain appearance (fill & stroke parameters) directly to a layer (or sub-layer for that matter). So rather than filtering through and manually selecting and replacing appearances through the Select/Replace studio, I would sort my objects in particular layers with an appearance associated to them. When exporting from CAD software (and when DXF/ DWG import becomes supported by the Affinity apps) my objects will already be associated to the correct layers and all that's left for me to do is change the appearance parameter of all objects that are within a layer for the reason that they are supposed to look the same. This way, I avoid a lot of manual editing and let the layer appearance system leverage most of the work for me.

 

[Mithferion]

14 hours ago, Intuos5 said:

I want to make changes to my objects in a quick and easy manner with the least amount of clicks, which is why I also propose to add more filtering options to the Select > Same menu:

The problem with this is that you are trying specific use cases that may not apply for all, and adding many more of those is not a goog idea, in my opinion. What I am proposing considers the attributes of the object you have selected, filling the Panel automatically. Even more, it could be possible that you select which attributes to show/fill in said Panel.

Best regards!

[Intuos5]

7 hours ago, Mithferion said:

The problem with this is that you are trying specific use cases that may not apply for all, and adding many more of those is not a goog idea, in my opinion. What I am proposing considers the attributes of the object you have selected, filling the Panel automatically. Even more, it could be possible that you select which attributes to show/fill in said Panel.

Best regards!

FWIW I would like to see this filter in particular, since it can be easily be mapped as a shortcut (as opposed to the more advanced filtering panel). That's not to say I don't like the idea, more that the interface should be simple and not too wide so it won't fit alongside other studios. Furthermore, adding a new filter, should, as you proposed in the post I quoted require only a few clicks to set-up.