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Is this a bug? Group selection doesn't work in outline mode


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I think this is a change in 1.9.

I'm used to and expect groups to behave the way the documentation says:  If you click on any of it it will select the group, and you can option-click or double click to select internal elements.  This DOES work normally with 1.9. However, when I switch to Outline Mode, it seems to stop working - clicking inside a group just selects the single element.

Steps to reproduce:  New document, make two squares, group them, clear selection, click on one (group is selected).  Go into outline mode, clear the selection, and click on a square. (Just the single square is selected)  Leave outline mode, and things go back to working normally.

This is neither the behavior I expect nor want, so I think it is bug.

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I would hazard a guess this is by design.

You could use split view with Outline on one side and pixel view on the other.

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Why would this be deliberate?  I don't understand why I have to choose between being able to see my low-contrast or light stroke stuff, and having the main purpose (in my use) of groups enabled. I do a lot of design for laser cutter stuff, so I often have large shapes (or groups) with a very light stroke, so outline view has been very useful to me in previous versions. Which I think didn't do this.

I tried what you suggest and it mostly works, though when the group is half in outline and half in vector sometimes clicking the vector side selects just a constituent object, though most of the time it selects the group.  That is very strange.  Anyway, after I figured out what was going on, just toggling outline view with the hotkey is easy enough, and honestly easier than sliding the divider back and forth.

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59 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I would hazard a guess this is by design.

This would be strange, because the difference between Layer and Group is declared in the way all other members of the group are selected, see for example here:

 

 

I therefore agree that there is no reason for different selection behavior.

21 minutes ago, Jesse Morris said:

Why would this be deliberate?  I don't understand why I have to choose between being able to see my low-contrast or light stroke stuff, and having the main purpose (in my use) of groups enabled.

 

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When I activate outline mode it is mostly to select a single object that I find it hard if not impossible to see and select in normal view mode (in a drawing with hundreds of overlapping objects), so I am very grateful that this difference between normal and outline mode exist. I think it is deliberate.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • Staff

My apologies for the delayed response here all!

On 2/8/2021 at 4:27 AM, Jesse Morris said:

If you click on any of it it will select the group, and you can option-click or double click to select internal elements.  This DOES work normally with 1.9. However, when I switch to Outline Mode, it seems to stop working - clicking inside a group just selects the single element.

I have confirmed with our developers that this behaviour is to be expected in Outline view mode;

"Outline mode shows you all the curves and this has different selection semantics to try to help you click to select something, no matter where it is or what it’s obscured by."

I hope this clears things up :)

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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  • 8 months later...

I stumbled upon this thread because of this weird behavior in outline mode.

Can you PLEASE at least add a toggle to this behavior, because I have a really heavy file that I am forced to work with in outline mode, because performance is so bad in the other modes. I also use a LOT of groups and symbols in this file. You see how this could be really annoying, right?

Another remedy for my situation would be to add a new view mode that disables all effects and other heavy-to-compute things so you could have a "light workmode" that still shows base colors and shapes and stuff. That'd be nice.

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