Improve selection methods

[Aleksandr Novakov]

Selection is something crucial in design software and should be intuitive and easy but at the moment it is very difficult to perform certain tasks when a project becomes complex.

Example: I have an object which contains multiple objects inside of it, maybe houndreds, thousands and I have no way to find where they are located in the layers panel.

On the canvas I can clearly see where they are and the simplest way to select them would be via a rectangle or lazzo selection, but "Hey, they're located inside of an object, so I can't, unless clicking on them one by one, but again, they're houndreds, thousands... so my only way to go at the moment is loosing that couple hours just to select multiple objects located inside of other objects.

In complex projects, often imported from some other software, it's so frequent to get multiple objects stack inside others and in such an unorganized wayt that it's impossible to manage everything by hand.

A very convenient way of selecting is offered in 3D modeling software such as Rhinoceros and the same system is also adopted in AutoCAD: When you draw a selection rectangle from left to right you select every object which is completely enclosed in the rectangle, but when you draw the selection rectangle from right to left you select every object that intersects the rectangle.

Having something similar in AD and the others would be highly recommended!

The image attatched doesn't represent a complex situation, but illustrates a very simple case. Imagine having thousands of separate lines here and there among the layers and you only need to select some of those and maybe some of the circles inside of the box. The most intuitive way would be to draw a selection rect all around the pieces of interest, and eventually adding more of such selections by pressing shift as always, but this is not possible at the moment, so please, work on this feature. It'd be a game changer.

Thank you in advance for the attention and good work!

[Dave Vector]

I like the idea of different select behaviours depending upon if the user is drawing left to right, as opposed to right to left.

You could have a similar function with the lasso depending upon whether your drew it clockwise or counter-clockwise.

[Pšenda]

7 hours ago, Aleksandr Novakov said:

should be intuitive and easy

It is for this reason that I prefer consistent, ie still the same selection behavior. The selection direction used (left to right/right to left/bottom to top) depends mainly on what I want to select, ie how the objects on the canvas are arranged, and from which side it will be better and more accurate to select them. If the behavior of the selection changed, it would be very unpleasant and unexpected for me.

[Aleksandr Novakov]

41 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

It is for this reason that I prefer consistent, ie still the same selection behavior. The selection direction used (left to right/right to left/bottom to top) depends mainly on what I want to select, ie how the objects on the canvas are arranged, and from which side it will be better and more accurate to select them. If the behavior of the selection changed, it would be very unpleasant and unexpected for me.

I guess it won't damage anyone if this could be an option. Anyway, mine is just an already existing and functional proposal to solve a problem that clearly is present and has to be solved somehow. One should always be able to select multiple objects inside of others by drawing a shape with the lasso or a rectangle around what's needed, without the risk of moving things around or other side effects, whether this being a temporary option or a brand new selection tool.

I really suggest you to try out Rhinoceros to see how well its selection system works. Rhino is really convenient in general for linework: you can draw any kind of polyline, offset things, make arrays of things and so much more I can even remember everything, but of course it lacks layers FXs, adjustments and such we are used to.

Of course it's difficult to imagine people's needs without facing their issues first, but believe me, this is something essential.

Basically the need is for an option to temporarly ignore hierarchy and only use enclosure to determine whether or not something should get selected.

[Pšenda]

The truth is that the current way of switching whole object vs intersect located in Preferences is not exactly practical and operative. Modifying the selection function with a modifier key (Alt/Ctrl/Shift) would be much more practical.

[Aleksandr Novakov]

56 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

The truth is that the current way of switching whole object vs intersect located in Preferences is not exactly practical and operative. Modifying the selection function with a modifier key (Alt/Ctrl/Shift) would be much more practical.

Exactly, but that wouldn't solve the problem I described anyway, and the problems seem not to end just with that so selection seems to need some more love in general and for sure they did fine adding the ability to select all objects of the choosen kind in ver. 1.9

[dominik]

23 hours ago, Aleksandr Novakov said:

Example: I have an object which contains multiple objects inside of it, maybe houndreds, thousands and I have no way to find where they are located in the layers panel.

Hello @Aleksandr Novakov,

you can select objects inside a group with the lasso with the following method:

1. Click on one of the objects inside the group to make it active.
2. Now lasso around the objects you want to select and it selects only objects that are contained in the same group.
3. This will not select objects inside another group.
4. You can add to the selection with SHIFT+lasso with the mouse.

I hope this helps.

To find an object in the layers panel you make one active and hit CTRL+K. Or you could activate 'Auto-scroll to show selection in Layers panel' under preferences > user interface.

Cheers,
d.

[Aleksandr Novakov]

1 hour ago, dominik said:

Hello @Aleksandr Novakov,

you can select objects inside a group with the lasso with the following method:

1. Click on one of the objects inside the group to make it active.
2. Now lasso around the objects you want to select and it selects only objects that are contained in the same group.
3. This will not select objects inside another group.
4. You can add to the selection with SHIFT+lasso with the mouse.

I hope this helps.

To find an object in the layers panel you make one active and hit CTRL+K. Or you could activate 'Auto-scroll to show selection in Layers panel' under preferences > user interface.

Cheers,
d.

Yes, this kinda helps. At the moment I can select something inside of a group/object using the move tool, then I can make a rectangle selection around what interests to me, limited to what's inside the same group. I can't find a way to convert the selection type to lasso, but it's a minor problem to me.

Being able to temporarly override hierarchy would be very helpful and being able to select with the lasso would be even better when needed, that's for sure.

[dominik]

5 minutes ago, Aleksandr Novakov said:

then I can make a rectangle selection around what interests to me

This, of course is correct. I mixed up 'lasso' and 'rectangle' in my explanation. A lasso selection could be useful. This is already possible with the Node Tool plus ALT to select nodes.

d.

[JET_Affinity]

As I've suggested in similar contexts: Commands should be provided to convert any path to either a cutting path or a marquee selection (with a Boolean option for 'contact' as opposed to 'surround').

JET

[sbe]

A solution selecting different Objects from different Groups/Layers could be, switching to „Outline-View“ and then selecting the nodes with the nodes-tool independent of layers, groups, background shapes, etc. like in Illustrator:

[loukash]

On 2/14/2021 at 10:17 AM, Pšenda said:

Modifying the selection function with a modifier key (Alt/Ctrl/Shift) would be much more practical.

Don't know if it's a new feature because I only noticed it about a week or two ago, but on Mac, holding ctrl while dragging does exactly that. Works both with the Move and the Node tool, but only if there's no other selection yet.

[Pšenda]

On 4/21/2021 at 8:33 PM, loukash said:

but on Mac, holding ctrl while dragging does exactly that.

Unfortunately, not yet in Windows.

Fix: even in Windows there is a (although very groundbreaking) modification of the way objects are selected.

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by Pšenda