Selection Box Without Moving Objects

[ASUNDER]

Is there a way to disable the moving of an object until it's first selected?  Then you can move it on the second mouse click + drag.
You know how many times I'm trying to select something and I go to drag a selection box but I moved something else instead.
Is there a modifier key for the move tool that disables moving and only will make selections?

I know of hiding things, locking them, only selecting groups, changing the selection to 'full bounds only' in the settings.
But still, those are extra steps.  It would be ideal to have it never move something on first drag if it isn't already selected.

[GarryP]

Have you tried using a different “Auto-select” option (maybe “Groups”) in the Context Toolbar?

I’m not saying that it will provide everything that you want but it might be part of it.

[ASUNDER]

1 hour ago, GarryP said:

Have you tried using a different “Auto-select” option (maybe “Groups”) in the Context Toolbar?

I’m not saying that it will provide everything that you want but it might be part of it.

Ya true.  I decided to keep the 'Auto Select' on 'Objects' so that it prefers objects.  The bounding boxes of groups are always huge, and so their jurisdiction bubbles can take up most of the screen, so there is nowhere you can click safely without inadvertently selecting groups.  And if you are dragging for a selection box you move the damn groups too.  So I either put a quarter in the swear jar or punch out my computer monitor.

The 'Objects' choice seems to smooth out that problem; being able to select things within a groups' bounding box.  If I want to select a group, that event is ten times less often than selecting objects, so I can select groups only from the layers panel, and that is still reasonably efficient.

I don't like the setting that you have to envelope an entire object with the rectangle marquee or it won't select, so I keep that off.  The drawing canvas is the wild west for selecting things.  I wish there was a 90% selection or majority selection or something.
Maybe I just have to get used to locking groups.  But still, numbing the moving of objects until they are first selected would be the cats ass.

[carl123]

7 minutes ago, ASUNDER said:

But still, numbing the moving of objects until they are first selected would be the cats ass.

I don't know the complexity of your documents but you can also use the Node Tool to select objects and move them (shapes etc) though some objects require you to switch back to the Move Tool to move them after selecting them with the Node Tool

[ASUNDER]

2 hours ago, carl123 said:

I don't know the complexity of your documents

The intention is all kinds.  From the most basic designs to full out 4' x 6' posters that includes up to a thousand unique characters.
Example: Yesterday I vectorized my logo.  It's almost done.

The nodes got pretty complex.  I've been finding that by far the biggest time sink is connecting nodes and polishing lines.
Which is made worse by my inexperienced object selection skill (The reason I'm asking about a better way).

The fire that overlaps the sword was a major problem.  Since I've never done digital art before, I'm still with a "Pencil it then Pen it then Colour it" methodology.
So I wasn't smart enough to get the sword coloured before continuing to draw (Never had the paradigm of layers before).  I'm going to have to retrain old habits.  I probably already have some training scars with this program that I will have to correct as I learn of better ways.  My brand new shortcuts, for example, I'm having to force new muscle memory to use the superior methods instead of be lazy to get it done, having that sweet dopamine drip about having a finished product.

Misclicked a colour and it actually looks pretty sick.

I almost just left it like this:

There are bottlenecks that are killing my workflow.  Things like the lettering above the water line.  I wanted to give it a heavier stroke so I had to manually break every node that touched it then selected each top half letter and changed their stroke, one by one.  A single misclick and I had to start reselecting all over, because the undo is there to annoy you instead of actually help mitigate the consequences of selection misclicks (it bundles selections into one entry).  I don't know how to use that one line to cut the other ones into two halves; but I'm sure there is a way.

Another issue is it starts to get laggy.  That's bizarre to me.  I can run video games on ultra graphics without a single stutter but my $4k computer can't draw static lines and colours without lag?  Moving a layer up or down the stack can be like a 200ms latency per movement.  I've never had anything else lag like that.
My graphics card rides the special bus though.  It thinks that it's a good idea to send unfinished things to the monitor instead of make me wait the extra two seconds for it to process everything and then send it at all once so it's nice and smooth.  So I always get stutters, flashes.  I sit there watching a webpage get built; every element drawn then resized then disappears then appears elsewhere etc.  It's a good thing I don't have any epilepsy trouble.  I wonder if there is any clever nvidia control panel settings for AD2.

Ya, the node tool movements are helpful.  I noticed that I can drag to reshape a curve without having to use the handles or make a new node.
And selecting multiple nodes is a dream, so I don't have to break the connections to resize things.

I'm starting to think the vector gradient fill tool is not the best colouring method.  If I fill closed shapes then the colour moves when adjusting it.  The fill tool doesn't, which is almost twice as much work (unless I select both objects I guess).  But then I could tag all the coloured shapes for later.  But I don't have to if my house is in order.  Ugh so much to think about.