Selection issue

[00Ghz]

Hi,

 

I got a issue with selections and how they work. A few betas ago AD used to select the groups only if in the layer panel the groups were folded, and select the layers/objects of that group always if the group was expanded in the layer panel. This seemed to work nicely. If you had for example a folded group and you pressed Cmd you selected that individual layers/objects in that group.

 

However in latest betas selection always defaults to the group in the layer panel when selecting something on the canvas regardless if it is expanded or not. Is this a bug? If not why was it changed? For UI Design this behaviour is just a pain in the a*s and a major source of annoyance. I have to constantly press Cmd to select something in a group. And even that doesn’t work many times due to the simple fact that UI elements may be composed of multiple objects and Cmd + click selects the individual item under the cursor and not the sub groups.

 

There needs to be some user control over what selecting in the canvas does. Either always select groups, select groups if folded, or just select subgroups and individual layers. Current approach is broken :angry: . I could have lived with this issue for a while if I had to avoid making a hierarchy of groups.....but eh multiple artboards + off canvas support ain’t here yet  :blink:

 

Thanks,

Vlad

 

 

[MattP]

Hi Vlad,

 

None of this has changed for many months? :unsure:   The only selection-related change we've made at all in a long time is to automatically enable 'Edit all layers' for new documents (the bottom left button in the Layers panel). Selections are never (and have never been) made differently depending on the expanded state of objects in the Layers panel. To select something inside a group on the canvas you can Command-click to select, or just double click the group to move inside it. Once you are at a certain level, you can select sibling or parent objects without using any modifier.

 

For example:

 

Create 3 circles and group them. Now create 3 rectangles and select them and the circle group and group them. Now deselect everything. The behaviour will be as follows:

 

With no selection:

- Click with no modifiers will select the top level group

- Double click (or Command+Click) will select the object under the mouse within the top group - if you are over the circle group you will get that group as your selected item (i.e. you will not automatically go into it)

- Click with Command and Option over the circle group area will select into the group and just select the object you clicked over

 

With one of the objects in the top group selected:

- Clicking on one of the other objects or the other group will select it without needing extra modifiers or clicks

- Double clicking (or Command+Click) on the circle group will now select inside the group.

 

With one of the circles in the circle group selected:

- I can now select any of the circles and any of the rectangles because I am allowed to select all siblings and parents (and their siblings).

 

 

The process *should* be predictable and stable. I don't have any problems with it, but I do occasionally wish I had a 'back the selection out one level to the parent' key...

 

That's all there is to the logic at present - hope I described that okay and it makes sense? Let me know if you still have problems with it now that you know how it's supposed to be working and we can work from there... :)

 

Thanks,

Matt

[00Ghz]

Hi Matt,

 

Well first based on your instructions

 

- Double click (or Command+Click) will select the object under the mouse within the top group - if you are over the circle group you will get that group as your selected item (i.e. you will not automatically go into it) will actually do this:  Click with Command and Option over the circle group area will select into the group and just select the object you clicked over. 

 

Will have to work with layers as a workaround for now. Can’t remember the last time I created layers in AI through, it used to work fine there.

 

The behaviour for an expanded parent group should be the same as the ones for layers(this is what I was referring too). Once I expanded the parent group it should not select the parent group once I deselect and select again. If I move to another expanded parent group either via the layers panel or CMD + click on canvas then navigation should occur on that expanded group as previously described. However if the group is folded(like the layers are) then it will select the parent group once deselection/selection occurred. 

 

Current situation is bugged and makes working with multiple group sub-sub-sub- hierarchies :) a utter pain since selection will always snap to the upper top parent group if you deselect. I challenge you to try to navigate to more bottom subgroups on a constant basis. Have fun and soon you will start swearing at AD :(

 

Thanks,

Vlad

 

P.S. Having some fold/unfold selection if layer or group would help with productivity even more.

[00Ghz]

Anything? :)