On 2010-12-08 04:40, Bryan Hoyt | Brush Technology wrote:
Yes, alt-click is a very useful feature.
But it's often very hard to know which object you're selecting, because you can't actually see it.
An alternative to the exposé concept would be to have all the overlapping objects turn semi-transparent (say 30%), except for the currently-selected object. Might be simpler to implement, and equally useful? I guess there are some pros & cons -- it'd be harder to select an object (you'd still have to cycle thru), but it would be easier to see the position & appearance of the object.
Purely as a solution for multiple objects in one place I think this might be a very interesting option, as it's probably a lot more feasible than the exposée-like effect and could really make it easier to select an object.
It might be good to make the transparency effect "cumulative" though, in the sense that if you have 10 objects above the "current" object then the combined opacity of all those 10 objects would be 30%.
If you could use the scroll-wheel to cycle through the objects when Alt is pressed, that would make it faster, and avoid the chance of accidentally double-clicking (I do that all the time when using alt-click -- rather frustrating).
This could be an interesting addition. I think this could largely negate any advantages of being able to pick a shape vs. cycling through it.
Now, anyone wants to code this so we can try it out?