In Selector tool, a new object selection mode is available: selecting by touch. In this mode, you draw a freehand path across the objects; when you release mouse button, all objects that are touched by this path get selected. This mode is very convenient in situations where you need to select objects so intermingled that selecting them by the rectangular rubberband is too difficult and so numerous that click-selecting them one by one is too tedious.
To activate selecting by touch, whenever you are drawing a rubberband rectangle, just press Alt to switch it to the touch mode. The rectangle will disappear and a red touch path will be shown instead. When dragging from an empty space, you can press Alt first and then start to drag to get the touch mode (note that your selection must be empty, otherwise Alt+dragging will move the selected objects instead). To start a touch selection from a point over an object, or to add to existing selection by touching, press Shift+Alt and then start to drag.
Comments:
I'm not too fond of the name "touch selection"; naming suggestions are welcome. Note however that this is not a "lasso" because you don't need to enclose objects, just touch them; and it is not "magic wand" because it does not try to select similar-styled objects.
Some Adobe Illustrator users have requested a support for an AI-like selection mode where any object _touched_ by the selection rectangle is selected. Inkscape's new touch selection mode should satisfy them - it is a superset of AI's functionality because a touch path can be arbitrary and not only a box. Note, however, that AI gets this exactly backwards: in it, a rectangle selection selects by touching, whereas a freehand "lasso tool" needs to enclose objects to select them (although its definition of "enclosing" is rather strange - I was able to get very difficult to explain results with that tool).
On 4/12/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
In Selector tool, a new object selection mode is available: selecting by touch. In this mode, you draw a freehand path across the objects; when you release mouse button, all objects that are touched by this path get selected. This mode is very convenient in situations where you need to select objects so intermingled that selecting them by the rectangular rubberband is too difficult and so numerous that click-selecting them one by one is too tedious.
To activate selecting by touch, whenever you are drawing a rubberband rectangle, just press Alt to switch it to the touch mode. The rectangle will disappear and a red touch path will be shown instead. When dragging from an empty space, you can press Alt first and then start to drag to get the touch mode (note that your selection must be empty, otherwise Alt+dragging will move the selected objects instead). To start a touch selection from a point over an object, or to add to existing selection by touching, press Shift+Alt and then start to drag.
Comments:
I'm not too fond of the name "touch selection"; naming suggestions are welcome. Note however that this is not a "lasso" because you don't need to enclose objects, just touch them; and it is not "magic wand" because it does not try to select similar-styled objects.
Some Adobe Illustrator users have requested a support for an AI-like selection mode where any object _touched_ by the selection rectangle is selected. Inkscape's new touch selection mode should satisfy them - it is a superset of AI's functionality because a touch path can be arbitrary and not only a box. Note, however, that AI gets this exactly backwards: in it, a rectangle selection selects by touching, whereas a freehand "lasso tool" needs to enclose objects to select them (although its definition of "enclosing" is rather strange - I was able to get very difficult to explain results with that tool).
Pretty neat.
One thing about the rect selection approach is that if you drag the corner too far you can always just back up and no harm is done. With line drawing if I draw the line to far I guess I just have to ESC-cancel and start over. I think they can both be useful.
Other possible names would be : * contact selection * intersection selection Or you might want to emphasize what it looks like rather than how it behaves: * drawing selection * scribble selection
--bb
On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 05:39:55PM +0900, Bill Baxter wrote:
On 4/12/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
I'm not too fond of the name "touch selection"; naming suggestions are welcome. Note however that this is not a "lasso" because you don't need to enclose objects, just touch them; and it is not "magic wand" because it does not try to select similar-styled objects.
Other possible names would be :
- scribble selection
+1 for scribble selection. It has a nice ring to it, and for me, at least, brings to mind the right mental image for how I'd expect the tool to be used.
bulia byak wrote:
Comments:
I'm not too fond of the name "touch selection"; naming suggestions are welcome. Note however that this is not a "lasso" because you don't need to enclose objects, just touch them; and it is not "magic wand" because it does not try to select similar-styled objects.
What about using a fishing metaphor such as: Snag; hook; or catch?
bulia byak wrote:
Comments:
I'm not too fond of the name "touch selection"; naming suggestions are welcome. Note however that this is not a "lasso" because you don't need to enclose objects, just touch them; and it is not "magic wand" because it does not try to select similar-styled objects.
What about using a fishing metaphor such as: Snag; hook; or catch?
What about "slip on"? (just a guess...)
Molumen
I'm protected by SpamBrave http://www.spambrave.com/
I am happy with touch selection. It describes what it does and has already been used half a dozen times :-) Erik
Erik Halbert kaver@...45...
On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 05:16:08 -0300 "bulia byak" <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
In Selector tool, a new object selection mode is available: selecting by touch. In this mode, you draw a freehand path across the objects; when you release mouse button, all objects that are touched by this path get selected. This mode is very convenient in situations where you need to select objects so intermingled that selecting them by the rectangular rubberband is too difficult and so numerous that click-selecting them one by one is too tedious.
Terrific! You're really adding great features every day now, 0.46 will be amazing if you continue like this :)
I think it would make sense to have this selection mode for the node context as well. It would probably be better to use the "lasso" kind of selection for that as nodes are harder to hit.
-- Gustav
On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 01:41:48 +0200, Gustav Broberg <broberg@...542...> wrote:
I think it would make sense to have this selection mode for the node context as well. It would probably be better to use the "lasso" kind of selection for that as nodes are harder to hit.
Not necessarily -- I think "touch selection" should work pretty well for nodes provided there's a tolerance radius, where a node is selected so long as you get within some distance of it (the size of a node handle should be sufficient).
-mental
Any thoughts on doing this like a quick mask selection so areas can be painted in and out of the selection?
On 4/12/07, MenTaLguY <mental@...32...> wrote:
On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 01:41:48 +0200, Gustav Broberg <broberg@...542...> wrote:
I think it would make sense to have this selection mode for the node context as well. It would probably be better to use the "lasso" kind of selection for that as nodes are harder to hit.
Not necessarily -- I think "touch selection" should work pretty well for nodes provided there's a tolerance radius, where a node is selected so long as you get within some distance of it (the size of a node handle should be sufficient).
-mental
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On 4/13/07, Aaron Elmquist <ironranger@...155...> wrote:
Any thoughts on doing this like a quick mask selection so areas can be painted in and out of the selection?
Exclusion by touch, yes. I'm thinking about it. The only problem is to sort out the keyboard modifiers.
could we have a way to use the selected path as the 'touch' path rather than having to draw it? so you can keep them?
On 4/13/07, bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 4/13/07, Aaron Elmquist <ironranger@...155...> wrote:
Any thoughts on doing this like a quick mask selection so areas can be painted in and out of the selection?
Exclusion by touch, yes. I'm thinking about it. The only problem is to sort out the keyboard modifiers.
-- bulia byak Inkscape. Draw Freely. http://www.inkscape.org
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On 2007-April-13 , at 23:42 , bulia byak wrote:
On 4/13/07, Aaron Elmquist <ironranger@...155...> wrote:
Any thoughts on doing this like a quick mask selection so areas can be painted in and out of the selection?
Exclusion by touch, yes. I'm thinking about it. The only problem is to sort out the keyboard modifiers.
Indeed, it seems the selector tool is out of modifiers. In fact there is already a conflict: you used ALT for touch selection which steels it from "Select under". "Select under" is listed in the "select within group" section of keys.svg but in fact it worked everywhere (and was quite useful in my opinion). I am studying keys.svg and trying to come up with a decent solution but I guess there is a point when a toggle will be needed to accommodate for different sets of behaviors.
JiHO --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/
On 4/13/07, jiho <jo.irisson@...155...> wrote:
Indeed, it seems the selector tool is out of modifiers. In fact there is already a conflict: you used ALT for touch selection which steels it from "Select under".
Nope, it was just a bug that I just found myself and fixed :) Alt+click selects under, Alt+drag selects by touch. No conflict here. Should work properly now, please test.
"Select under" is listed in the "select within group" section of keys.svg but in fact it worked everywhere (and was quite useful in my opinion).
Actually the title of the section is <title>Select within group, select under</title>, because they are kinda hard to separate. But it does not mean of course that selecting under works only in groups.
I am studying keys.svg and trying to come up with a decent solution but I guess there is a point when a toggle will be needed to accommodate for different sets of behaviors.
Maybe... but I'll keep trying :)
okay ive used this for a few days now.
I think i'm in love . reigon slection is better for many objects within a awkward selection imo . but touch is the best method for me since i only work with a reduced number of element groups .
one problem i have is when i use a shape as the background image but want to select only the objexts ontop/within it . reigon is still better.
On 2007-April-14 , at 01:21 , Andy Fitzsimon wrote:
okay ive used this for a few days now.
I think i'm in love . reigon slection is better for many objects within a awkward selection imo . but touch is the best method for me since i only work with a reduced number of element groups .
I am in love too! I am trying the new engraving mode of the calligraphy tool and with all these paths very close to each other, scribble selection is a must (I think I understand why bulia came with this great idea just after introducing engraving in the calligraphy tool!... but well I do not read minds so I may as well be mistaking)
one problem i have is when i use a shape as the background image but want to select only the objexts ontop/within it . reigon is still better.
This annoys me too but in fact the problem is the same with rectangle selection if you need to start selecting inside your background shape. My solutions are: - move the background shape to a separate layer and lock it - lock the object itself (right clic > object properties > lock) but then beware it is currently difficult to unlock if you close the object properties window because you cannot select your object directly anymore. The workaround is to deselect "Ignore locked objects" in Inkscape preferences > Selecting and then you can tab through your objects to select you background object to edit it (Tab starts selecting objects from the bottom so it is usually quite quick). Or you can use the xml editor of course.
JiHO --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/
On 4/13/07, jiho <jo.irisson@...155...> wrote:
I am in love too! I am trying the new engraving mode of the calligraphy tool and with all these paths very close to each other, scribble selection is a must (I think I understand why bulia came with this great idea just after introducing engraving in the calligraphy tool!...
Spot on :)
participants (12)
-
Aaron Elmquist -
Andy Fitzsimon -
Bill Baxter -
bulia byak -
Daniel Hulme -
Gustav Broberg -
jiho -
john cliff -
kaver -
MenTaLguY -
momo -
singlecell