Hi Pior,

re:
> FWIW I too have been having issues with deselection, as ctrl-drag (= rectangle marquee) never did it for me
> as far as I can remember - only regular ctrl-click does it.

That's true for version 4 but it's been improved in the current v5 beta.

https://moi3d.com/wiki/V5Beta

You can get the v5 beta at https://moi3d.com/beta.htm .


> BTW, on a semi-related note : since I never really tried it before I had some playing around with
> "multiple selection : only with shift key" OFF - and while it is interesting, I feel like it conflicts with
> the way MOI lets one deselect things by clicking in the empty space. Because that means that
> someone who actually wants to select multiple things without having to press shift will very
> likely lose their selection if they work fast.

There is no conflict that I'm aware of. Clicking in empty space to deselect works the same whether Multiple selection = "Only with Shift key" or Multiple selection = "Always".

The default is "Always" because one of the earliest design goals for MoI was to be able to do basic operations in it without needing to touch the keyboard at all. It's one of the things that gives MoI some of its unusual traits.

- Michael

Hello Michael, thank you for the quick support as always :)

I see - this may be one good incentive to switch to V5 indeed, I'll keep it mind.

As for the click-deselect behavior : well, it isn't so much a conflict in the technical sense but rather a philosophical one : the unusual (but certainly original and interesting) behavior of being able to add to a selection by just clicking (without holding a modifier key) gives a certain feel of stability hence favors fast operation ; but, fast operation means a higher potential for missed clicks. And since in this case a missed click (= a click on empty space) means deselecting everything, it becomes a negative experience for the user since it means that important work (like a carefully made complex selection of elements) gets lost very easily by accident. So from an error prevention standpoint I would say that it would be more consistent to have the click on empty space trigger a deselect of the *last selected* item, as opposed to deselecting *everything*.

But of course this would be a large change which could disrupt user habits, requiring the introduction of another input for deselect all, so that's that not feasable. So if anything I think it would be interesting to have a little option to disable the "click on empty space to deselect" behavior when the user is using the option to use Shift to add to the current selection, and the Shift key is indeed being held. Because it doesn't make sense ("philosophically" speaking if I may say) to accidentally deselect everything when one is actually proactively holding down the "add stuff to my selection" key.

As a matter of fact and FWIW, I just paid attention to my muscle memory and even though I do use the "Shift to add to the selection" option, I personally always perform "deselect all" by clicking on empty space *without* holding down shift ... probably because I picked up the habit after switching to Blender a few years ago. Hence I personally wouldn't mind if shift+clicking on empty space did nothing, leaving the selection untouched. Or perhaps "walking back" the selection one step at a time, removing elements one after the other in reverse selection order. In both cases that would mean no more risks or losing an important selection because of a missclick when attempting to add stuff to current.

On a related note it could also be interesting to have the option to have Shift-marquee not only be an "add", but also as a toggler of selection state (just like it does on click). But perhaps this too is already adressed in V5.

Hi Pior,

re:
> since it means that important work (like a carefully made complex selection of elements) gets
> lost very easily by accident.

There is a remedy in place for when that happens.

If you make a selection error like you describe, if you do an undo (Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on Mac), the selection action that you just performed (including a click on an empty spot to deselect all) will be reverted and the selection you had before that will be restored.

This "selection undo" is only kept for the last selection action though and it's an ephemeral state, it will get blown away if you do anything else that generates another undo unit.

So if you make a selection mistake do undo before you do any further actions.


> the unusual (but certainly original and interesting) behavior of being able to add to a
> selection by just clicking (without holding a modifier key) gives a certain feel of stability
> hence favors fast operation ; but, fast operation means a higher potential for
> missed clicks.

Well it's not _forcing_ you to do things quickly. If you are going too quickly and making errors you probably just need to slow down a bit.

And if you do make a missed click do an undo.


re:
> On a related note it could also be interesting to have the option to have Shift-marquee not
> only be an "add", but also as a toggler of selection state (just like it does on click). But perhaps
> this too is already adressed in V5.

No there isn't any facility in v5 for doing a toggling selection window that would result in a mix of both selecting and also unselecting within the same window action. Do you have an example where that would be useful?

Thanks,
- Michael

Hello !

"No there isn't any facility in v5 for doing a toggling selection window that would result in a mix of both selecting and also unselecting within the same window action. Do you have an example where that would be useful?"

Well, the most immediate example would be ... the regular click (or shift-clicking, depending on which option is enabled) for selection. It already performs such a toggle of selection state, since clicking (or shift clicking) on a selected element deselects it. So it wouldn't be much of a stretch to expect the marquee selection to perform similarly too.

But, this would have been mostly relevant (as a potential solution for marquee-deselect) had the ctrl behavior not been adressed in V5. It wouldn't hurt to have as an option though, as that would mean that people could optionally manipulate selections (by adding and removing elements to/from them) using just one modifier key (shift) instead of two (shift and control). That said my experience is mostly based on 2D drafting using MOI, so without a doubt there are some potential conflicts in 3D that I may not be seing. And shift to add / ctrl to remove is near universal anyways.

Overall if I were to pick only one thing to tweak/add to the system, it definitely would be the option to not have shift-click cause any deselect ever when performed over empty space, as this alone would personally fix my frustration of often losing selections because of missclicks. And while undo is indeed a remedy, it still doesn't make the frustration of losing a selection retroactively disappear :D And slowing down is not an option ...

Thanks a lot for the help Michael, it's all clear now!
Very much appreciated!

Best regards,
David