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