Hi PaQ - I'd need to add an additional center grip for that to work, so that there was something that you would hit with the mouse to initiate the drag.

I've been hesitant to do that because one big goal of these object frame grips is to have a very low level of distraction and interference with other operations. Having them really low profile helps to make it possible to have them enabled all the time and always available.

One part of that is how they normally go all around the outside of your selected object rather than overlapping into it, and having a center point grip would go against this...

Anyway, that is why I have stayed away from that so far.

Maybe I should try to do one that was slightly different than the other grips and make it totally invisible until you moved next to it, rather than translucent... That would help to avoid visual interference at least.

- Michael

I see your point, I can't hardly visualise this kind of behavour until I have my hand on it in fact.
I'm even not sure we need a visual anchor, I mean what if the shape react like if you drag a surface.



when the mouse pass over the center of a closed curve, you highlight it ... and when you click/drag you see the [cen]ter grip, like when moving a surface.

Not sure what happends when different shapes share the same center, that might be a problem I suppose.

Hi PaQ, so you mean to do it only on things that currently have a Cen osnap on them like a rectangle, circle, arc, or ellipse?

> I mean what if the shape react like if you drag a surface.

Do you also mean you want to be able to select a currently unselected circle curve for example by clicking on its center point?


One thing that is different with the disc surface situation is that there is an actual piece of the object at that center point, so the object can be selected (and highlighted, etc..) by moving the mouse over that spot. A circle or rectangle curve on the other hand doesn't have any part of the object itself at that center location, the "meat" of that curve object is all in the wires around the outside.


That's basically why I would think of having a kind of special "frame grip" for this kind of a thing rather than trying to enable it silently - enabling it silently would kind of mean making circles select if you moved nearby their center point, since dragging an object is related to selecting it with the mouse if that makes any sense. Having a special grip kind of avoids muddling this up with selection.

- Michael

>> Hi PaQ, so you mean to do it only on things that currently have a Cen osnap on them like a rectangle, circle, arc, or ellipse?

Well in fact I often miss this center snap when working with the kind of shape you mention ... as circle osnap center = frame center, I was first thinking the center frame is ok, but now you talk about it, the Cen osnap would even be better when dealing with arcs.

>> Do you also mean you want to be able to select a currently unselected circle curve for example by clicking on its center point?

Yes ... well maybe it's a bad idea :P

>> One thing that is different with the disc surface situation is that there is an actual piece of the object at that center point, so the object can be selected (and highlighted, etc..) by moving the mouse over that spot. A circle or rectangle curve on the other hand doesn't have any part of the object itself at that center location, the "meat" of that curve object is all in the wires around the outside.

I see. As this center point is somehow visible when snapping stuffs, I was thinking this might be visible by the cursor too even if there are no real geometry there. You know, I don't see all the mechanic behind the viewport ;)

>> That's basically why I would think of having a kind of special "frame grip" for this kind of a thing rather than trying to enable it silently - enabling it silently would kind of mean making circles select if you moved nearby their center point, since dragging an object is related to selecting it with the mouse if that makes any sense. Having a special grip kind of avoids muddling this up with selection.

You certainly have a better vision about it than me, the frame grip center point sounds good in fact. Maybe some other users inputs are welcome too o)

I suppose it would act like the new "Rotation Frame" that has the center point movable as the rotation point. When clicking the edit frame the center point is moved from center to corner and back but then disappears. Maybe a way to have it stay and work off of the Move tool so clicking and dragging it would move the object.

Hi PaQ,

> I see. As this center point is somehow visible when snapping
> stuffs, I was thinking this might be visible by the cursor too
> even if there are no real geometry there. <...>

Well, it is possible that I could make it so that it was visible to the cursor for selection.

But that would probably have some pretty strange consequences in some situations.

Like for example here is an arc that happens to have its center point nearby a line curve that is a little ways away from it:



If arcs got selected by moving your mouse nearby their center point, it would mean that there would be an area pretty close to that line where the arc way off to the left would become highlighted there, rather than the line that was right next to your cursor being targeted for selection...


So it is probably not so great to make center points like that behave exactly the same as if you were on the object itself. But doing a kind of special grip that shows up only after it is selected (similar to the scaling and rotation frame grips) is probably less likely to run into this level of problem.


Anyway, the above is an example of the kind of "interference" that I'm generally worried about when adding more widgets that take up some part of the screen...

- Michael

Hi Burr, I've thought a little bit about making some of the frame points like that show up as snap targets for the Move tool... Again though it is kind of a similar concern of possibly filling in extra stuff on the screen.

For simple shapes like a rectangle or circle like PaQ is showing there, there is actually a center point osnap already available for those in the Move command already, unless you have disabled osnaps in general or the "cen" osnap in particular.

But I think what PaQ is also asking for is a way to use a grip as a shortcut for doing a "move from center point" without having to actually fire up the move command, similar to how you can grab on one of the corners of that frame to scale an object in v2 now, rather than needing to fire up the Transform/Scale command to do it.

- Michael

Well to resume it a little bit (this technical discussions are not easy with my poor english), it's like :

Select a shape, select the move tool, click on the center osnap, move the object ... all this things ... but in a single click drag movement.

Hi Michael,

Indeed, that's an horible exemple breaking my inital idea :'( ... good point !

???
The function move don't make the trick?
Select the line by it center and move it to the snap center of the arc :)
It's not speedy and easy? Object frame must be not a dogma :D

A shortcut is possible to call/uncall the "Object frame selection"?

well (first line from my post) ... the 'idea' was to bypass the move command and use a natural drag and move as much as possible :P

Hi Pilou,

> A shortcut is possible to call/uncall the "Object frame selection"?

Yes, it is possible to create a shortcut to toggle the object frame on or off, by using the following for the command part of the shortcut:
script:moi.view.showEditFrame = !moi.view.showEditFrame;

There is also a checkbox available for it under Options / View / Show edit frame.

But it is a pretty big goal to make the object frame very unobtrusive so that it is not necessary to do that.

- Michael

Thx that can be useful
because use frame selection is sometime not necessary and hide that is behind :)
And go to the option is no so speedy than press a key ;)

Yeah, I suggested something similar here http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1886.11
The separate move tool is fine though, it was the same thought that I had PaQ.

---------

Hi Pilou,

> because use frame selection is sometime not necessary
> and hide that is behind :)

This is the reason why the frame is very sparse (no connecting lines to make a box outline for example).

Also the frame corners should be partially transparent and not totally obscure the background behind them until you move the mouse directly over a grip. Is this function not working properly on your machine?

Under normal circumstances these properties of the frame should help to keep it out of the way and avoid obscuring objects behind it.

- Michael