It's been mentioned before but I can't remember what the outcome was - can we have a quick way to cycle through objects (usually lines) when we want to select a specific one? Its a bit hit and miss at the moment. I motion the use of say the tab key which could be held whilst clicking through until you reach the right object. Or possibly a pop-up that lists all the elements in the vacinity that would highlight the object as its name was hovered over in the list.

Would make things a bit less tempremental and more reliable in my opinion.

Cheers
Rob

Hi Rob - I would like to add some kind of option for this in the future but it is not a particularly easy thing to add, especially since making it trigger too often can cause some bad workflow problems.


> Its a bit hit and miss at the moment.

Do you have an example you can post so I can get a better picture of the situation you are talking about?

MoI does show a pre-selection highlight when you move the mouse over objects, so you can know what object is going to be selected when you click at that spot, that is intended to give you a kind of preview effect so that you can more easily know exactly what thing is going to be selected when you click down.

If you have a congested scene with a whole bunch of stuff all in the same area, really your best bet is to hide some things to simplify your screen so that you can more easily target what you need.


> I motion the use of say the tab key which could be held
> whilst clicking through until you reach the right object.

The tab key is already being used for a different purpose - it places keyboard focus into the first available numeric input control.


> Or possibly a pop-up that lists all the elements in the vacinity
> that would highlight the object as its name was hovered over
> in the list.

That's actually what I did for Rhino, and that basically caused a substantial workflow problem, since that would easily pop up all the time kind of "in your face", forcing you to manipulate that UI when you were not expecting it.

That's why MoI was designed pretty much to work in the opposite way - instead of seeing what possible things you could select by popping up a list after you clicked, instead MoI shows you what will be selected _before_ you click by showing the highlight, which for curves is a kind of yellow halo that goes around the outside of the curve that is being targeted.

When you can see what is going to happen before you click, it means you don't get surprised by unexpected pop-ups side tracking you from your current task.


But if you could possibly post an example file that shows a situation where you are having a problem, that would probably help me to understand better, and see if there is something that can be tuned up to make it work better.

- Michael

Yes how stupid of me with the tab key suggestion - completely forgot about its current use - just used to using it in archicad, so another key maybe.

OK for the example: draw a rectangle then extrude it upwards a bit then try selecting a bottom edge of the newly formed solid. You should only be able to select the original rectangle. This is a very simplifyed example and can easily be got around I agree. The thing is if you need curves switched on for another part of the operation - the rectangle has to stay unless you put it on another style.

Unfortunately I can't think just now of a specific part of a specific file where I have had this problem but it does raise its head now and again, i will be sure to post a file when i next encounter it so sorry for the lack of a decent example. I had one on a test file i had the other day but didn't save the file (I often take half an hour and do test files to try my skills on an imaginary but realistic scenario so i know how to go about it if i need to in the future - trouble is i rarely save them - but will do in the future).

I can see how annoying it would be to have a popup box appearing all the time but maybe a hotkey could bring one up?

Thanks for listening anyway, much appreciated, i really don't know how you do it!

Hi Rob,

> OK for the example: draw a rectangle then extrude it
> upwards a bit then try selecting a bottom edge of the
> newly formed solid. You should only be able to select
> the original rectangle.

Actually, I have been thinking about doing a popup just for this one particular situation specifically of edge / curve overlap. (but probably won't make it in for v2 though).

If I can detect just this situation and open up a 2-item popup, I don't think it will be as distracting as a fully general popup.

But the reason why I've thought about that is mostly to help out people who did not realize that they had a curve there. If you know you have an overlapping curve there you can fix this situation quite easily (like you mention) by hiding the curve.


> This is a very simplifyed example and can easily be got
> around I agree. The thing is if you need curves switched
> on for another part of the operation - the rectangle has to
> stay unless you put it on another style.

If you have other curves that you want to leave on, then what you do for this situation is select just that one curve first, and use Edit/Hide to hide it, rather than the browser.

The "old fashioned" Edit/Hide command just hides what is currently selected - if you need to hide just one particular object that does not currently fit with a browser slot, just select it and hit Edit/Hide and it will be out of your hair...


For the next release I've also updated Edit/Hide to have an "isolate" mode on it as well if you right-click it.


But yeah, next time if you run into a problem like this in a test file, it would definitely be a big help if you could save the file so I could take a look!


- Michael

I think this is the type of occasion where this happens the most often where there are base splines that have been used to create shapes that are hanging around and then this situation occurs halfway through selecting 101 splines and then it becomes annoying!

Cheers

Hi Michael,

I come across this situation from time to time also, I think I've metioned it in the past.
Re: pop up, instead of having an 'in your face' pop up always appearing when you mouse over a stack of entities, could you have a small symbol appear next to the cursor to indicate that there is more than on entity and then either right or left mouse button, hold and popup will appear, in this way you call for the popup when you want.

Meanwhile, when I do come across this situation we are talking about, I'll drop you a post.

Cheers
~Danny~

Hi Rob,

> I think this is the type of occasion where this happens
> the most often where there are base splines that have
> been used to create shapes that are hanging around

Yup, that's what tends to happen. It's not a bad idea to get in the habit of hiding or deleting your base curves after you have used them to create something.

They are normally selected right then so you can hit Hide or Delete right then to get them out of your way in advance...

- Michael

Hi Danny,

> Re: pop up, instead of having an 'in your face' pop up
> always appearing when you mouse over a stack of entities,
> could you have a small symbol appear next to the cursor to
> indicate that there is more than on entity and then either
> right or left mouse button, hold and popup will appear, in
> this way you call for the popup when you want.

That may actually be too subtle though - one reason why I want to add this in the future is for more beginning users who get stuck because they don't know that they are selecting a curve object rather than an edge.

Those beginning users probably won't know what a small symbol means, that's why it could use a small popup with text labels to solve this particular workflow problem for beginners.


> Meanwhile, when I do come across this situation we are
> talking about, I'll drop you a post.

That would be great. Usually though there is a solution to such things which is to hide the things that are getting your your way and interfering from being able to target the thing you want.

- Michael