Hi Burr, well I'm working on new v3 features right now and once I've got a few of them done then I'll release the first beta. So it's coming soon but it's hard to say exactly what day.

Currently I'm working on some new scene browser stuff, I just finished adding in a new selection indicator, which will also be the place to click to select stuff:



That's the new yellow dot on the right-hand side of the scene browser item there - that will now show the selection state of all the items of that slot. If all the items belonging to that slot are selected it will show a yellow dot, if none are selected it will be blank there and if there is a mix of some selected and some not it shows a half dot.

You also click on that to toggle selection on or off.

The next thing up is a selection filter - I had an idea to use Ctrl+click on the selection indicator to mark an item as a filter. Once something is marked as a filter you'll only be able to select items of that type, so for example if you set Style = Red as a filter then when you go and click to select curves it would only select curves that have style = red. I'm also planning on making it limit what is targeted for selection with the mouse as well.

At the moment I'm working on the icon to show there to indicate that an item is a selection filter.

- Michael

Ah nice!!! So that area is replacing the clciking on the "name" of the style part for selecting all of a style?? (Opening that area up)

Selection filter on "Types" also??

Hi Burr,

> So that area is replacing the clciking on the "name" of the
> style part for selecting all of a style?? (Opening that area up)

Yup, that's right - then I want to use clicking on the name to open up a pop up menu that could have a few different actions on the menu.


> Selection filter on "Types" also??

Yup the plan is for the filter mechanism to work on any section - either "Objects" (for named objects), "Types" or "Styles".

That will allow you to do things in combination, like set a filter on Style = Red and also on Type = Curve, and then go and window select an area in the viewport and that would only grab red curves that are within the window and ignore any other objects.

Being able to use different kinds of categories (like "Styles" and "Types") in combination with each other like that is one of the cool aspects of MoI's organization tools.


Then I think pushing the Escape key will clear the filter if any filter is set, that will be a shortcut for removing the filters as an alternative to going back and ctrl+clicking on each one.

- Michael

"""""""Then I think pushing the Escape key will clear the filter if any filter is set, that will be a shortcut for removing the filters as an alternative to going back and ctrl+clicking on each one."""

Well I do use esc frequently for canceling selection and commands... Maybe you are thinking of how this will integrate, or a pure change in behaviour. or just an inclusive area? I could see where esc a selection and command, but not intending to deselect my filters would be desired. modified esc is going into complexity area though... Maybe setting up the filters will be quicker than I first think.

Hi Burr well the method I was thinking of was if a filter was active esc would clear the filter, but then after that any further presses of escape would be with no filter active and it would behave the same as now.

Since enabling a filter really constrains selection in a big way, it's something that I kind of expect you would activate for a short time period, maybe just to help make one particular selection - then since it really restricts what you can select you will want to get out of the filter soon after you've done that particular selection - that's what the escape key will help with.

We'll have to see if that works out well in practice or not - if it seems to get in the way then at least I can add in a moi.ini flag to not do the esc de-filtering shortcut.

- Michael

Ok, well I think I've got a UI that will work for the filter mechansm - when you hold down Ctrl and click on the selection indicator a little filter icon will appear and any selection dot will be showed shifted a bit to the left of it:



Now it's a matter of making the filter actually work - that's going to involve modifying a number of different selection methods.

One thing I'm not entirely certain of is that if filtering should only only constrain selection actions only and not have any impact on deselection actions...

- Michael

Hi Michael,

The filtering system will be a very welcomed addition to MoI :)
I tend to think a filter reset button might be the go, sometimes after setting a filter you might just want to window only some of the items in that filter category, if I accidentally pick items I didn't want selected I tend to press the esc button and select again.

Cheers

Hi Danny,

> I tend to think a filter reset button might be the go

The question is, where would I put a button like that?

Right now one nice features of this filtering system is that it can just be completely ignored by anybody who has no interest in filtering, and it does not take up any extra UI space or anything like that if it's not used...

Things like a permanent extra button means that some beginning user who just wants to do simple things and doesn't need to do any filtering will pay some price in UI complexity for something that they don't use. That's the kind of thing I'm trying hard to avoid.

If you make a mistake with a selection, you can also do Ctrl+Z to revert to the previous selection - that works for any kind of selection mistake, while pressing escape to do that only works if you're starting from an empty selection.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Ctrl+Z is okay I guess, only it's a two button combo and sometimes you have to look down at the keyboard to locate them, where the Esc key is a known extreme top left button that you go by feel.
I was thinking more like a small button as you show for the indicator and filter in your examples, maybe appearing close by when you turn the filters on, that's one suggestion.

In turning on the filter with the Ctrl modifier does that go for turning it off also ?

Cheers

Hi Danny,

> only it's a two button combo and sometimes you have to look
> down at the keyboard to locate them, where the Esc key is a
> known extreme top left button that you go by feel.

Yeah but hopefully you're not routinely making selection mistakes on every single action - when it's something that you have to do only once every 10 minutes, that extra split second glance does not amount to a significant problem, as opposed to needing to do it every 5 seconds or something like that...

The problem is that having a selection filter active is going to disable a whole lot of regular selection actions from working, so I think it's something that should be convenient to clear. That's the idea for the escape key handling anyway.


> maybe appearing close by when you turn the filters on, that's one suggestion.

But where close by - there isn't a whole lot of room to put buttons in there - do you mean popping up an extra button that eats into the text area of the line?


> In turning on the filter with the Ctrl modifier does that go for
> turning it off also ?

Yup, Ctrl + click on it again will also work for turning it off, so that's another reason why putting an extra button right next to it to do the same thing would be kind of odd.

The problem with only using Ctrl+click to turn it off again is that means you have to go back to that item again before you can go ahead and do normal modeling and normal selection again. For example say you want to select all red curves - to do that you can go set a filter on style = red, then go to the Curves entry under the Types section of the scene browser (which may involve scrolling if you have a lot of styles), and using the selection control there to select curves with that other filter in effect. Then once you're done with that particular action you'll still be stuck only being able to select red things so if you want to do anything else other than that you'd need to scroll back to the red style again and unset the filter there before being able to do regular selection - the escape key shortcut would save you that last step of having to go back to your style and unset the filter manually.

This is kind of based on the idea that filters are something you set up to help you make a particular difficult one shot selection instead of something that you would leave on for an extended period of time. Maybe that's not correct and you'll want to leave them on for an extended period, let me know if that seems to be the case once you use them.

- Michael

I think I'll wait for you to release the V3 beta before I make any more assumptions, the best thing is to try it out and get a feel for it instead of trying to imagine how it would be in the workflow.

Cheers

Hi Danny, so one thing I have to decide is whether filtering should only limit selections to the filtered items or whether it should limit both selection and deselection actions.

Or would it be better to have deselections still work without restriction even when a filter is in place?

Any guess on this part?

- Michael

On what is the Filter ?
Names ? Visible/no visible? Alphabetic: Normal / Inverse...

Hi Pilou - the filter is a state that you can set on a scene browser item. Once it is set it will limit selection so that only objects that match that item will be selected.

So for example - set a filter on Style = Red. now when you click in the viewport or do any other selection method it will only select things that have style = red.

You'll be able to use this in combination with other selection methods - for example set a filter on Style = Red and then go to the Types section and select curves - only red curves will get selected due to the filter being active.

- Michael

Any chance circular selection method makes it into v.3?

Hi Grendel - it's possible but it's not particularly high on the radar since circular selection hasn't really been mentioned very often as far as I remember.

If it's an important feature for you, put it on the Top 5 feature request list for v3 thread here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3628.1

Would you expect it to select things only entirely inside the circle or anything that touches the circle? Or would it be for selecting control points only?

- Michael

""""""""Would you expect it to select things only entirely inside the circle or anything that touches the circle? Or would it be for selecting control points only?""""

Personally I have looked for this when doing point editing.

I would use it either to select inside or outside depending on the situation. I honestly do not use a lot of control point editing as I lean toward more mechanical things than organic product type stuff.

Hi Grendel,

> I would use it either to select inside or outside depending on the situation.

Could you describe a bit more about what you mean by selecting the outside? Instead of selecting everything to the outside, would it work to do a select all and then do a deselect with a circle selection tool to remove selection of things inside the circle?

Basically for regular selection of full objects there are 2 choices - should only objects that are completely contained within the circle be selected, or should any object that touches the circle even partially be selected?

- Michael

So a circular selection right to left touching or left to right strict similar rectangle selection existing ;)