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Enhancement: Selecting items on layers
Sometimes its hard to select something that hidden or that is encompassed by another UI widget. It would be great to enhance the selection of items that are behind or in the background. It even harder when the items are locked, forcing you to unlock all.
Example:
Image you have three UI components; A window, a box, and a button. The window is in the back, the box is in front of the window, the button is in front of the box. You want to select the the window because the box is covering it. Sure you can use a bounding box, or maybe move the component out of the way. But that is messy.
I have used some CAD products that let you drill-down to select items by holding down the right mouse button while left clicking the left button. Each subsequent left click selects the next item in the layer.
Another way to do this is to add a right mouse context menu. The menu would have the option for "Select next item" which would un-select the existing item, and select the next item in the layer order.
Either way, once I have my item selected I can use the property panel to edit it.
Note:
This enhancement goes with my earlier enhancement which would let you edit the text of the selected item without the need to double click it.
http://getsatisfaction.com/balsamiq/t...
Example:
Image you have three UI components; A window, a box, and a button. The window is in the back, the box is in front of the window, the button is in front of the box. You want to select the the window because the box is covering it. Sure you can use a bounding box, or maybe move the component out of the way. But that is messy.
I have used some CAD products that let you drill-down to select items by holding down the right mouse button while left clicking the left button. Each subsequent left click selects the next item in the layer.
Another way to do this is to add a right mouse context menu. The menu would have the option for "Select next item" which would un-select the existing item, and select the next item in the layer order.
Either way, once I have my item selected I can use the property panel to edit it.
Note:
This enhancement goes with my earlier enhancement which would let you edit the text of the selected item without the need to double click it.
http://getsatisfaction.com/balsamiq/t...
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The company has this in progress.
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Inappropriate?Michael, look at #2 on this topic: http://getsatisfaction.com/balsamiq/t... - is that more or less what you're thinking? That (the "Layers Panel") is already on the TODO list, I just have more pressing features/bugs ahead of it.
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This is one of the best points
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Yup, that's exactly how I envision it. I want to think about right-click menus as a whole (I need we need more stuff in there rather than just unlocking or selecting items), so I'll add this part when I tackle the larger right-click menus feature. -
Inappropriate?I _really_ like Michael's idea (and his mockup) and would might take it a couple small steps further, and maybe to the side too.
This is also about selecting issues (eg, how to select a small object that is behind the bounding box of an arcing arrow?)
If the user clicks on an area that has only one possiblity for selection, don't pop up window, just toggle the selected status
If there is a choice, automatically pop up the modal "Modify Selection" window
All potential targets are listed as
"Type / identifying text[if possible]"
All selected are highlighted or checked
User may select/deselect by clicking on a row, as many rows as desired
Double clicking on a row toggles that select status and closes window, and sets selection
There is also an "OK" and a "Cancel" button to close the window
Clicking outside the window is equivalent to "Cancel"
As to the order of the list, I'd suggest ordering by (from above suggestion)
"Type", then by "Identifying text"
Could also order by layering, but couldn't come up with a cogent argument for that.
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