[Drawkit] Selection behavior with groups

[Brad Larson]

On Aug 5, 2008, at 3:37 AM, Uli Kusterer wrote:

> On 05.08.2008, at 02:36, Graham Cox wrote:
>> So you could modify that to detect a multiple selection and to  
>> treat any knob hits as body hits instead. Maybe also factor in the  
>> zoom scale and/or object size so that at larger scales the usual  
>> behaviour is kept the same. Another option would be to change the  
>> DKKnob scaling ratio and knob size so that the knobs are smaller at  
>> the scales you are working at so they are less likely to get in the  
>> way. You could also implement your own selection/move tool that  
>> ignored knob hits altogether (so you'd have separate tools for  
>> moving objects and editing them). You could also try grouping the  
>> objects and moving the group - that ignores all knobs for objects  
>> within the group (this is more of a workaround than a real solution).
>
>
> What I've seen in some drawing apps is that, if you select several  
> objects, they don't show the knobs anymore. In general, the whole  
> selected set gets only eight knobs around the smallest enclosing  
> rectangle. That would solve the issue, too, though it makes it kind  
> of hard to see which of a series of small objects close to each  
> other are already selected, and which aren't. Just thought I'd  
> provide this as an additional data point.
>
>

In a quick survey of the applications I have on hand, both Lineform  
and OmniGraffle have this behavior.  VectorDesigner manipulates the  
points of an individual object when you click on a control knob in a  
multiple selection.  It also preserves the group selection after  
you're done manipulating the one element, which I like.

In my case, I think I'll be disabling the individual knob selection  
because for the spot objects we use the whole object is the knob.   
This makes movement of a group of spots at once impossible.

______________________
Brad Larson
SonoPlot, Inc.
3030 Laura Lane, Suite 120
Middleton, WI 53562