[davis]

I would like to suggest to change the shortcuts for “border select” to left click and drag

[view3d.select_border to Tweak + select + any] found here>>>

… And changing “select all / deselect all” to left mouse double click. >>>

That way selecting and deselecting would be much faster and intuitive. The default “drag objects” would be removed that way unfortunately, but in my workflow I either use the gumball or the move shortcut anyway for that.

Any thoughts?

[Reiner]

Hey davis,

Thanks for the suggestions.

ctrl a is a world wide standard for select / deselect in many software. We can get away with hotkey “a” here. It’s still close enough to the standard. And a single key hotkey is better for this most used functionality. And we would  run into the drag problem by your suggestion. It’s even more often used than select / deselect . So i don’t want to change this functionality really.

Border select at mouse tip, hmmmm. I remember that i had a few experiments into this direction in the past. And i was everything but happy with it. But i will have a second look

[davis]

That´s not really true for 3d software. In fact every 3d program I ever used had the “left click – hold and drag” function for border / rectangular selection. – 3dsmax, Rhino, Fusion360, Autocad… just to name a few. For some the drag object is working on top of that when hovering above a selected object and dragging to move. And just clicking once on an empty area deselects all. At least for me this seems like the standard convention for selection. This is not really possible with the existing Blender shortcuts and I guess that would be too hard to implement into BforArtists?

[Reiner]

Ah, now i remember the issues with border select. It causes too much conflicts with other functionality, especially when modeling. Border select is also present in more than one editor type. You go crazy in the try to solve those conflicts then and to provide consistency. I fear i cannot do this neither, sorry. It breaks too many other things.

As a sidenote, Lasso Select works with mouse and holding down ctrl. Maybe that’s a way to go for you.

EDIT because of cross posting: the problem is really the consistency in both cases. You start to pull at one end, and end in hundrets of connections that you need to fix then. When you make one thing better, but a dozen worse then it’s no good solution.

[davis]

I can´t actually see anything not working fluently by just changing those two shortcuts? – It´s also not a problem for me, sice I can simply change those myself, I just thought it might be something benifitial to have as a standard.

[Reiner]

For example, you can’t drag vertices anymore in edit mode when you occupy the drag by border select. Happy modeling

And as told, border select exists in nearly all other editor types too. Which also needs to be checked and fixed. I ended in two handful conflicts already after just five minutes toying around. And fixing those conflicts will create other conflicts. The keymap is a big can of worm when you touch the wrong end. And this is one of those wrong ends, unfortunately.

[davis]

Maybe it´s me being a year long Max user? – There is no drag in 3dsmax, just move and the gumball. – I will test it this way for a while, let´s see if I encounter any problems. Modeling is not one of them (for me ^^) …

[davis]

By the way the drag still works by selecting the center of the gumball.

[Reiner]

Yes, but i have very often the widget off when modeling. And then you cannot drag the selected elements, like vertices, around anymore in edit mode. Instead it paints a select rectangle. Modeling impossible.

I feel your pain. It’s just i cannot find a good solution here, sorry.

[davis]

As I said, no problem, I can simply change those shortcuts myself. – Let´s also hear some other users opinions on this.

[davis]

To pick this up once more; I think the CTRL-drag to select, like it is implemented in BfA 0.9.6, is a great option to keep the default hold and dragging of objects and have the option to select quickly with a shortcut. – I changed the default lasso select to the box select though, sice it is faster to just drag from point to point instead of going all the way around the objects I want to select.

It migth be an idea to have “CTRL-Left hold and drag” as border select, “CTRL-Shift-Lhad” as border deselect and use the same shortcuts in combination with ALT as lasso select? – At least this speeds up my workflow, so I thought I might share it.

[Reiner]

I am open to anything. But that way we loose lasso select.

 We will have a experimental keymap where we can toy with such things around. And this experimental keymap will be based at the full keymap, wich is currently developed by Draise. What turns out to be useful there will make it into the official keymap then at one point. But not immediately. Such changes needs strong testing.

How quickly you run into other unexpected quirks can be seen with the change for the center selection hotkey from Numpad zero to D. Which is also the home for grease pencil paint. A conflict that we still need to solve …

[davis]

Lasso select would still work with CTRL-ALT-MouseDrag and lasso deselect with CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-MouseDrag … Like an advanced version of the border select by holding ALT in addition. I believe those shortcuts are not taken yet?

But indeed it should be tested by more users, to see if that works in an intuitive way for everyone.

[Reiner]

Make a task in the tracker. This is something for the experimental keymap then

[Shaggy]

Oh, I only noticed this topic after posting mine. I was hoping I will be able to use dope sheet like I use any other animation software on this planet. LMB can box-select and can drag all selected frames if cursor is pointing at one of them. Of course Blender can’t do that with 1 mouse button, it needs additional 2 (B for box select and G for move).

[Author]

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