DarkRadiant: Include Select/Deselect in Undo?

[greebo]

I'd like to get some feedback about this old feature request, before I start working on it. What do mission authors think, would it be beneficial to have the selection status be included in the undo/redo operations? Like, you select two items, and by hitting Undo the most recently selected item is de-selected again (hitting undo again will proceed to de-select the first one).

Thoughts?

[Dragofer]

Selecting and manipulating the right things is important in DR, just as in the modelling programs I've used where this is already a feature. So having good control over this is important.

However, I see some downsides:

• When going back and forth in undo history, a mapper might want to inspect various entities i.e. to check the current values of their spawnargs. Selecting something would discard the redo history. This is generally different from a modelling program, where seeing selected verts is usually enough.
• It could clutter the undo history if the mapper selects more than just a few nodes, making it more difficult to find and undo actual actions. The most interesting stage is probably the final selection result before performing an action, so to address this issue it could be restricted to just that.

Also, we already have the selection group system as a way of saving and later returning to an earlier selection. Would just be good if it were easier to modify the nodes in a selection group without having to dissolve the whole group and later reselecting everything (basically 'Select Group Parts' for selection groups).

Personally I'd rather have show/hide be part of the undo queue. It's easier to work on specific parts of the map when you hide everything else, but sometimes you need to unhide and inspect the surroundings. Returning to the hidden state can be tricky depending on whether you selected your visible workspace before unhiding.

[greebo]

12 hours ago, Dragofer said:

When going back and forth in undo history, a mapper might want to inspect various entities i.e. to check the current values of their spawnargs. Selecting something would discard the redo history. This is generally different from a modelling program, where seeing selected verts is usually enough.

This is exactly the use case I had in mind that got me to open this thread and ask. I recently moved back the undo queue to select an item I had deleted earlier, selected it, copied it to the clipboard, then redid all the steps and pasted the item into the map. A move like this is no longer possible when the redo stack is cleared by selecting the item.

But then again, I'm used to selections being undoable from Blender, where this is quite a time saver. It's very easy to mis-select a vertex when moving fast, and being able to remove those wrongly selected items by hitting Ctrl-Z is really nice.

12 hours ago, Dragofer said:

Also, we already have the selection group system as a way of saving and later returning to an earlier selection. Would just be good if it were easier to modify the nodes in a selection group without having to dissolve the whole group and later reselecting everything (basically 'Select Group Parts' for selection groups).

For this one feature I'd be interested whether anyone is using it at all - are many people using selection groups in their maps? I found it less useful myself, and the workflow is clunky, having to think of a name for the group before saving. - edit: scratch that, I've been thinking about selection sets here.

Edited August 22, 2022 by greebo

[Dragofer]

3 hours ago, greebo said:

For this one feature I'd be interested whether anyone is using it at all - are many people using selection groups in their maps? I found it less useful myself, and the workflow is clunky, having to think of a name for the group before saving.

Oh, I actually meant the right-click in orthoview > "Group Selection" option. "Selection Groups" are a completely different, much older feature IIRC? I use "Group Selection" all the time, and I think kingsal/goldwell do too since they were the ones who asked for it.

[greebo]

My bad, I've been thinking about Selection Sets. Of course, I'm using groups all the time...

Yes, I know about that feature request, to be able to select within groups without disbanding them - very useful, but more involved than it might appear at first glance.

[OrbWeaver]

My default position is that pure editor state changes should not be considered part of the undo stack — in other words, if a particular operation would make no difference to the map file on disk if you saved immediately afterwards, then that operation would not be part of the undo stack. Under this criteria, selection changes would not be undoable.

The advantage of the above approach is that the "map changed" status can be tied to the undo stack: if (and only if) the stack is empty, the map is unchanged. Although this is an implementation detail that is of little interest to end users.

However, there clearly is a case for having selection undoable if certain selection operations are tedious or time-consuming to perform, as has been mentioned with patch vertices. The fact that Blender is making selection undoable indicates there must be a significant demand for it.

[Obsttorte]

What would be the advantage of undoing a selection via the undo action(so probably via a keyboard shortcut) compared to undoing it via a mouse-click as it is done now?

If I accidently select something, I can just deselect it. I never considered this to have to be an "undo-action", as I am basically not really doing something (in terms of altering the map).

Maybe I am overseeing something but I don't see what is to gain here.

[Dragofer]

52 minutes ago, Obsttorte said:

What would be the advantage of undoing a selection via the undo action(so probably via a keyboard shortcut) compared to undoing it via a mouse-click as it is done now?

If I accidently select something, I can just deselect it. I never considered this to have to be an "undo-action", as I am basically not really doing something (in terms of altering the map).

Maybe I am overseeing something but I don't see what is to gain here.

Sometimes the mapper needs to make a more time-intensive selection, i.e. all the doors within a building or all AIs in a certain area. As soon as you press escape the selection is lost and you'd have to make it again.

[Obsttorte]

1 hour ago, Dragofer said:

Sometimes the mapper needs to make a more time-intensive selection, i.e. all the doors within a building or all AIs in a certain area. As soon as you press escape the selection is lost and you'd have to make it again.

For this use-case it might be more worthwhile considering to expand the select inside feature? Or you combine that with "select all of type".

I mean, I am not really against it. It just never occoured to me in a way that it was dramatically enough to memorize

[AluminumHaste]

Man I would love that, sometimes I've spent a few minutes selecting all the individual struts in a railing and I accidentally click off and have to start over. Undoing that would be awesome