Object Selection Problems - How?

[Herbert123]

I am currently working with several files that represent game levels for a mobile game. These files consist of a large number of object groups and sub-groups. My issue is selection:

• selection in the layer panel is not really an option due to the fact that Photoline generates a preview of the entire width of the level, not of the content of each layer (and there are too many objects which is also an issue, of course)
• selection of individual object is very hard to do, and often I select background objects instead of the foreground object that I am trying to select. For example: I click on the windmill, and the entire group is selected (either the green pasture group that lies below it, or the entire level is selected).
• Next, I hold down <ctrl><shift> to select any object (for example, on of the tree objects): Photoline selects the overall subgroups, and after clicking 7 times it still has not selected that tree. Very frustrating.
• Then I tried positioning the mouse cursor over an object (tree, house, etc.), held down the left mouse button, and used the <left> and <right> cursor keys to navigate between groups and subgroups for that particular location. It kinda works, and is a nice feature, even making sure that other objects on that selected "depth" are then easily selectable, however: often I was required to hit either cursor key at least 7~9 times before the correct object/group was selected.

Selection is now fraught with frustration - the layer panel is not very helpful (there are many layers, and the thumbnails are useless in this instance), and selecting objects often takes at least a couple of seconds before I have the correct layer selected.

I would expect Photoline to show a bit more intelligence as to how it goes about selecting groups and layers. Anyone here have any tips?

Untitled.jpg

[Hoogo]

There is some logic wheter PL searches into depth of the active group or only on top of the next branches. But I experienced the same problems as you do now, but fortunately with less layers only.

You can try a right mouseclick into the picture. That should display all (named) layers within your current active branch of the layer list. That could help if your tree is quite flat. And there's something about keeping the mouse button pressed and using cursor right/left that I quite don't understand, but maybe the online-help can tell something more about this.

[Herbert123]

I was hoping for that right-mouse click to work, but alas: only one or two levels are shown. The trick with holding down the mouse button kinda works - however, more often than not it still takes me 7 or more times hitting the cursor keys before the correct group is selected.

This is definitely something (crucial) that could be improved in one of the next versions - it's become a workflow issue for me now (and you state you experienced the same problems, so I am not the only one) . I had some problems selecting stuff before, and with more complex work this is problematic.

[bkh]

Ive occasionally stumbled across simiar problems as well. Normally, I don't use so many layers, though.

I think that there are a few things that might be improved. I've attached a small sample file, to illustrate my points.

1) if you select the green group, then click into the red group, then the black group gets selected. PL seems to search for the next item below the green group at the click location, but I think that it would be more natural if PL started searching from the top of the layer stack if the click occurred outside the green group. Same for Shift-Cmd-click.

2) If you click between the red rectangles, the red group gets selected although this might not be what one wants. (Shouldn't an item be ignored if it is transparent at the click spot?)

3) If you click-and press the cursor keys, then the movement is consistent with PL's notation that the background layer is the first layer (so you move in that direction using cursor-left, and you move towards the last layer using cursor-right. However, my mental model is that of bottom and top layer, so using cursor-up and cursor-down to work like cursor-right and cursor-left, respectively, would make life much easier for me. (If I try to use menu commands like "Activate first/next/previous/last layer" during macro recording, I also get these wrong .)

4) Double-clicking on a layer group opens that group — very conveneint — but it selects the first (backmost) layer in that group where I would have expected it to select the last (topmost) one.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[Herbert123]

+1

When clicking a transparent part the actual object you are clicking should be selected, not the object with that transparency. I also like your other suggestions.

And the layer thumbnail sizing is also a bit of an issue - having an option to show a thumbnail based on its content (cropped transparency) is almost essential.

[Sus]

When making compositions involving many layers
I assign names to them when created ( Ctrl-I ).
It takes time but makes live easier for me.

I wish the same was possible with windows in the Windows menu:
with say 15 windows open finding the one needed
is a trial and error process that takes ages.
In most cases renaming the source files is no option either.
Thumbnails would make all the difference here.
Any other suggestion ?

[bkh]

Thumbnails would make all the difference here.

Open View -> Dialgos -> View and switch to the "Documents" tab. You can pick the document by its thumbnail there.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[Herbert123]

The issue is that I often do not have control over the files I get from other designers - case in point: the game graphics for my current project were handed to me, and the only way to identify layers relatively quickly is to have a layer thumbnail option that displays the actual content (minus transparency) instead of the current complete document view.

When making compositions involving many layers
I assign names to them when created ( Ctrl-I ).
It takes time but makes live easier for me.

I wish the same was possible with windows in the Windows menu:
with say 15 windows open finding the one needed
is a trial and error process that takes ages.
In most cases renaming the source files is no option either.
Thumbnails would make all the difference here.
Any other suggestion ?

[Sus]

Problem solved. Thanks !

[Martin Huber]

1) if you select the green group, then click into the red group, then the black group gets selected. PL seems to search for the next item below the green group at the click location, but I think that it would be more natural if PL started searching from the top of the layer stack if the click occurred outside the green group. Same for Shift-Cmd-click.

I will change that.

2) If you click between the red rectangles, the red group gets selected although this might not be what one wants. (Shouldn't an item be ignored if it is transparent at the click spot?)

Selecting by checking the transparency makes the selection of line art and text harder. Personally I prefer the selection by frames.

3) If you click-and press the cursor keys, then the movement is consistent with PL's notation that the background layer is the first layer (so you move in that direction using cursor-left, and you move towards the last layer using cursor-right. However, my mental model is that of bottom and top layer, so using cursor-up and cursor-down to work like cursor-right and cursor-left, respectively, would make life much easier for me. (If I try to use menu commands like "Activate first/next/previous/last layer" during macro recording, I also get these wrong .)

I will add support for cursor-up and cursor-down.

4) Double-clicking on a layer group opens that group — very conveneint — but it selects the first (backmost) layer in that group where I would have expected it to select the last (topmost) one.

Basically that's a matter of taste and I don't have any perference here. But changing the behavior will break existing actions.

Martin

[bkh]

1) if you select the green group, then click into the red group, then the black group gets selected. PL seems to search for the next item below the green group at the click location, but I think that it would be more natural if PL started searching from the top of the layer stack if the click occurred outside the green group. Same for Shift-Cmd-click.

I will change that.

Great, thanks!

2) If you click between the red rectangles, the red group gets selected although this might not be what one wants. (Shouldn't an item be ignored if it is transparent at the click spot?)

Selecting by checking the transparency makes the selection of line art and text harder. Personally I prefer the selection by frames.

Good point. Ideally, it would be possible to switch between the two possibilities in the tool settings. (I think that somebody mentioned that in PS, you can choose between the two behaviours.)

4) Double-clicking on a layer group opens that group — very conveneint — but it selects the first (backmost) layer in that group where I would have expected it to select the last (topmost) one.

Basically that's a matter of taste and
I don't have any perference here. But changing the behavior will break existing actions.

I still think that the current behaviour is a bit irritating. Double clicking selects the first layer, the next click then gets you to the last layer, then the layer before that, and so on, until you are back at the first layer.

Couldn't a double click be translated into "Enter group" plus "Select last layer"? In that way, the "Enter group" command could remain as it is, and existing actions don't change. I think that it wouldn't even be a problem if the double click wasn't recorded in macros since mouse events often aren't, if that's a problem.

Cheers

Burkhard.