Q Light Controller+

MacOS 10.13.3

It is possible to select a fixture by clicking or selecting multiple objects by shift-click-drag but it is not possible to deselect an already selected object by either method.

Not sure whether this is by design but the early video previews seem to show that clicking a selected fixture to deselect was possible.

Cheers

Mark

Hi Mark, thanks for your feedback.

Selection/deselection/multiple selection is a topic still open for me. As I mentioned in other posts, one thing I always keep in mind is that the UI should be fully usable without a mouse (e.g. on an Android tablet)
Therefore, mouse modifiers would work on a PC, but not on a touchscreen only device. That's why in the 2D view (and Show Manager) the current rule is:
- click on an item to select it
- click on another item to add it to the current selection
- click on nothing to deselect all

On lists, instead, only by pressing the CTRL modifier you are able to select multiple items. (SHIFT modifier is not there yet)
Touchscreen devices would not be able to do multiple selections on lists, and I haven't thought/found any solution for it yet.

If someone come up with a better idea that can cover both (all?) cases, I am willing to discuss it.

HI Massimo,

Thanks for taking the time to consider my feedback!
Coming up with a scheme to suit all those devices will be tricky.
I spend a bit of time working with Adobe Illustrator and while its selection tools sometimes drive me crazy the basics seems to work well.

If it was up to me.....

1. Click (or tap) to select an object and then click to deselect. Effectively toggling the state.
I am always selecting an object and then what to change my mind. This saves having to reselect a whole bunch of lights.

2. Click and Drag on nothing to make multiple selections. (You already have a button to deselect all for tablet users)

Most drawing programs seems to do this. Some require you enclose the whole object and others require just passing through the object. I prefer selections by just passing through. I think capture allows you to select objects by passing through if you are dragging left to right and then require completely enclosing if you are dragging right to left. Probably too confusing but it works surprisingly well in that environment when you remember

3. To move objects then you must first click and hold on one of the selected objects before dragging to a new location.

At the moment you can click and drag anywhere to move the objects. This is not like most drawing programs and I find it really confusing when using the 2d view screen.

One idea I did have. It would be great if the selections in the universe/group pane reflected the selections in the 2d pane. This could be very handy for quickly selecting groups of lights.

Cheers

Mark

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I just checked Blender (not the best example though...) and:
- RIGHT click to select (lol)
- right click again does nothing
- right click on nothing...does nothing
- right click on another object deselect the other objects and select the clicked one
- to select /deselect all you need to press the "A" key

As you can imagine, every software invented their own selection way...
I'd like to hear other users opinion to see if your proposed solution would work for others too. To me it doesn't make much difference one way or another

One idea I did have. It would be great if the selections in the universe/group pane reflected the selections in the 2d pane. This could be very handy for quickly selecting groups of lights.

Indeed ! Thanks for reminding me. It was in my plans since the beginning but for some reason I haven't done it yet. Will do for Alpha 2

maybe the "gesture navigation" used in freecad?
apart the ctrl to select multiple items not needed in qlc+, for the other cases it could be a suggestion.

https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Mouse_Model

On lists, instead, only by pressing the CTRL modifier you are able to select multiple items. (SHIFT modifier is not there yet)
Touchscreen devices would not be able to do multiple selections on lists, and I haven't thought/found any solution for it yet.

what if the SHIFT and CTRL modifier are buttons in the UI that one can toggle with a left click?

Apart this, for now I've the feeling that I'm doing a lot of clicks to select/deselect items in the 2D View.
Could it be a solution that the continuous selection is enable just before an action/command?
To explain it: I select one or more items and then I move them, then if I select something different the previous selection if dropped, or I can expand the current selectionwith SHIFT/CTRL, in this way we'll save all the clicks that are needed every time to deselect things.

Hey guys, please check Alpha 2.
I changed the selection logic and to me it seems pretty good now.
No more keyboard modifiers needed for multiple selection, so it's gonna work straight away on touchscreens too.

The rules right now are:
- click on a fixture: toggle selection
- click on nothing: deselect all
- start a drag on a fixture: move all the selected fixtures
- start a drag from nothing: activate multiple selection rectangle

Hi Massimo,

l haven’t had too much time to test but what you have done is great and works well. I did spend some time researching some iPad apps for drawing to see how they handle selection with a touch pad. Most struggled with selection of multiple objects and some had implemented on-screen shift or cmd buttons to help. Your solution is simple and elegant ant perfectly effective for lighting fixtures.

I did notice one bug. If you drag a fixture off the grid and deselect it, reselecting doesn’t allow you to move it back. However, if you select it with another fixture that is on the grid you can move them both. I was a bit surprised to find you could drag off the grid in the first place. I thought the grid boundary would define the space. Is this correct?

I am going on holidays and plan to spend some of my time testing alpha 2 when I can.

Cheers

Mark

Did some testing with the new changes.. I like the pull and drag. That's quite nice. However the unmodified click doing a multiple select is still tripping me up based on how most other tools work with a mouse. I recognize you wanting to have a tool consistent behavior between the platforms.. I think you'd be better served by having a platform consistent approach in the tool. I just did a quick bit of research and it appears you may be able to detect what kind of screen QLC will be running on via Qt ( outside of assuming by arch/os ):

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/312 ... s#31205119

Could we have "Tablet" behavior for tablet screens .. and "Mouse" behavior for non-tablet screens? I'd even be willing to gen a PR for a compile time or runtime argument I can specify and so we can have "mouse" behavior where needed. Thoughts?

Long live the power of the mouse & modifier keyboard keys... (incl. right click -> sry Mac OS)

GGGss wrote: ↑Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:15 am Long live the power of the mouse & modifier keyboard keys... (incl. right click -> sry Mac OS)

You didn't get the whole point of the discussion. QLC+ 5 is not going to be used ONLY on a desktop PC with mouse and keyboard.
And apparently you don't know the Mac world either. On a Mac, you can plug a traditional mouse and have right click as well. Maybe you're still stuck in the 90s ?

In general, considered the wild variety of devices on the market, it is almost impossible to understand via software all the features of the hardware.
For example, my laptop has a 15.4" 4K display with 10 points touch screen. I can use a USB mouse, the embedded trackpad and the touchscreen at the same time. Each one of them would have different behaviours (gestures, speed, multipoint, etc). For Qt/QLC+ it doesn't make any difference: they're all input devices.
To be honest I don't want to end up with a million of different cases that change the UI behaviour depending on several variables.
Can't you guys just adapt to the current solution ? In the past, we've done it for so many other softwares. Why should QLC+ be an exception ?
For example, objects selection in Blender is RIGHT click since ages. Lot of users complained about it, but still, it's there and you have to accept it.

That's a good point about converged devices .. most of my stuff is Mac ( with right click and *nix .. but even my raspi 7" screen can go both ways. I love this software and promote it .. so i'll continue to try to adapt regardless. I was just looking to see if there was a middle ground that could accommodate the bulk of the users while allowing the tool to handle the broadest user set and their devices.. AND the evolution of the desktop. This is why I asked if we could have an option so that the user can make an informed decision about how they want to work. I am happy to do the coding to make it work, just wanna make sure it both fits with your goals and would be relevant and useful.

mcallegari wrote: ↑Sat Mar 17, 2018 9:49 am If someone come up with a better idea that can cover both (all?) cases, I am willing to discuss it.

Take a look at android, especially the better graphics and audio editor apps....

Why invent the wheel again if the are already very good and widely spread touchscreen solutions ?


Some examples:

Opening context menus: for mouse rightclick, for touchscreen long press !

Concerning selecting items: single click=select single item. double click=add to/remove from from selection. Again long press for context menu: select all,select none,invert selection, delete, move etc.

Concerning selecting list items: press left half of line=select/deselect. press right half of line=add to/remove from selection. doubleclick for default action. Again long press for context menu...