Selection of Items on BD or FP needs to be Easier!

[JackDunaway]

Currently, it's a crapshoot when you drag an ant trail selection box around items on your FP or BD. It's truly an art to become good at selecting objects in LabVIEW - we all learn "hot spots" to place our selection rectangles, and we all heavily rely on the "Shift+Click" method of adding or removing objects from our selection. Below is an example of what actually might be selected when dragging a selection box:

All horizontal wires were selected down to "ABCDEF", even though just a very small portion of the visible wire was inside the selection box. It's not intuitive to try to not select wire that is hidden behind the Unbundle.

I propose a method that mimics selection in some graphics editing and CAD programs: the idea of "Enclosed" and "Inclusive" selections. An Enclosed selection is made by dragging the mouse from L to R. This operation selects only the objects THAT ARE COMPLETELY ENCLOSED by the selection box, ignoring objects that are partially outside the selection (the red arrow is not part of the BD, it merely represents the motion of the cursor):

Alternatively, if you drag your mouse from RIGHT to LEFT for a selection box, you select every single object that is fully or even partially contained within the selection box:

Voila! Selection is now a TAUGHT SCIENCE instead of a LEARNED ART!

[JackDunaway]

As an added comment, there are four ways to draw a rectagle, although I only illustrated two with the red arrows:

Enclosed (L to R):

Top-Left to Bottom-Right

-or-

Bottom-Left to Top-Right

Inclusive (R to L):

Top-Right to Bottom-Left

-or-

Bottom-Right to Top-Left

Also, I have no idea what the actual terms are for the two types of selections: Enclosed and Inclusive just made sense to me. I know some of you users have used these programs more recently than the last time I touched SolidWorks 5 years ago!!!

[JackDunaway]

One final bit of propaganda: the selection of lots of wires becomes a dream using R to L Inclusive selection:

This Idea is virtually a MUST for the Multiple Wire Insert or the Allow Distribute Tool to Work on Wires Idea.

[tst]

I don't know if the specific implementation would work (although if it works for CAD, it can work for LV as well), but the idea itself deserves about 10 times as many kudos as what I actually gave. This is definitely annoying behavior and the multiple wire selection is definitely a tasty cherry.

[RavensFan]

For reference, in AutoCAD, a left to right drag on the window (whether going up or down) is called an "enclosing window selection" and only picks objects completely withing the window zone.  A right to left drag (whether up or down) is called a "crossing windows selection" and picks objects inside the window and any that cross the boundaries of the window.

As a regular AutoCAD user, this type of selection behavior is intuitive for me, so I Kudoed the idea as well.

[Broken_Arrow]

Capital idea! This has always bugged me about LV.

[JackDunaway]

Something else just hit me... have you ever tried - in the field, under pressure - to select some items hunched over your laptop using the touchpad? I have. Heh, heh, heh... sucker... nearly impossible task.

Although it won't relieve the pressure, I think this idea would alleviate some frustration due to touchpad limitations.

[reniam]

Very useful. OrCAD Capture, a schematic editing package, added something similar in version 15.0. They added a button "Area Select - Fully Enclosed vs. Intersecting". It's great. I would prefer an explicit button over LtoR or RtoL mouse dragging.

[minnellac]

I think this is an AWESOME idea. I remember that behavior from my old AutoCAD days, and it really wasn't hard to learn. It became obvious pretty quickly (much more so than the current LabVIEW selection behavior).

[rex1030]

First off, mad kudos mate. This is a great idea especially for a graphically based language like labVIEW. I really hope NI adds this. 

I think that this "smart selection" should be optional. The user should be able to enable or disable this feature from the preferences. That way the old school stubborn types will be able to go back to the random behavior if they really want to, making upgrading to a newer version a little less jarring at first. 

[Mr.Mike]

FYI: There is a tiny bit of sanity to selection.  Wires are selected if their center is included in the selection box.