Advanced Metagraf – 6

Solving problems with selecting.-

Another problems that can arise, sometimes, are related with the difficulty in selecting objects that are small and placed very near ones of the others.

There are several possible solutions to this problem. To understand it it should be said that in Mg5, the pointer of the mouse has a kind of “circle of sensitiveness”. Its finality is to detect the existence of an object inside it, what will change its aspect and permit the selection of the object. If this circle is made too small, the normal selection can be cumbersome as a bigger precision will be necessary. But being the circle a reasonable one in diameter, it is possible that the mouse detects two objects inside it. In this situation, it will look at all the objects in the stack and choose to deal with the one, included in its “circle”, closer to the bottom of the stack, ignoring the other one.

This can be O.K. if the user wants to deal with the selected one. But if this is not the case, how can be selected the other object? One way, easy to use if there are few objects on the screen, is just to change the layer or “position on the stack” of the object closer to the bottom. A few clicks on due button (or a few keystrokes on key “S”) will do it.

Unfortunately, the most common situation when the problem arise is in big drawings where there are many objects and many of them very close between themselves. If the two objects that creates the problem are the number fourth and the 78th of a total of 87 objects, the proposed solution is clearly unpractical.

The easiest solution is simply to try to select the object wanted. If a near object is selected instead, then just grouping it alone will change its position to the top of the stack and the wanted object will be selected without problem. This can be done using the corresponding buttons for grouping and ungrouping or, easier, just pressing the keys “G” (for grouping) and immediately, “U” (for ungrouping). After doing this, pressing the mouse button will select the wanted object.





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Madrid, January 2006