"Auto Tolerant Selection"

On 01/07/2016 at 08:54, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hello!
What this would do is toggle a selection tool's "Tolerant" flag according to how the mouse is moved:
- draw the selection rectangle from right to left: use tolerant selection
- draw the selection rectangle from left to right: do not use tolerant selection

It could also work with lasso selection, not only rectangle selection (makes no sense 
with the live selection tool).

For many years I'm used to this small but extremely useful selection workflow booster from Autodesk software (AutoCAD, 3ds Max, where it's called "Auto Window/Crossing Toggle") and Rhino (where it's called "Mouse group select: combo"), and really miss it in C4D.

So, until one fine day when Maxon implements it - can it be done in a plugin, maybe MessageData, where mouse events and selection tool status are tracked, and the "Tolerant Selection" flag is set accordingly?
Any ideas?
I better ask before I start digging, since I'm still new to the C4D SDK...

P.S.
C4D lacks "Tolerant Selection" in object mode! (works in 3ds Max and Rhino). One for the wishlist...

Thanks for reading!
Best regards
Eugen

On 04/07/2016 at 07:50, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi,

thanks for the suggestion, I have added this to our Idea database.

Actually I'm not sure, if you are looking for someone to do such a tool for you (which is the purpose of this subforum) or if you are looking for advice, how to do something like this on your own (then your request would be better located in the SDK Help subforum).

In any way a MessageData plugin is not the right place as it can't be used to modify existing tools. Actually you can't modify existing tools and should rather look into ToolData or DescriptionToolData to implement such a selection tool yourself.

On 04/07/2016 at 13:25, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hello Andreas!
Thanks for the reply, and for adding the suggestion!

I am not sure yet myself if I want to write it myself or not... in the end, I just want to see this thing implemented.
If some master coder around here is willing to to the job - be my guest! =}
If not, I'd like to try myself. This might take a long time and a learning effort - which would be fine, too.

However - a few questions first, on which it might depend if this is even doable (for me) with reasonable effort:

"Actually you can't modify existing tools and should rather look into ToolData or DescriptionToolData to implement such a selection tool yourself."

I don't want to write the complete selection tool myself, if that can be avoided! Implement the complete rectange/lasso selection tool? Sounds like overkill...

This should really be just a small addition to the existing selection tools - in some way monitor the mouse draw direction during selection and toggle the flag accordingly.

If you say that this is not possible, I better leave this to Maxon (in which case I can only hope this is not going to rot in a drawer for the next 5 years, because it's one of those proverbial 'low hanging fruit' - little investment, high benefit for the workflow. Please believe me in this).

One thing only Maxon can fix anyway: support for 'tolerant selection' also in object mode! It makes sense in BOTH component and object mode! (3ds Max and Rhino handle it that way)

2. Can this be done in Python?

Thanks for reading!
Best regards
Eugen

On 06/07/2016 at 00:14, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi Eugen,

no, it's not possible to change existing tools. You'd have to do your own.
In Python only ToolData is available.