(Suggestion) Selecting Like Features

Questions and comments about Other World Mapper.

Moderator: Kanchou

Post Reply
User avatar
Grog
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed May 09, 2018 12:22 pm
Location: North Carolina

(Suggestion) Selecting Like Features

Post by Grog » Sat Aug 04, 2018 1:19 pm

Been a hot second since I posted (particularly because the forums seem dry a lot of the time), but I came across the issue of trying to color a map that was previously only in black and white (cartography). I believe double clicking a single feature (such as a particular bush or tree) should select all features of the same kind. This way one can expedite the process of changing a map from color to black and white, sepia, or vice versa. I'm running into this issue mostly because I have 200+ features on a map, and to turn it colored, I have to manually CTRL + click every like feature, or just go through one at a time.

An addition like this would make my (and I'm sure others') lives extremely more easy and efficient.

nDervish
Posts: 93
Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2014 12:18 am

Re: (Suggestion) Selecting Like Features

Post by nDervish » Sun Aug 05, 2018 4:12 am

Definitely sounds like a good feature to add, but I think it would be better to have a "select similar" keystroke rather than activating it on double-click. It's not that difficult to accidentally double-click and I don't think this is a feature that most users would use often enough to be worth that risk - I suspect that, for most users, it would be activated accidentally than intentionally.

Plus, having it on a keystroke (and/or giving it an options dialog) would allow for some tuning of what exactly it does. e.g., in your example of selecting features, you might want to select only features identical to the one selected, or all features found on the same tab of the feature selector, or all features regardless of type. Also a switch for only selecting features in the visible section of the map, only those with the same parent (e.g., in the same region or on the same landmass), or from the whole map.

User avatar
Kanchou
Site Admin
Posts: 1021
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 2:23 pm

Re: (Suggestion) Selecting Like Features

Post by Kanchou » Mon Aug 06, 2018 11:46 am

Grog wrote:Been a hot second since I posted (particularly because the forums seem dry a lot of the time), but I came across the issue of trying to color a map that was previously only in black and white (cartography). I believe double clicking a single feature (such as a particular bush or tree) should select all features of the same kind. This way one can expedite the process of changing a map from color to black and white, sepia, or vice versa. I'm running into this issue mostly because I have 200+ features on a map, and to turn it colored, I have to manually CTRL + click every like feature, or just go through one at a time.

An addition like this would make my (and I'm sure others') lives extremely more easy and efficient.
We originally thought of doing something like that, but got rejected from UI design for reasons similar to what nDervish commented. However,

1. You can do what you are trying to do via the "Relink feature" option in the Edit menu. That lets you select a new feature to replace all occurrences of a particular feature.

2. Respect to nDervish's reply, we are planning to add a way to performing "selective selection" or advanced selection that lets you select items based on custom criteria.

We are shying away from adding too many things to interface behavior that would clutter OWM since we want to keep it from growing too complex.
Alejandro S. Canosa
Three Minds Software

User avatar
Kanchou
Site Admin
Posts: 1021
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 2:23 pm

Re: (Suggestion) Selecting Like Features

Post by Kanchou » Mon Aug 06, 2018 11:47 am

By the way, I also realized you don't have permissions for posting in the other sections of the forum so I'm going to change your permissions.
Alejandro S. Canosa
Three Minds Software

User avatar
Grog
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed May 09, 2018 12:22 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: (Suggestion) Selecting Like Features

Post by Grog » Mon Aug 06, 2018 7:50 pm

Kanchou wrote:
We originally thought of doing something like that, but got rejected from UI design for reasons similar to what nDervish commented. However,

1. You can do what you are trying to do via the "Relink feature" option in the Edit menu. That lets you select a new feature to replace all occurrences of a particular feature.

2. Respect to nDervish's reply, we are planning to add a way to performing "selective selection" or advanced selection that lets you select items based on custom criteria.

We are shying away from adding too many things to interface behavior that would clutter OWM since we want to keep it from growing too complex.
Ah, I see. I was unaware of the Relink feature, and it seems to suit what I needed it for (though I already went through and manually changed everything :lol: .
Kanchou wrote:By the way, I also realized you don't have permissions for posting in the other sections of the forum so I'm going to change your permissions.


I did have those permissions at some point, but I guess they were revoked? I never was able to post in the bugs forum, though I could view them. I appreciate it.

andyskinner
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 2:13 pm

Re: (Suggestion) Selecting Like Features

Post by andyskinner » Mon Aug 06, 2018 8:32 pm

I think the more general feature requested here is to recolor more easily.

If you have a bunch of variations of a feature (different shaped mountains or trees), and wanted to change the color, you wouldn't want to do each kind of mountain or tree. Not sure just new selection features would help.

andy

User avatar
Kanchou
Site Admin
Posts: 1021
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 2:23 pm

Re: (Suggestion) Selecting Like Features

Post by Kanchou » Mon Aug 06, 2018 9:42 pm

andyskinner wrote:I think the more general feature requested here is to recolor more easily.

If you have a bunch of variations of a feature (different shaped mountains or trees), and wanted to change the color, you wouldn't want to do each kind of mountain or tree. Not sure just new selection features would help.

andy
Agreed. The relink functionality is the closest thing for what he needed.....or you can use the colorize option for the features in the properties.

The way we structured the asset files so OWM was open for easy importing also made it so that there is no set way to switch between categories/colors for the same set. We'll see if we can do something for future releases since we did make the sets have matching names (i.e. sets with variations of colors are named so they match across colors).

- Alejandro
Alejandro S. Canosa
Three Minds Software

Post Reply