Individual Drag Mode

[Yuv]

currently in the fast preview, dragging an image will drag the whole group of images connected by CPs.

because the initial position of an image has an influence on the optimization process, I would like to add an individual drag mode. in that mode, only the image selected under the cursor will move. currently, my work around for this is to enter numeric values in the images tab.

additionally, to improve the feedback of the process, I would like to see the image(s) being dragged become semi-transparent while the images in the background stay black & white.

This task is still beyond my current skillset, but given enough time and persistence I might get to it, one day.

[dmakreshanski (dmakreshanski)]

The changes I've made:
    - In the Move/Drag tab there is a new checkbox: "Custom drag images"
    - When this checkbox is checked this mode is enabled and with that for every image toggle button a corresponding checkbox is shown
    - The checkboxes for the buttons mark which images will currently be moved if any kind of dragging occurs
    - Apart from checking and unchecking by clicking on the checkboxes, this is also possible by clicking on the images in the preview/overview
        - This is handled in the following way:
            * if CTRL is held while the user clicks over a set of images, that set of images will be added to the group
            * if CTRL+SHIFT is held while the user clicks over a set of images the set of images will be removed from the group
    - Also the Identify tool is now automatically active when the user holds the CTRL key while moving the mouse around a window
    - Also the feature to highlight an image when the mouse is over an image toggle button is now constantly active

[Bruno Postle (brunopostle)]

Cool, it works for me as described and I can see it being useful. A couple of comments:

I was confused a bit by needing Ctrl-Shift-click to deselect, did you try having Ctrl-click to both select and deselect? Actually here a simple click does nothing at all, so you could have click to select and Crtl-click to deselect, or just click to both select and deselect.

I would like to rename it to simply 'Select Photos'. This is already the 'Move/Drag tab', so it is implicit that selecting photos would only work on that subset, though you would also expect the roll/pitch/yaw entry boxes would only work on these photos too.

Selecting multiple photos graphically has further uses, i.e. if you select photos in the Preview they should also become selected in the Images tab, Camera and Lens tab and Crop tab, this would be very useful.

Also it could work the other way around, e.g. selecting photos in the Images tab should select them in the Preview, though this implies that the selection should be propagated between the Images tab, Camera and Lens tab and Crop tab.

[dmakreshanski (dmakreshanski)]

I decided not to do the 'just click' method because it is already in the drag mode, so sometimes it may not be clearly distinguishable if the user just clicks or drags the images. I also first implemented just ctrl+click to both select and deselect images, but the problem is when the mouse is over multiple images and if some of them are already selected and the others are not, than the behavior of just toggling will probably not be desirable for the user.

Now that I thought of it more, maybe it will probably make more sense to have ctrl+click just mark the current images under the cursor and unmark all the others, while shift+ctrl+click add the images under the cursor and alt+ctrl+click remove the images from the cursor.

For the second thing, it seems reasonable, I will make it also work with the manual changes with apply button.

For the last idea, it is probably useful, but it requires additional effort in making this selection state global. Right now it is just a state for the fast preview part of the code, so I would mark this as a separate issue.

[Yuv (yuv)]

Very cool indeed, Darko. Thank you!

I agree with you that ctrl-click should mark just one image (the one that the cursor is most in the middle of) and ctrl-shift-click should mark all underlying images. I just tested the current version with a pano that has a lot of overlap and I can never get just a single image selected.

I agree with Bruno that the behavior should be toggle, and most of his other comments.

I would put the 'Select Photos' checkbox on the left of the drag mode selector, not on the right where it is now.

The little boxes displaying the image number were already too small before and showed only one digit (I am using Kubuntu). Now with the checkbox it is even tighter. Can you make those boxes broader, please? Ideally "dynamic" based on the number of images in the project - simple width for projects with less than 9 images; double width for projects with 10-99 images; triple width for projects with 100-999 images; and I have never seen a project with 1000+ images but might be worth making the width-algorithm future-proof.

[Yuv (yuv)]

bug 724079 deals with the last part of my feedback in comment 4

[Lajos Höss (cqhl-freemail)]

Hugin 2011.0.0 beta 3 on UHU-Linux 2.1. With induvidual drag mode, the image number not fit correctly too. See the attachment.

[Yuv (yuv)]

Hi Lajos,

do you think it is necessary for the individual drag mode checkbox selection to be *next* to the image number as opposed to above the image toggle button as it is now in your screenshot?

[Lajos Höss (cqhl-freemail)]

Thanks the comment. I not understand correctly, "*next* " I think useful for select a picture group with image number index. I see the image name (not the image index) displayed if move the cursor. Of course, this is not a big problem, but button groups with unreadable cropped text not nice.