Selection precision is off by 9 screen pixels

[Christopher M. Rogers]

To reproduce:

1. Draw two overlapping rectangles
2. Try and select the one behind by clicking on it near the edge of the rectangle in front.
3. Result: if you click on the rectangle behind within 9 screen pixels of the rectangle in front, the rectangle in front is instead selected.

This poses a major problem for selecting objects when zoomed out.

Solution: Select the object which is clicked on, not the object nearby it.

The only exception to this rule should be text blocks, which are difficult to select by clicking. This active area should only expand within the confines of the text box (so if you click near the text inside the box, it selects the text box, but if you click anywhere outside the text box, it does not.

Sample file attached: at 100% zoom It's impossible to select the blue rectangle without clicking outside of the blue rectangle, or using selection modifier keys, which makes selection in Inkscape clumsy at best in its current state.

Inkscape version info:
inkscape-trunk amd64 1:0.92.0+devel+201807081751~ubuntu17.10.1

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

This is not exactly a bug but is intended as a feature, see screenshot.

We should probably re-design the function to select the object that is nearest to the mouse cursor when multiple objects are within "grab distance" which might or might not be easy (depending on implementation).

[Christopher M. Rogers (cajhne)]

This feature should only take effect if an object is not clicked on directly.

Specifically:

The grab sensitivity takes effect IFF there are no clickable objects under the cursor.

This can happen if:
1. All objects under the cursor are locked or hidden
2. All objects under the cursor are in a layer or group which is locked or hidden
3. There are in-fact no objects at all under the cursor. :)

In all other cases, Inkscape should select what was actually clicked on.

So what about text? I rather think Inkscape should treat the space in between characters in a text box as clickable area for selecting the text box. There are facilities in Inkscape for selecting an object behind another object, and selecting an object behind a text area by clicking within the text area bounding box is most often a mistake - It makes selecting and moving text around a pain in the ass. :) I'll put that in another bug though. ;)

[Christopher M. Rogers (cajhne)]

Also, thanks for having a look at this Patrick. :)

[LucaDC (lucadc)]

This issue is quite old.
Please also take a look at Bug #515997.

[Christopher M. Rogers (cajhne)]

Noted, though this bug contains more information, and a complete solution. Shall we put the priority on this bug to Medium (to match the last bug, and continue the conversation here? When it's fixed, we can then close all previous bug reports as well.

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

We prefer earlier reports when deciding which to mark as duplicate, especially if they already collected some popularity and are not too unclear.

If you think any information misses from the other report feel free to add it.
Also improving captions and the first post are welcome (helps searching for the bug and reduces the time an interested developer needs to figure out the problem described).