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ZeroLengthCurve  
#1 Posted : Thursday, February 2, 2023 11:33:01 PM(UTC)
ZeroLengthCurve

Rank: Senior Member

Joined: 5/15/2008(UTC)
Posts: 996

Thanks: 26 times
Was thanked: 44 time(s) in 28 post(s)
Please, please, for those of us who have vast and underutilized screen/display real estate, as in 3 disays, with the drawing viewport on one, the Shark or VC tool pallets on another, and a third just sitting there begging for some action, make the Inspector resizable like the Concept Explorer and the Select Mask.

I have bazillions of layers that often start out with the same 15 or so letters, and the non-resizability of the Inspector has for years frustrated me to no end. It has forced me to doing a wholly unnecessary workaround: prefixing layers with crazy numbers or letters so that I can quickly spot the layer in the Select Mask. It's not so much that my eye is scanning for the layer NAME but that I'm scanning for a sudden JUMP or displacement of the layer's name so I can then stop scrolling of elevator-dragging/clicking to find a layer in the SM.

This naturally, again, forces me to emphatically beg that the Select Mask be given a sub pane into which, as with databases and spreadsheet apps, a user can enter the first few chars to down filter to just a few layers for quick temporary inspection or editing work.

This then forces me to ask why there is no mouse plus hotkey way to makenthe Slect Mask hep down filter the Concept Explorer so that the least number of layers are shown in the CE. If it's suspected that users could get lost, a color or a hatch marking on the pallet title bar could indicate which mode is driving the filtering.

This forces me to beg again that there be linkability between the SM, the I, and the CE so that focused attention can be on just the layers actual work is being done on. It would save a LOT of scrolling, a lot of selecting the wrong layer, and more.

This of course resurfaces the question of why, post 2000, there is only a single-letter tool selection. No company out there legitimately deserves a patent on multi-letter tool invocation or data filtering subselection. (Even Lotus Approach in 1997, among myriad other apps on PCs have had such features. If this is an intractable Mac mindset hindering PC users, please disabuse. Otherwise, it would be a short stone's throw to tell PC users to disabise themselves of using 3+ button mice and just get used to a one-button and twisted-digits/fingers syndrome plus mouse press and spin combinations, along with runes and incantations.) By now, as most patents expire at ~18 years, it should be close enough tome for Shark to pick up teicks hosrded by some abjactly, unrepentant, GREEDY and greasy companies out there stonewalling apps like Shark, whose users need a few enhancements to existing features.

As for linking the SM, I, and CE, a sliver column could be placed in each to let the user enter a letter or a few as task breadcrumbs. The user could assign them via a pallet or a text edit file that can be referenced on startup of the app, or when the user goes to the menu. If set up in a text file, this might make less code risk for Shark or VC.

Just some more fantasy wishlisting on my part.
thanks 3 users thanked ZeroLengthCurve for this useful post.
cgWerks on 2/3/2023(UTC), specktech on 2/3/2023(UTC), memphisjed on 7/31/2023(UTC)
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