IV. Harvesting and Sorting with Pick
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Since you can have many objects loaded at once, there has to be a way for you to tell Imagine what object or objects you want to deal with. You've done this already, by clicking on an object's axis, and watching it turn color. This shows that the picked object is ready to be manipulated on.
What if we want to manipulate more than one object at a time? A standard way to "multi-pick" things (like icons in AmigaDos, or objects in Imagine) is to use the shift key. By holding the shift key as you click on objects, Imagine knows you want ALL of them picked, not just the latest one. In fact, if you press the shift key, the display line at the top of the screen will change to show how many objects are picked. Commands will affect all of the picked objects, not just one. In the case of moving, scaling, and rotating more than one object, the FIRST picked object's axis defines the basis of all the manipulations, as well as the local coordinate system for manipulating all of the objects.
There are easier way to pick many objects than by repeatedly clicking on each object's axis. Imagine allows you to change how objects are picked by the "Pick Method" submenu in the Modes menu. The default is "click", which means that when you click directly on an object's axis, it will become picked. Other methods of picking can be chosen from the pick method submenu. If you use "drag box", instead of clicking on the object axes, you should press and hold the mouse button while dragging the mouse. A large box will follow your mouse, and when you release the button, an object within the box will become picked. If you press and hold the shift key when you release the mouse button, ALL of the objects within the box will become picked.
Lasso is similar, but more versatile. You press and hold the button while drawing a large circle or oval or squiggly shape. When you release the button, an object within the region you've drawn will become picked. Again, you can hold the shift key to pick ALL of the objects within.
A final option in the pick method submenu is called "Lock". Lock isn't a method of picking; it really has more to do with when moving picked objects. Lock is a flag; you can toggle it on and off by selecting it from its submenu. When Lock is on, any moved object will snap to the nearest grid location when released. This is automatic and is easier than using the one-time "Snap to Grid" (described later, I promise!) again and again when you're trying to get precise placement.
Two other utility commands can be found in the Pick/Select menu. "Pick all" will pick ALL of the objects in your workspace. "Unpick Last" will allow you to remove the last object you picked from your set of picked objects. This is handy when you pick one too many objects and you want to unpick the last one you chose.
It is easy to pick objects or sets of objects using the different pick methods. There is actually another powerful way to change what object or objects are picked; it is called "select." There is a very, very important difference between a "picked" object and a "selected" object; you've been using pick to highlight objects and manipulate them. Select is sort of a pick-wanna-be.
One problem that can occur is when two object axes are directly on top of each other. If you click on the common axis location, one of the objects will become picked. (The first one that was created or loaded into the Editor). If you click again, the same object will remain picked and the second object will just sit there. If you hold the shift key and click on the common axis again, the second object WILL be picked, but now BOTH objects are picked. If you want to pick just the second object and not the first, you can either MOVE one object just to uncover the other axis, or you can use select.
There is a solution when picking (or unpicking) objects becomes awkward (or impossible!). SELECT allows you to control what objects are picked by allowing you to add and remove objects from your set of picked objects one at a time.
Think of buying lunch at a cafeteria, and you pick which food you want to eat. One way of "picking" food to add to your tray is by having the lunch worker point to each of the cafeteria's food bins, and saying "No, the next one, the next one, the next one- yes! That one!" as the worker points to the foods in turn. As the worker selects item after item, you can choose to PICK the item he's pointing to at any time. The analogy extends; What if your arms are full of cafeteria food and you want to put some back? Your arms are busy holding all the food; you can't easily grab an item and put it down. You can, however, ask a friend to "unpick" the item for you. If your friend has trouble with big words (like the names of food), he can just point at each food in your arms in turn until he points to the granola yogurt you want to put down. You then say "Yes, yes! Get rid of that!"
This is exactly what select allows you to do. Your arms are full with picked objects. You can't just click on an object to "unpick" it because Imagine thinks you're just making sure you have it picked. You also might have problems indicating the right object to pick, as in the case of two objects on top of one another. The major difference between the the cafeteria and Imagine is that your mentally challenged friend is also the cafeteria worker, and will point to both types of objects for you.
Select works by allowing you to highlight different objects in a controlled way. A "selected" object might be picked or not; A normal object is white, a selected object is orange, a picked object is blue, and a picked AND selected object is purple.
Only one object is ever be selected at once, which is helpful in reducing confusion. The commands for selecting objects are completely different from those of PICKing objects; the whole point of select is that sometimes the methods used to pick objects are awkward, and select gives you an alternative way to pick them.
The easiest and most common method of selecting an object is by using two commands, "Select next" and "Select previous", both found in the Pick/Select menu. Using "Select next" repeatedly will cycle through all of the objects in the order that they were created or loaded. This command does NOT care whether the object is picked or not; it will select all objects one at a time. "Select next" is often a command you want to repeat, so knowing the keyboard shortcut of right-amiga-n is almost necessary. By repeatedly using select next, ANY object can be selected because Select next will eventually reach it. "Select previous", right-amiga-p, will select objects in the opposite order, in case you overshoot with select next. One convenience is that when an object becomes selected, your view will jump to center the object on the screen, always allowing you to see what you just selected.
When an object is selected, there are certain commands that will cause it to become picked or un-picked. The most common command is called "pick select", which can be found in the Pick/Select menu. When you use this menu option, the selected object will become picked. If the selected object is picked and you want to un-pick it, you can use "unpick select" from the pick/select menu to unpick it.
"Select next" is kinda klunky, especially if you know exactly what object you want to select. One quick command that is sometimes useful is "Home", which selects the very first object you created or loaded into the Editor.
Two other useful commands to quickly select specific objects are "Find by Name" and "Find requester", both found in the Functions menu. "Find by Name" allows you to type in an object's name (assigned in the Attributes requester, more later) and your view will shift to center on the object you named. In addition, the object becomes selected, allowing you to pick-select or unpick-select it. The "Find by Requester" does the same thing except it displays the names of all of the currently loaded objects, and you just click on the name you want to select. This requester is also useful because it tells you the size (# of points, edges, and faces) of each object, which is an excellent judge of object complexity. It's also fun to say "Cool! My tomato has 1,821 points!"
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