Selecting object gets easily lost, proposal for alternative way

[freebrowser1]

When selecting an object by clicking onto it it gets selected. But one can easily inadvertently click on any other part of the screen which results in losing the selection or selecting another object.
An easy way to fox this is selecting only by holding down shift / ctrl / cmd or other modifier key while clicking. Or using right click and then popping up a context menu showing 'select object'. This allows for even more options the user can do with the object, such as 'zoom in' or 'zoom out'.

Expected Behaviour

Selection should retain when user clicks anywhere on the screen.

Actual Behaviour

Selection gets lost easily.

Steps to reproduce

Select an object by just clicking on it. Then click (even not deliberately) anywhere in the screen and the selection gets lost (or another object, may be even below the horizon) gets selected.

System

• Stellarium version: 24.3
• Operating system: macOS 15.x, Ubuntu 24.04

Logfile

N/A

[gzotti]

I'm afraid we ran out of modifiers already. Just operate your equipment with more care.

[freebrowser1]

I'm afraid we ran out of modifiers already. Just operate your equipment with more care.
Ran out of modifiers ?
Shift+click can be used. It has nothing to do with operating equiment: just a single click is easily done so one misclicks and an object is 'selected'.

[gzotti]

Click selects. Right-click unselects.
Shift-click sets a marker. Shift-rightclick unsets it.
Ctrl-click-mousemove drags time
Click of the first mouse button is the most obvious and intuitive. We should keep that.
Yes, I sometimes wish there was a brain interface or at least eye tracking that supports where an inadvertent mouseclick or keyboard entry goes. Mouse select an object, then keep selected until you unlock the selection by pressing four keys at once? List all the major graphics, editors or similar programs which do that. I wouldn't like to use that. If some object selection is lost, just click again.

[10110111]

There could be an action like "Re-select last selected object" for such cases. Or maybe even a list of objects that have been selected in the current session, that could be clicked to select again.

[gzotti]

Trivial click-selected targets are easily selected again. The search dialog has such last targets for those the user has searched for.

[freebrowser1]

Click selects. Right-click unselects. Shift-click sets a marker. Shift-rightclick unsets it. Ctrl-click-mousemove drags time Click of the first mouse button is the most obvious and intuitive. We should keep that. Yes, I sometimes wish there was a brain interface or at least eye tracking that supports where an inadvertent mouseclick or keyboard entry goes. Mouse select an object, then keep selected until you unlock the selection by pressing four keys at once? List all the major graphics, editors or similar programs which do that. I wouldn't like to use that. If some object selection is lost, just click again.

The issue is than when one selects an object, then clicks on 'search' in the left of the screen. sometimes when you click a pixel too far right it selects another object. So this is not intuitive at all. Look at e.g. SkySafari which is much more intuitive in that sense.

[10110111]

sometimes when you click a pixel too far right it selects another object.

Hmm, indeed this is a bad behavior. The clicks in the panels should not let the events through. Though there's currently an opposite problem with Oculars panel: mouse button release isn't registered there, so if you drag the scene and your cursor gets into the Oculars panel, and you release the button, you'll still be dragging.

[freebrowser1]

Moreover, which I did not mention yet, is that normal behavior in a GUI is that clicking on the main window of any app to get focus, results in immediately slecting another object. Even when the other window is within Stellarium itself, such as Search / Configuration, etc.
So left click should not no anything other than give focus to current window.

[gzotti]

It has been normal behaviour of this program since at least 2008.

[10110111]

I've never had such behavior that clicking a dialog within Stellarium window changed selection. You'll need to provide an instruction on how to reproduce this.

…

On Mon, 3 Feb 2025, 21:11 freebrowser1, ***@***.***> wrote: Moreover, which I did not mention yet, is that normal behavior in a GUI is that clicking on the main window of any app to get focus, results in immediately slecting another object. Even when the other window is within Stellarium itself, such as Search / Configuration, etc. So left click should not no anything other than give focus to current window. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4113 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABQU3MWNLWLR3J6QW4YYCH32N5TJDAVCNFSM6AAAAABWIDG5UOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMMZQHE3TAMBVHA> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[gzotti]

I think OP means that clicking on the Stellarium window while another program has e.g. keyboard focus may select a star next to the position clicked (inside the Stellarium window). OP expects to click once to place focus on Stellarium, then click another time to actually select something. However, it was always like this, so I'd say just get used to it.

Clicking on a button must hit it. Clicking one pixel left or right will probably try to select something in the main window. You can scale up buttons to make it easier to click them. A click inside the perimeter line of the button bars but outside the actual buttons should do nothing, though.

[alex-w]

There could be an action like "Re-select last selected object" for such cases.

I can add this action, including ability to assign a hotkey for call it.

[freebrowser1]

There could be an action like "Re-select last selected object" for such cases.

I can add this action, including ability to assign a hotkey for call it.

Preferably a button, because there are already too many keyboard shortcuts to remember.