GraphiteEditor/Graphite

Lasso/box selection switching and usage over existing layers

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#2647 opened on May 16, 2025

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 (2 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Rust (25,662 stars) (1,176 forks)batch import
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Description

We want to update dragging and selection such that:

  • Ctrl+drag's lasso selection, upon releasing Ctrl, switches to a regular box selection, and back to lasso by holding Ctrl again. It draws a straight line between the cursor position last time the lasso was removed and when it's now restored, allowing the user to also use this as a technique for drawing straight line sections of the lasso, but also just to decide to use box selection instead of lasso at any time.
  • Ctrl+dragging an object currently drags its layer(s) but we want to make it instead always lasso select. This lets the user perform a lasso selection over an existing layer, or a box selection but releasing Ctrl as in the previous bullet point.
  • Lasso selection has a bug that should be fixed: aborting the lasso selection (RMB or Esc) then creating a new lasso selection ends up erroneously extending the previously drawn lasso path because abort fails to clear the lasso data (which also wastes memory!). (#2792)

Contributor guide

Tech stack
rust
Domain
frontend
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
half day
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Rust programmingEvent handlingSelection system
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
70
Research direction
Investigate the existing selection implementation, particularly the lasso selection path management. Review the related bug #2792 to understand the abort issue. Explore the event handling for Ctrl+drag and selection modes. Implement the switching logic between lasso and box selection based on Ctrl key state.