[Closed] Drag-to-select interface possible?

I’ve implemented this exact feature in c#, though technically it might also be possible in Maxscript+Dotnet.

Is this only a selection interface, or can the points be moved? Are there any other needed features?

Basically, in maxscript, You would need to create a dotnet control (or dotnetObject if this will be hosted in a dotnet form) typically of type “panel” or “usercontrol”.
You would then need to register the following events for this control:
[ul]
[li]Paint
[/li][li]MouseDown
[/li][li]MouseUp
[/li][li]MouseMove
[/li][li]SizeChanged (if you want it to be resizable)
[/li][/ul]
and possibly others I’ve forgotten.
You will create a System.Drawing.Rectangle representing the bounds of each selectable point and implement the selection logic in the mouse events. You will need to paint the control yourself in the Paint event.

If you go down this route you will probably have more questions, but it’s easier to give you directions once you’ve already started, because it’s not a very short code.

Here is some very incomplete pseudocode to get you started:

struct ctrlPoint --a selectable control point
(
	boundsF, -- a System.Drawing.RectangleF (float) which describes the point's normalized bounds in the range of 0.0-1.0 (where 1.0 is the size of the panel control)
	--normalizing these coordinates allows easy resizing of the control
	bounds, -- un-normalized point coords (this will need to be updated each time the panel is resized
	animHandle, -- a handle to the node or maxobject the point selects
	isSelected --boolean
	
	fn updateBounds w h =
	(
		--update the bounds rect using the constant boundsF rect and the w/h variables (panel size).
	)
)

rollout rigCtrlRol "Test"
(
	local ctrlPoints = #()
		
	local dragRectPoint -- a point where dragging started
	local dragRect -- the selection rectangle
	
	dotnetControl pnl "Panel" width:500 height:500
	
	on pnl paint s e do
	(
		--e.graphics.drawimage.... the background image
		for p in ctrlPoints
		(
			--e.graphics.fillEllipse ... --paint the point 
		)
		if dragRect != undefined do
		(
			--paint the drag rectangle
		)
	)
	
	on pnl mouseDown s e do
	(
		--check if clicked inside a point
		--if not, start a drag rectangle
			--(
				--dragRectPoint = e.location....
				--dragRect = ...
				--reset all points .isSelected property...
			--)
	)
	
	on pnl mouseUp s e do
	(
		dragRect = undefined --reset the dragRect
		for p in ctrlPoints where p.isSelected do
		(
			--perform selection logic
		)
	)
	
	on pnl mouseMove s e do
	(
		if dragRect != undefined do
		(
			--recalculate the dragRect. Be sure to support dragging in all directions!
			for p in ctrlPoints do
			(
				p.isSelected = --do the point bounds intersect/are contained inside the drag rect?
			)
		)
	)
	
	on pnl sizeChanged s e do
	(
		--calculate all points updated bounds
	)
)

this is a very loose structure, you should not take it literally, maybe just draw ideas.

Am I on the right track so far? Ignore the image, since it obviously isn’t important for testing.

try destroyDialog testDragSelect_Rollout catch()
rollout testDragSelect_Rollout "Character Studio with Dragging Functionality" width:512 height:512
(
    
	local mouseIsDown

	dotNetControl tds_dnc_usercontrol "System.Windows.Forms.Usercontrol" width:500 height:500 align:#center

    on testDragSelect_Rollout open do
    (	
		mouseIsDown = false
        --tds_dnc_usercontrol.backgroundImage = (dotNetclass "System.Drawing.Image").fromfile @"X:\3dsmax\2013\MaxScript\images\characterStudioBackground.png"
	)
	
	on tds_dnc_usercontrol MouseDown do
	(
		print "Down!"
		mouseIsDown = true
	)	
	
	on tds_dnc_usercontrol MouseUp do
	(
		print "Up!"
		mouseIsDown = false
	)
		
	on tds_dnc_usercontrol MouseMove do
	(
		if mouseIsDown then print "Moved with button down (ie drag!)"
	)
)
createDialog testDragSelect_Rollout

edit: hadn’t seen the above post – looks like some very good ideas there!

Yup, it seems you are on the right track. Do keep posting your updates, I will be happy to track your progress.

This is something I’ve always wanted to learn how to do. I’d really apppreciate it if you could continue to post your progress and allow us to learn from it.

Thanks!

john

More features you might want to implement:

• Support for Alt/Ctrl.
• Different color for selected points.
• Different color for points under the mouse but not selected (preview selection).
• Save/load point data in external files.

These will require a little more complex logic.

What I eventually ended up doing was to add a design mode to the control, in which the points are movable, and a separate property editor allows you to set properties of the points (in your case, for example, determine which object they select), so the user is able to also create the interface he wants according to the character (just another option to consider).

Hey Mixx,
I’m not sure how much exp you have with dotNet stuff. A while back I started a thread which covered so examples of dotNet UI stuff which Lo himself helped out a lot on. It was a learning exp for me and a good resource for some basic examples.
I figured I would put the link on here in case there is something you may find useful on it.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=98&t=1015046&highlight=dotnet