selection sets glitch?

[Alan Cooper]

Is there a glitch? I created a selection in the palette, but if I try to tick created selection later on from the palette, it claims not to be possible to make such selection, (says one or more entities were not picked due to being locked, invisible or ghosted) due to something being locked, invisible or ghosted, yet nothing is such. FormZ Pro 8.6.5 on Windows.

[ZTEK]

The problem occurs when you group the objects.

It doesn't matter if they are part of a Selection Set when you group the objects or if they form a group already when you create the set. Both situations are problematic.

In the first case, when you group objects that are part of a previously created Selection Set, the set stops working on them as long as they stay in the group. If you remove them from the group, they will remain linked and will be selected again when you reactivate the set.

In the second case, the problem happens inversely. When you create a Selection Set that includes a previously created group of objects, if you take them out of the group (ungroup), the Selection Set will not affect them until you put them back in. Therefore, it seems that the Selection Set is linked to the group structure rather than the objects themself. To confirm this, if you add new objects to a group that is part of the Selection Set, they will be selected when you activate it.

Although it seems there's some logic, I think it's a bug or the tool is poorly implemented because the grouping should not interfere. If you only work based on layers and don't use the object palette, you won't have any problems and probably don't notice it, but if you work based on objects and groups, it just doesn't work and make any sense.

Coincidentally, as an example, I'm working on a project with many options for the clients. Among other complexities, it has 157 object groups, 24 layer groups, 17 scenes, and a single Selection Set that no longer does anything. Since I created it before I went on vacation a month ago, I don't remember its purpose, and I will delete it because I'm sure it's not significant, and it doesn't make sense to try to figure it out.

The point is that these type of tools, complementary to formZ's system based on objects, groups, and layers, are super-useful and extra-necessary to organize and work with the information and present it. Therefore, they should have a clear logic and ideally not fail. From one's point of view, as a user, when that happens, it becomes very confusing and time-consuming if you have to go back.

In the same sense, I cannot but mention the similar situation of the Components, which is much more relevant than the Selection Sets. Something similar happens with them, and they do not work well with groups and scenes.

I hope my explanation is clear enough and the next version corrects these issues.

I work on formZ 9.2.1 and macOS 12.6 Monterrey on Mac mini M1.

Edited October 4, 2022 by ZTEK

[Alan Cooper]

Thanks ZTEK, that is very helpful. Although I have been using FormZ for many years now, I had not used selection sets before, and as I am an extensive groups user, it will not work for me, which is a shame because if I could use it with groups selection turned off it would have been useful. At least it has not broken any groups themselves, which would have been disastrous. So I agree with you, it is a poorly implemented tool only useful for small files without groups, so rarely of any use at all, for me at least.