Tablet - node long press menu "select" to select nodes in flow

[ristomatti]

As there's currently no way to "ctrl+click" multiple nodes on a touch interface, I would believe it would be more useful if the "select" option from a node long press menu would select nodes on the same flow (shift+click) instead of selecting all nodes on the tab as it currently does.

All nodes on the tab could still be selected from the menu when long pressing on an empty space.

Ideally there'd would be a way to select multiple nodes via tapping them but it might require more effort than what it's worth. And a proper UX design/concept of course.

[JGKK]

I fully agree, the selection of multiple nodes from a touch interface is sorely lacking right now.

[dceejay]

yes - select the flow would probably be a better default use. A proposed Pull Request would be great.

[JGKK]

I wouldnt even know where to start can you point me at the place in the repo that is responsible for the current behavior so i can at least understand how its working now and maybe learn something

[ristomatti]

If you're interested to look into this, I believe the responsible code is:

• Menu itself: https://github.com/node-red/node-red/blob/dev/packages/node_modules/@node-red/editor-client/src/js/ui/touch/radialMenu.js
• Editor area using the menu: https://github.com/node-red/node-red/blob/dev/packages/node_modules/%40node-red/editor-client/src/js/ui/view.js

In particular view.js function selectAll() is the action now triggered but I think what we would want to happen is on lines 2903 onwards:

if (d3.event.shiftKey) {
    clearSelection();
    var cnodes = RED.nodes.getAllFlowNodes(mousedown_node);
    for (var n=0;n<cnodes.length;n++) {
        cnodes[n].selected = true;
        cnodes[n].dirty = true;
        moving_set.push({n:cnodes[n]});
    }
}

This is my guess at least, based on a quick search from the codebase.