Repeat last selection

[PeterKehoe]

I have often selected elements to start a command, and then mistakenly selected the wrong command (Move Face instead of Pull Face, or Align instead of Offset). I would like a function to select the  "Last Selection" so that I don't have to manually select the same elements again.

In the past when I have brought this up, there were some technical issues which made if difficult to do. To make it easier, I only want that list kept until a command has been completed (i.e. the model has changed). Once a command has been completed, the "Last Selection" list is cleared.

[BarryCritchley]

I agree - i have thought this for many years. An auto-clipboard 'last selection' feature - Not sure how widespread the 'clipboard' could be (faces/edges/parts/assys), but my biggest frustration was usually faces. 

A very good Enhancement suggestion. 

.

[ptc-1796640]

I've wanted this for a long time, thanks! I would like to push for Last Selection list being perpetually available though; it can't be that tough. . .

[ptc-4864603]

Simple things like this can expand functionality of mapkeys as well, select last, select none, select inverse can be combined to get a lot of things accomplished.

[JamesOsborn]

As long as you are going to remember the last selection, why not remember the last 5 or 15 selections?  Sometimes they won't make sense (maybe some of the items are gone now) in which case a popup "not all items could be selected" would be OK.  I imagine a "selection history browser" that looks like the undo list.  When you click on an item in the list, it is highlighted in the viewport just like selections in the Structure Browser.  Maybe there is an Apply button to confirm your selection.  Maybe you can even select multiple entries in the list and right-click Apply Selection as you can in the Structure Browser to concoct a new selection that is based on several earlier selections.  Why not?

[PeterKehoe]

James, that would be great to have it remember multiple selections. But when I have talked to the developers in the past about this, they thought that it would be very difficult and very likely that most, if not all, of the previous selections would not be selectable again. (This is based on the way that they currently identify each item being selected; that identification can change between operations.) That is why I framed the suggestion the way I did, because there would be no operation between the selections, so all of the items should still be there (and with the same identification); this would at least be a first step. But I like your idea about having a message about "not all items selected"; you could then go into the Select menu and add/remove items as necessary.

[JamesOsborn]

I don't see the big deal.  You can create part group and face list features, so the concept of remembering a selection doesn't seem that crazy to me.  In fact after playing with the Select list dialog again, I could see a History button right there that gives you access to the prior selections.  You can use Add/Remove to add or remove one of the Historical select lists from a new possibly different Select operation.  For example, you could do Select / Start / All / Remove prior selection / End, etc.  That would be super handy.  All they would need to do is reduce any selection that is made to a type of list that Select could understand.  Granted the user may digitize and/or use lots of different modifiers to select something, but I don't see why once a selection is made, it cannot be remembered as a simple list of items, be they edges, faces, parts, assys, a combination, etc.  The only issue would be items that change (maybe edges or faces got new IDs after a machining op?) or are gone.  There are a lot of cases where that happens, so it would need to be able to gracefully skip over those.

[mneumueller]

We had another look at the feasibility of the above request and re-confirmed that there are some technical issues making this very difficult to do.

What might be easier to achieve is to

a) offer a command to capture the current selection (for example in the selection toolbar) along with the ability to re-use one of the last 5 or 10 captured selections.

b) capturing the last selection automatically only when doing pre-selection before entering a tool

c)  Capturing the last selection automatically when ok/canceling tools for a list of selected tools. (for example: move face, pull face, offset, align, position, etc).

We are currently checking option b) and c)and are wondering

- would a) , b) , c) or a combination of them get close to solve the problem?

- is there  a list of 5-10  tools where this would be most needed/helpful?

[mneumueller]

This was delivered in Creo Elements/Direct Modeling  20.4.

See https://support.ptc.com/help/creo/ced_modeling/r20.4.0.0/en/#page/ced_modeling%2FOSDM_Main%2Fwhatsne...