IfcOpenShell/docs/dev-notes/Additional_Selection_and_Deselection_Tools.md

Additional selection and deselection tools — uniform modifier scheme for select operators

Living dev note for the Additional_Selection_and_Deselection_Tools branch/PR. Read before working on the feature; append decisions and findings as the PR is refined. This is not user documentation — at merge it is removed or its durable parts promoted to code comments. See README.md for the convention.

Problem

Bonsai's many "select …" buttons (by class, by type, by material, by container, by group, by aggregate, by similar value) could only add to the selection. There was no way to subtract matches from a large selection, or to narrow a selection down to just the matches. bim.select_similar had grown a SHIFT+Click remove_from_selection, but nothing else had it, and each operator had accumulated its own ad-hoc modifier bindings.

Design

One modifier scheme, applied uniformly across nine operators:

Modifier	Action
Click	select matches (additive)
SHIFT+Click	remove matches from the selection set
CTRL+Click	filter the selection to matches only (selects nothing new)
CTRL+SHIFT+Click	legacy plain-CTRL function, where one existed
ALT+Click	also unhide matches (viewport + local hide) — from the base branch
CTRL+ALT+Click	select_similar, select_similar_type, select_by_material, select_group_elements, select_aggregate: regex-search dialog (see below)

Operators covered: bim.select_similar, bim.select_ifc_class, bim.select_similar_type, bim.select_by_material, bim.select_similar_container, bim.select_decomposed_elements, bim.select_group_elements, bim.select_aggregate, bim.select_linked_aggregates.

Key decisions and the why

• Remove/filter criteria come from the active object only (not all selected objects), following SelectSimilar._get_reference_values. If criteria came from every selected object, a SHIFT/CTRL click would typically match — and wipe or keep — the entire selection, which is useless. Plain Click keeps the old behavior (criteria from all selected objects). Operators whose criteria come from the clicked UI item (material, group, container row) are unaffected by this rule.
• Filter mode selects nothing new. It computes the matched set and deselects already-selected objects outside it. Implemented centrally in Spatial.select_products(products, unhide=..., remove=..., filter_selection=...) (tool/spatial.py) for the UI-item operators, and as small per-operator branches where selection is done with bespoke loops (select_similar, select_ifc_class, select_similar_type, the two aggregate operators).
• CTRL = filter, CTRL+SHIFT = legacy CTRL function. Originally implemented the other way around; swapped after review because the two selection-set operations (subtract, intersect) belong on the simple modifiers. The demoted plain-CTRL functions are: one-level-deep (select_aggregate, select_similar_container, select_decomposed_elements), exclude-children (select_group_elements), and calculate-sum (select_similar). Existing muscle memory for those will now hit the filter instead — deliberate trade-off.
• Modifiers resolve exclusively in every invoke: SHIFT means remove only when CTRL is up, CTRL means filter only when SHIFT is up, so combos are unambiguous.
• Aggregate operators keep the current selection in remove/filter mode. Their normal flow deselects the seed selection before selecting targets; doing that in remove/filter mode would destroy the very selection being edited (keep_current_selection in aggregate/operator.py).
• select_ifc_class filter matches subtypes (element.is_a(cls)), consistent with normal select mode which uses file.by_type(cls) (also subtype-inclusive).

Regex-search dialog on select_similar, select_similar_type, select_by_material, select_group_elements, select_aggregate (CTRL+ALT+Click)

On select_aggregate the pattern is prefilled with the active object's aggregate name and matched against every IfcRelAggregates.RelatingObject that is_a IfcElement (spatial decomposition — project/site/storey — deliberately excluded); the dialog additionally exposes "Also Select Parts" (+ "One Level Deep") since the panel's two button variants collapse into one dialog. Union of matched aggregates (+ parts via get_parts/get_decomposition) through one Spatial.select_products call; clipboard query parent = /.*foo.*/.

On select_similar_type the pattern is prefilled with (and matched against) the active object's type name; the clipboard query is type = /.*foo.*/. On select_by_material it is the active object's resolved material name (via the #7940 helpers: usage → set, clicked-layer index as hint, _get_name), falling back to the clicked material row's name; clipboard query material = /.*foo.*/. On select_group_elements it is the clicked group row's name, matched against all IfcGroup names in the file (unnamed groups never match); the union of the matching groups' elements (recursive by default) goes through a single Spatial.select_products call — union first, so FILTER cannot wrongly intersect per-group; clipboard query group = /.*foo.*/. Otherwise identical to the select_similar behavior below.

Opens a props dialog prefilled with the active object's value for the clicked key; the (possibly edited) text is compiled as an unanchored Python regex (re.search, so entering foo behaves like .*foo.*) and applied via an Add / Remove / Filter dropdown, plus an "Also Unhide Hidden Objects" checkbox (reuses should_unhide; in Add/Remove it sweeps scene.objects instead of visible_objects and clears both hide flags on matches; a no-op in Filter since selected objects are visible). CTRL+ALT was free in practice: ALT (unhide) is a no-op in filter mode, which plain CTRL triggers. Invalid patterns error out and cancel. The equivalent selector query (Key = /.*foo.*/) is copied to the clipboard. Note the prefill is the raw value — values containing regex metacharacters (e.g. () need escaping before OK. Overriding draw() for the dialog means the F9 redo panel no longer auto-lists the operator's internal properties for normal runs (it was exposing internals anyway).

Deliberately overwritten SHIFT bindings (to be reworked later)

Two operators already used SHIFT; the owner chose to overwrite them and revisit with another approach:

• bim.select_ifc_class: SHIFT used to mean "also match Predefined Type". The should_filter_predefined_type property still exists but has no key binding.
• bim.select_decomposed_elements: SHIFT used to mean "select all listed elements" (itself moved from ALT when ALT became unhide). should_filter still exists, default True, no key binding.

Status — implemented

Branched from Unhide_with_alt_click (ALT+Click unhide across the same operators, plus container tools in the spatial decomposition panel). Commits so far:

• 3c6d08fabf SHIFT+Click remove-from-selection (criteria from active object).
• 11be7e2b62 CTRL+Click filter-selection + the CTRL / CTRL+SHIFT swap.

Files: tool/spatial.py, core/tool.py, core/material.py, core/spatial.py, and bim/module/{search,spatial,type,material,group,aggregate}/operator.py. All tooltips document the scheme. Syntax-checked; not yet exercised in Blender.

Things to test / verify

• Each operator × each modifier, but especially:
  • SHIFT with a large selection: only objects matching the active object's criteria are removed; the rest of the selection survives.
  • CTRL filter: nothing new gets selected (hidden matches must not appear).
  • CTRL+SHIFT still triggers the legacy behavior (one-level-deep etc.) and does not also remove/filter.
• select_ifc_class remove/filter with a subclass selected (subtype matching).
• Aggregate operators in remove/filter mode: seed selection intact; in normal mode behavior unchanged (seeds deselected, aggregates/parts selected).
• select_decomposed_elements: the trailing "make active list item the active object" block must not re-add it in remove mode nor add it in filter mode.
• select_similar calculate-sum on numeric keys now requires CTRL+SHIFT; its tooltip line renders only for numeric values.
• Redo-panel (F9) interaction: all new props are SKIP_SAVE, so re-running from the panel starts clean.