[Feature] Use alt to select vertices by polygon

[uclaros]

Description

Sometimes selecting the vertices you want with a rectangle using the vertex tool is hard and needs multiple passes using shift or ctrl to add or remove vertices from the selection or to creatively rotate the map canvas to align the vertices.

This PR should help in such situations, like for example selecting only one side's vertices of a curved road.

Usage:

• Alt+click using the vertex tool to start digitizing a polygon.
• Each subsequent click adds a new vertex to the rubberband polygon.
• Backspace/delete removes last added rubberband vertex.
• Esc cancels the polygon selection mode, as also does backspacing/deleting all of the rubberband's vertices.
• Right click finalizes the polygon digitizing and selects all vertices within the rubberband polygon.

[roya0045]

That's nice, though I feel like I always forget contextual shortcuts, would it be possible to have a reminder popup when using tool to display their specific shortcuts. Do you know if you can come up with something for this?

[uclaros]

That's nice, though I feel like I always forget contextual shortcuts, would it be possible to have a reminder popup when using tool to display their specific shortcuts. Do you know if you can come up with something for this?

It could be advertised on the tool's tooltip, but it would grow ugly big.
Another alternative would be to advertise it (and the cryptic shift-R mode) on the empty Vertex Editor Panel

[roya0045]

Could be an option.

[nyalldawson]

Great idea!

[nyalldawson]

It could be advertised on the tool's tooltip, but it would grow ugly big.

I don't think that's so much of a problem -- check the "Show/Hide labels" and "Pin labels" tooltips -- they are very explicit with describing the different behavior of the tools and yet work nicely in practice.

[uclaros]

Here's a take on the tooltip:

It doesn't look too bad after all indeed!
I'm not sure why the (All Layers) - (Current Layer) text is missing from the tooltip's title though...

Any suggestion as native speakers?

[nyalldawson]

@uclaros
I like the toolip, thanks!

[nyalldawson]

I'm not sure why the (All Layers) - (Current Layer) text is missing from the tooltip's title though...

From memory there's a regex in place which looks for ( .* ) and treats the contents inside the brackets as the shortcut key, and formats the tooltip accordingly.

If you change the text to just "Vertex Tool - All Layers" and remove the parenthesis it should work. Bonus points if you use the typographically correct dash symbol 😉

[roya0045]

@uclaros Tooltip is great! Not sure about the black mode as opposed to the conventional black on notepad-yellow but its a minor nitpick.

[nyalldawson]

@roya0045 that's a operating system level theming thing, not anything QGIS is doing

[roya0045]

@nyalldawson Ah good, wasn't sure if it was imposed or not.

[uclaros]

If you change the text to just "Vertex Tool - All Layers" and remove the parenthesis it should work. Bonus points if you use the typographically correct dash symbol

I'm more of an ascii guy!

Not sure about the black mode as opposed to the conventional black on notepad-yellow but its a minor nitpick.

Yup, it's a kde breeze theme thing!

[nyalldawson]

Code looks good to me -- could we get a unit test too please?

[uclaros]

Test added, sorry for the force push, I rebased to ease on my build time.

[uclaros]

@nyalldawson maybe also add the changelog and documentation tags?

[github-actions]

@uclaros
This pull request has been tagged as requiring documentation.

A documentation ticket will be opened at https://github.com/qgis/QGIS-Documentation when this PR is merged.

Please update the description (not the comments) with helpful description and screenshot to help the work from documentors.
Also, any commit having [needs-doc] or [Needs Documentation] in will see its message pushed to the issue, so please be as verbose as you can.

Thank you!

[github-actions]

@uclaros
A documentation ticket has been opened at qgis/QGIS-Documentation#6742
It is your responsibility to visit this ticket and add as much detail as possible for the documentation team to correctly document this change.
Thank you!