[Feature Request]: Selection history

[louisl4696]

Checklist

• I am using an up-to-date version.
• I have read the documentation.
• I have searched existing issues.

Description

I'm not so sure how to describe this feature in technical terms so if you'll allow, I made a bit of a user story below.

Feature : possibility to undo / redo changes to the selection in the thumbnail grid.

Picture this :
You're scrolling through your images, meticulously selecting all those containing cats, creating a massive selection one Ctrl+Click at a time. When you're done, you'll add your shiny new "cat" tag to them all in one fell sweep.
But your pinky finger weakens, and you click on a file without holding down Ctrl. The dreaded words appear : "One item selected". In an instant, the past 5 minutes of intensive thumbnail scrutinizing are lost. Your carefully crafted selection vanished. If only you could bring it back !

Solution

Hitting a keyboard should undo the most recent change to the selection, every successive shortcut input going back one selection state further in the history.

Another shortcut could be used to undo the undoing, moving forward in the history.

refreshing the grid (for instance by performing a search) should clear the history.

Alternatives

No response

[TrigamDev]

I think this could be expanded to instead be more of an "Action history", where selection changes are just one of the actions it tracks, along with things like tag and field changes.

[louisl4696]

I mainly created this issue because I got a bit carried away while working on #226 and implemented it. The history is managed by a decorator added to all functions that change the selection, which includes those I developed for arrow key navigation. so it would be really annoying to separate them into two PRs (or maybe my git skill is just too limited for this kind of stuff)

[louisl4696]

I think this could be expanded to instead be more of an "Action history", where selection changes are just one of the actions it tracks, along with things like tag and field changes.

Personally I think It's probably best to keep the "real" action history separate from the "selection" history, because the selection can change a lot (think arrow key browsing) creating loads of noise for the "real" actions in the history.

[TrigamDev]

True, I'm just used to some programs including selection changes into the same history as actions

[louisl4696]

I can think of some myself too. But also some that don't ! For instance Windows file explorer does not save selection states in the history.

(as a side note in my implementation of this selection history I bound undo/redo to R and shift+R ("redo"?) deliberately leaving the iconic Ctrl+Z free. My "selection history" somehow didn't feel important enough for that legendary shortcut...)

[TrigamDev]

Personally I think It's probably best to keep the "real" action history separate from the "selection" history, because the selection can change a lot (think arrow key browsing) creating loads of noise for the "real" actions in the history.

It could actually be nice to include search changes in the selection change history (eg. combine the navigation history and selection history).
Selection changes don't make too much sense outside of the context of the current search, so it'd be nice, when undoing/redoing selection changes, to also swap to the search those selection changes were made in.

[TrigamDev]

It could actually be nice to include search changes in the selection change history (eg. combine the navigation history and selection history). Selection changes don't make too much sense outside of the context of the current search, so it'd be nice, when undoing/redoing selection changes, to also swap to the search those selection changes were made in.

(and along with this, tweak the forward/back buttons next to the search bar to skip all the selection changes, and only jump between search changes)

[louisl4696]

That's a good idea !

[louisl4696]

For now though, I'll make a PR with what I've got. Although my implementation is very much in the ThumbGridLayout class, I think it could reasonably well be integrated into a higher level history, with a few tweaks.

Edit : Well Git is struggling to push so it will have to wait till tomorrow I guess