Suggestions to improve blueprint usability

[Jorhoto]

Hello, just a few suggestions to improve the usability of the editor while working with blueprints:

1. Shift click on a node to auto select that node and all its "children". This is specially useful to fast drag a block of nodes, instead of having to select all them one by one or doing a rect with the mouse.

2. Press F2 on a node, when it is possible to change its name (like a variable node), the focus should go to the name entry in the node's detail panel, so you can immediately type the new name.

3. When you add a new event node to a graph (e.g. if you click on a green button: "On Click Event") it automatically brings the new node to the graph in the x position of what ever item you placed previously that is most to the left. This is great, but IMHO it should ignore the box-comment type, because it is always a bit more to the left than what your nodes are, so the new node is aligned to the box and not to other nodes. I attached image for better explanation on this, so the node should appear where the green line is in the image.


(Will continue with more suggestions)

Thanks Epic for this great tool

[project.gheist]

I was able to implement the first request in a PR, see https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/pull/5690 . However I changed it to select all the nodes on the left instead of the right as otherwise it would feel weird due to the variable nodes not being selected.

[KristofMorva]

However I changed it to select all the nodes on the left instead of the right as otherwise it would feel weird due to the variable nodes not being selected.

I might miss something here, but I don't really understand how would that solve the problem in the first request. The way I understood, he wants to move for example a whole custom event, or a bigger Sequence without selecting all the children one-by-one, which would actually be great. However, selecting the ones on the left, well... that does nothing useful I can think of, but for sure doesn't have any relevance with the first request.

(Of course, thank you for taking the time to implement feature requests, and also I might have misunderstood something, but for me these sound like totally different things)

[project.gheist]

I might miss something here, but I don't really understand how would that solve the problem in the first request. The way I understood, he wants to move for example a whole custom event, or a bigger Sequence without selecting all the children one-by-one, which would actually be great. However, selecting the ones on the left, well... that does nothing useful I can think of, but for sure doesn't have any relevance with the first request.

(Of course, thank you for taking the time to implement feature requests, and also I might have misunderstood something, but for me these sound like totally different things)

You would need to inverse your thinking a bit for this, instead of saying "I want to move all nodes after this point/node", it is "I want to move all nodes before this point/node".

The reason for this is due to the fact that nodes after the node that you have selected could be connected to variables that are inputs which could be connected to other nodes before the node you have selected which would cause them to be moved as well.

[KristofMorva]

You would need to inverse your thinking a bit for this, instead of saying "I want to move all nodes after this point/node", it is "I want to move all nodes before this point/node".

The problem is, that it's a totally different thing. If I want to move a Sequence with 10 outputs, I just can't do that with this logic. Personally, I don't remember a single occurrence when I wanted to "move all nodes before this node". What I actually would love to do is to "move all nodes after this node", like moving a whole Custom Event, a big Sequence or a big Branch.

The reason for this is due to the fact that nodes after the node that you have selected could be connected to variables that are inputs which could be connected to other nodes before the node you have selected which would cause them to be moved as well.

If you have a clean graph, meaning every variable is connected to only one node, then it is a no-issue.

[Jorhoto]

Regarding request 1, I added a pic to better illustrate it:

[KristofMorva]

Regarding request 1, I added a pic to better illustrate it

Then it seems project.gheist 's solution will be perfect for you!

[Jorhoto]

Then it seems project.gheist 's solution will be perfect for you!

Ideally it would be integrated in the engine itself . BTW, it would be also interesting to cover the other sense as well so, something like Alt+Click would auto select all the nodes linked to the right.