Bug - docking multiple objects

Hi team,

Is it possible for the docking tool to dock multiple objects at once? Consider the objects below:

image

Rather than needing to click each one to dock it to the left, it would be a better workflow to window select all except the left most, and have them all bump together.

I assumed this is what deselecting ‘move as a group’ should do, but doesn’t seem to work that way.

Thanks!

This worked for me. Can you confirm that you selected all objects except for the one on the left?

These were the settings:
image

Thanks PY.

With same settings, it does not do anything on my system. If I set ‘move as group’, then the group will dock, but only to the edge of the first shape in the group - not the subsequent shapes as well.

Windows 10 x64, LB 1.4.00

Just one more note - this is consistent behaviour on a range of files since docking has been a thing, not just a one-off for this job.

Are you doing this with the shapes in the visible part of the workspace? If not, I believe it needs to be. It won’t work outside of the grid.

I did not realise that was a requirement - it seems strange that the ‘move as group’ is happy when it’s outside the grid, but not otherwise.

Anyway, I can work around that, thanks for your help.

I don’t know the thinking around the limitation. I’ve only inferred that it was the behavior based on experimentation.

The more I think about this, the more it seems to be a bug rather than desired behaviour.

Can the devs weigh in on this one if they have time?

Thanks!

Not quite desired behaviour, not quite a bug. :slight_smile:

As PY intimated, the Docking tool is meant to be used within the workspace. Generally, shapes wholly outside of the workspace are removed from consideration.

In the case of Move as Group, though, they are not automatically removed, because one of their Group might be within the workspace, and dock for everyone.


In your case, none in the group was in the workspace, but did find something else to dock against, so did end up docking outside the workspace – the not-quite-desired behaviour.

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Hi Wayne (@Crwth), thanks for taking the time to reply.

It may be just how we do things differently to everyone else (wouldn’t surprise me!), but we’re quite often working outside the workspace - whether that be because we’re cutting large parts as a pass through, or cutting multiple materials for one client etc.

Do you think it’s possible for this behaviour to be altered to be consistent regardless of where it is in the display? I imagine there are some maths involved determining where the ‘collisions’ occur which might be affected by needing to consider a wider X/Y space, but it would be very helpful for us if it worked everywhere!

I guess the alternative would be to fake the size of our laser bed to be massive, but that might create other problems with things like Print & Cut.

Happy to put it in as a feature request, but I suspect its a niche problem and might not get many upvotes!

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A feature request would be good, as providing some consistency makes sense.

You did hit the problem on the head, though, with the questions of where the collisions occur, and generally how much wider of a space is “wide enough”.

The behaviour outside the workspace is something that went back and forth during development, but ultimately landed where we are to ensure that the behaviour within the workspace was consistent (and performant).

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Done! Docking tools to work outside of workspace · LightBurn

I understand about maintaining performance - I’ve noticed trying to dock some shapes definitely brings LB to a crawl. In terms of ‘how much space is wide enough’, I think setting an arbitary limit that exists outside of the grid would be even more confusing! (“why did that work in this non-descript white space, but not 50mm further to the left?”)

That said, in our use case, 3 or 4 metres outside of the grid in each direction would be a good start if that’s the compromise that’s required.

Hopefully it’s a change that can be considered!

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