I am struggling with handling the selection of multiple objects. The desired behaviour would be that each object that is clicked will be added to the current selection. Similar to holding shift-key, but also selections using the drag-options should be added to the existing selection. The current behaviour of fabricjs is creating a new selection even when pressing shift-key. In addition the selection should not be cleared when clicking a blank space on the canvas. Deselecting objects should only be possible when clicking a single object which is part of the selection (when dragging selected objects should stay selected). Or by clicking an additional button to clear the full selection (with additional user confirmation).
I tried different setups using "selection:created" and "selection:updated" but this either messed up the selection or resulted in an endless loop because modifying the selection inside the update also triggers the update again.
canvas.on("selection:updated", (event) => {
event.selected.forEach((fabImg) => {
if (!this.selectedImages.includes(fabImg)) {
this.selectedImages.push(fabImg);
}
});
var groupSelection = new fabric.ActiveSelection(this.selectedImages);
canvas.setActiveObject(groupSelection);
});
Preventing the clear when clicking on the blank canvas was solved by:
var selection = [];
canvas.on("before:selection:cleared", (selected) => {
selection = this.canvas.getActiveObjects();
});
canvas.on("selection:cleared", (event) => {
var groupSelection = new fabric.ActiveSelection(selection);
canvas.setActiveObject(groupSelection);
});
Just in case someone else is interested, I ended up changing 3 functions in the fabricjs code to achieve the desired behaviour:
canvas.class.js:
_shouldClearSelection: function (e, target) {
var activeObjects = this.getActiveObjects(),
activeObject = this._activeObject;
return (
(target &&
activeObject &&
activeObjects.length > 1 &&
activeObjects.indexOf(target) === -1 &&
activeObject !== target &&
!this._isSelectionKeyPressed(e)) ||
(target && !target.evented) ||
(target &&
!target.selectable &&
activeObject &&
activeObject !== target)
);
}
just removed the check if an object was clicked, to stop deselecting when clicking on blank space.
_isSelectionKeyPressed: function (e) {
var selectionKeyPressed = false;
if (this.selectionKey == "always") {
return true;
}
if (
Object.prototype.toString.call(this.selectionKey) === "[object Array]"
) {
selectionKeyPressed = !!this.selectionKey.find(function (key) {
return e[key] === true;
});
} else {
selectionKeyPressed = e[this.selectionKey];
}
return selectionKeyPressed;
}
just adding a "dummy" key called "always" to pretend always holding the shift-key. In canvas definition just add this key:
this.canvas = new fabric.Canvas("c", {
hoverCursor: "hand",
selection: true,
backgroundColor: "#F0F8FF",
selectionBorderColor: "blue",
defaultCursor: "hand",
selectionKey: "always",
});
And in canvas_grouping.mixin.js:
_groupSelectedObjects: function (e) {
var group = this._collectObjects(e),
aGroup;
var previousSelection = this._activeObject;
if (previousSelection) {
if (previousSelection.type === "activeSelection") {
var currentActiveObjects = previousSelection._objects.slice(0);
group.forEach((obj) => {
if (!previousSelection.contains(obj)) {
previousSelection.addWithUpdate(obj);
}
});
this._fireSelectionEvents(currentActiveObjects, e);
} else {
aGroup = new fabric.ActiveSelection(group.reverse(), {
canvas: this,
});
this.setActiveObject(aGroup, e);
var objects = this._activeObject._objects.slice(0);
this._activeObject.addWithUpdate(previousSelection);
this._fireSelectionEvents(objects, e);
}
} else {
// do not create group for 1 element only
if (group.length === 1 && !previousSelection) {
this.setActiveObject(group[0], e);
} else if (group.length > 1) {
aGroup = new fabric.ActiveSelection(group.reverse(), {
canvas: this,
});
this.setActiveObject(aGroup, e);
}
}
}
This will extend existing groups on drag-select instead of overwriting the existing selection.