[OT] App. design: Should *selection* be part of undo/redo history?

[Paul Koning]

>>>>> "Carsten" == Carsten Fuchs <CarstenFuchs at T-Online.de> writes:

 Carsten> Dear folks, first of all, sorry for this off-topic post, but
 Carsten> as I think that this is still the right and very competent
 Carsten> audience for this, I'll ask the question here:

 Carsten> The key question is: How should the object selection behave,
 Carsten> and should the object selection state be part of the
 Carsten> undo/redo history?

Most apps say "no" but some major ones say "yes".  One that says "yes"
is Adobe Photoshop.

I'd look at it this way: "undo" should be available on an operation
that is (1) changing the state of your data, or (2) hard to repeat.

Clearly (1) doesn't apply to selection.  (2) doesn't apply for most
apps; for example, in a text editor, selection is easy.  On the other
hand, if selection could be a complex multi-step process, then it
belongs in the history.  That's the argument in Photoshop: it's easy
there to spend quite a while selecting just the right thing by "add to
selection" and "subtract from selection" etc., and having all that
work evaporate without recourse would be annoying.

     paul