Zone Editor - Can't select zone that is entirely overlapped by a larger zone

[JohnVKRDam]

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.75.1

Installation method

GitHub

Running as admin

Yes

Area(s) with issue?

FancyZones Editor

Steps to reproduce

It is not possible to select a zone that is entirely overlapped by another zone.

The settings specifically for overlapping zones (the drop-down menu "When multiple zones overlap" ) do not work (NONE of them, I tried them all). I guess that's because they are not specifically for the editor(?)

Once I have clicked ZONE 2, the larger overlapping zone, I can no longer select ZONE 1, without moving the large ZONE 2 out of the way. Obviously this is NOT a viable alternative / solution, because I would like to create somewhat more complex zones. And moving stuff out of the way to edit other stuff is just not going to work...

In the screenshot below you can see a very simple example. You can try it for yourself.

Create a new layout:

1. Create a small zone (i.e., keep the default ZONE 1 that is created)
2. Now, create a larger zone (ZONE 2) which entirely encompasses the smaller zone
3. Save the layout

Now, come back to edit the layout:

1. Click ZONE 1 (the small one). You will see that you can select it (BUT ONLY THE VERY FIRST TIME when you enter layout edit mode)
2. Now click ZONE 2 (the larger zone)
3. Now try to select ZONE 1 again
4. Good luck

You can switch between zone using the TAB key, but that does not help. It will still NOT allow you to drag or modify the smaller zone.

✔️ Expected Behavior

I was expecting to be able to select zones that are entirely overlapped by other, larger ones.

❌ Actual Behavior

It's impossible to select any zone(s) that have another zone entirely overlapping them.

Other Software

No response

[CD12345]

One workaround is to use CTRL-TAB to select a zone and then use the arrow keys to move it, but that's not very discoverable and it doesn't fix all cases.

How would you envision selecting and moving zones that are behind other zones?

A thought would be to add a List of zones to the floating "Add Zone" window. Selecting a zone brings it to the front of all other zones. Then you could select a zone and then resize/move it.

[JohnVKRDam]

As you said, the Ctrl+TAB plus arrow keys method is what I use now, but it really is not very comfortable and easy to work with...

The easiest and most used solution for cases like this is simply using a layered structure.

Honestly, I think layers should have been implemented right from the start, because with ANY application that uses objects that can overlap/cover each other, this issue is always going to be a problem. Therefor graphics applications pretty much all have layers, or at the very least options to move objects up/down with regard to each other.

You would need the following commands as keyboard shortcuts (and also in a right-click context menu): Layer Up (e.g., Ctrl+PgUp) Layer Down (e.g., Ctrl+PgDn) Bring to Front (e.g., Ctrl+Home) Send to Back (e.g., Ctrl+End)

Or any other default shortcuts that would work well in such an application. Preferably these shortcuts would be user-configurable.

With that in place you can simply CTRL+TAB to select a zone, or simply keep the zone selected once it is created, and then proceed to move it up / down the layer structure.

Of course, the configured layer structure would also need to be saved with the zone layout. That should not be very hard to implement, because each layer would simply get an ID that represents the respective layer number.

[CD12345]

To avoid extra work, the order of the layers wouldn't need to be saved, I think. Just need a way to bring a layer to the top so you can interact with it.

[JohnVKRDam]

They would really need to be saved. I have a 55 inch 4K monitor, with a 27 inch 4K as a second monitor. That's a LOT of surface area. You have no idea how many (fully covered) zones I have ;) haha! If I constantly need to redo moving covered layers to the top, when I reload the zone setup to edit it, it will drive me crazy. Much like it drives me crazy right now to get to them each... and... every... time... when I go to edit the zones. Obviously I don't change them on a daily basis, but my layout does change on a fairly regular basis. Having them saved just seems like the logical thing to do anyway.

I understand I (or rather, my setup) may be an exception right now but I think that's just a matter of time. (Multiple) large 4K monitor setups are becoming more common ground. But that aside, it's kind of a waste to implement a perfectly good function (for both developers and end-users), only to discard it on saving the file. Why would you not want to save the layer settings? That's the least complicated part of implementing this function. There is absolutely NO graphics application that doesn't save the settings in the source file... why start now ;-)

Anyway, judging by the interest in this issue/suggestion (or lack thereof) it seems like there is very little demand for this feature, and discussing it's implementation seems like wasted time... :-(

[CD12345]

That's a good size screen, I must say :)

I have 3x 4k 27 inch screens in portrait at work. I used to try creating multiple overlapped zones, but finally found that using a grid worked fine for me (FancyZones kept corrupting my overlaid zones, still some bugs there, maybe related to the fact that I have 3 potential docking configurations). You can hold down CTRL to make a window span multiple zones. I have 6 zones, 2 per monitor and it works pretty well, but I could see that might not work for your 55 inch beast :)

Anyways, yeah, it would be nice if someone would try fixing this.