Graph Editor: Walk to connected nodes via hotkeys

[lfl-eholthouser]

With large node graphs and overlapping links it can be difficult to quickly determine which nodes are actually connected. I think the ability to find connected nodes based off a selected link would be beneficial. With a link selected clicking the right arrow key could select the downstream node while the left arrow key could select the upstream node. This could also be expanded to include the ability to walk the entire node graph though it would need to be a specific patter for nodes that have multiple output connections.

[jstone-lucasfilm]

Just noting here that Camille Ramseur from Adobe plans to take a look at this issue for Dev Days 2024, and we'll assign the task to her once we have her GitHub ID.

[camilleramseur]

Thanks Jonathan. I'm having trouble using my Adobe GitHub account to log in here so I'm just going to use my personal account. I was told it was ok.

[camilleramseur]

I don't think I will have this finished by the end of dev days but I would still like to work on this if possible. I'm still new to MaterialX. Do you have any recommendations on how to go about and start this? I was looking in source/MaterialXGraphEditor and was trying to find the keyboard shortcuts mentioned here to see the cod and patterns that were done previous here: https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/MaterialX/blob/main/documents/DeveloperGuide/GraphEditor.md

It looks like I might potentially have to me do this in the graph.cpp file ? Any advice is appreciated.

[lfl-eholthouser]

Hi @camilleramseur ! I think working in the graph.cpp makes sense. Some of the different keyboard shortcuts can be found here:

MaterialX/source/MaterialXGraphEditor/Graph.cpp

Line 3113 in 70cb28d

// Buttons for loading and saving a .mtlx

Then here is the hotkey for focusing on a node

MaterialX/source/MaterialXGraphEditor/Graph.cpp

Line 3737 in 70cb28d

const bool open_search = ImGui::IsWindowFocused(ImGuiFocusedFlags_RootAndChildWindows) && ImGui::IsKeyDown(ImGuiKey_F) && ImGui::IsKeyDown(ImGuiKey_LeftCtrl);

.

I think starting with something like the above, checking if a link is selected and then a right or left arrow key has been released. Is that has been clicked then selecting that node and navigating to that selection.