Locking and unlocking many objects

  • 20 January 2021
  • 13 replies
  • 5593 views

Userlevel 5
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When I create boards for training, I lock absolutely everything that I don’t want participants to move, because it often happens that new Miro users will accidently move something, and then be completely distracted when they try to figure out how to undo what they did my mistake. My boards can also have a lot of content. I create backgrounds that I lock and put movable items on top of them. Many of you do the same.

Locking things and then unlocking them again to modify, rearrange, or adjust them takes a lot of time. It’s not effective to drag-select multiple items to lock them when you have many things mixed in that you don’t want to move. And I want to lock the frames too, of course.

Another difficulty with locking and unlocking many items in a bulk lock is when I might want to unlock and adjust only a few items leaving most of the board safely locked. So I end up Shift-clicking on dozens of objects to lock them, in batches or at once.

Has anyone discovered any tricks or best practices for locking down everything except for what you want moved when locking involves many dozens of objects?

I already know that you can do a bulk select and then choose only a few kinds of items as shown below, but this doesn’t quite do it for me since I want to lock/unlock items of different types (images, text, shapes, etc.) all at once. Maybe it would work if the feature below had check-boxes to select or unselect the items in the list.

(I’d be interested in having the ability to tag items for locking (creating the possibility for different groups with unique lock-tags), and then unlock items by tag. I’ll raise this as an idea if there aren’t any tricks or tips, or if there is enough interest in the idea.)

 

 

 


13 replies

Userlevel 7
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No silver bullets here @Brian Fulghum , but I am glad that the Miro team added the Unlock All option to the board context menu to save me from having to manually unlock multiple objects when making wholesale changes to a board.

Kiron

Userlevel 6
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I don’t do a lot of training or group exercises. But I love to keep organized and I find that it just ends up being a tedious task to group everything and locking/unlocking.

It’s not a big deal for me. But I understand, it takes some extra time.

Userlevel 5
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No silver bullets here @Brian Fulghum , but I am glad that the Miro team added the Unlock All option to the board context menu to save me from having to manually unlock multiple objects when making wholesale changes to a board.

Kiron


Thanks, @Kiron Bondale. I don’t know when that was added, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. That, at least, is helpful for a total unlock. (I need to explore the https://miro.com/changelog/ for other recent updates). Lock/unlock by tag would be a dream.

Userlevel 1

In Mural it is possible to also multi-select locked objects by not only pressing Shift+MouseDragOver (selects only unlocked objects) but Ctrl+Shift+MouseDragOver. This is a really nice feature, especially  for facilitators. It would be great if Miro could add something similar.

--Klaus

We really need this feature that Klaus is describing. Is anyone at Miro on this?

Building on Brian’s request, it would be amazing to select multiple items (Shift+MouseDragOver) and have the option to lock as one ‘group’ (the current functionality) or as ‘individual items’. Locking/unlocking is time consuming and fiddly, it’s really easy to accidentally miss a shape or a title - which someone in the workshop will take great joy in announcing!

Userlevel 3

I tend to try to ‘group’ then ‘lock once’ on the group objects, which saves a lot of time. in THEORY, though I could be wrong, this prevents users/workshop participants from accidentally (or purposely) editing/moving a rogue object.

Thoughts?

Thanks for this information!

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

I tend to try to ‘group’ then ‘lock once’ on the group objects, which saves a lot of time. in THEORY, though I could be wrong, this prevents users/workshop participants from accidentally (or purposely) editing/moving a rogue object.

Thoughts?

@Don McIntyre - I just grouped two sticky notes, a shape, and a text object and using the “lock” action on the context menu that pops up when the grouping is selected does lock all objects, so your theory appears to be sound.

I captured several ideas just now that may help with this ask:

 

https://community.miro.com/ideas/flag-item-preserve-for-locking-7997

https://community.miro.com/ideas/snapshot-of-locked-items-7996

 

 

!!!  PLEASE UPVOTE. !!!

Click on this link (feature request) and upvote to solve the problem that is being discussed here

https://community.miro.com/ideas/allow-selecting-locked-objects-when-ctrl-key-pressed-11642

The above feature request would solve this problem very eloquently. Basically it allows you to select locked objects when holding the ctrl key down when selecting. 

!!!  PLEASE UPVOTE. !!!

Or a ‘relock’ option, similar to ‘regroup’ in ppt.

I use Miro daily - love the tool - and this is my #1 pain point.  Currently, we can lock and unlock in groups, but what we need is the ability to lock and unlock in bulk.  

When I lock/unlock more than one item at a time, it’s for speed. I don’t need Miro to remember which items I locked at the same time.  I’d like all of the items I select for locking to lock as individual items (without being grouped as a locked set), so that I can later go back and unlock one, several OR all of those items. 

As-is Impacts: 

  • I have to unlock ALL items that are locked together get to the ones I want to unlock (which then puts the elements I want locked at risk and results in rework to reselect and lock them down again) OR
  • I can leave everything unlocked all the time, which negates the feature all-together and frustrates/embarrasses users when they inadvertently click on and move an element which should be stationary 

Why not just wait to lock until the board is finished?

  1. When creating complex boards, creators want protection from inadvertently moving frames and other elements. Especially when items are layered on top of one another, it’s relatively easy to grab a rogue element when locking in bulk. 
  2. When facilitating a session using a board, there are times I need to “lock on the fly” - especially for new content participants have added. Sometimes we need to go back later and unlock just one element. So same frustrations apply. 

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