Object selection - this one had been bugging me for ages.

[IanH]

I have just upgraded from 11.5 student edition to 2008 Designer + RW. Its great to have all the manuals in printed form.

I was hoping that I was going to find out how to do basic object selection, but I still can't get it. I can do some fairly complex stuff, but this simple little task drives me nuts sometimes. I'm sure its easy and blindingly obvious.

Assume that I have a square and inside the square is another square. OK, my models are normally more complex than this but I think this should get the point over.

If I want to select the enclosed square, sometimes, and I cannot find why (I am often zoomed in right into part of the design), I cannot. Instead, the enclosing square gets selected instead. I have to zoom out end do a marquee select from outside the enclosing square - if I do it from inside the enclosing square, I end up moving the enclosing square instead.

I'm sure its easy and had hoped that the new visible selection hints would help, but they simply tell me that I have selected the wrong square.

Thanks

Ian

[Guest]

are you clicking or marqueeing?

[Pat Stanford]

Are you familiar of the concept of stacking order?

When you draw objects in VW, they go into a "stack" (my term, not VWs). As you draw each successive object, it goes on the top of the stack. If you are using filled objects, in many cases you can not see objects lower in the stack as they are hidden by the higher objects.

The same applies to selection. If you click at a point, VW will select the highest object in the stack that is at that point. If you need to get to a lower object, you will need to move the higher object.

You can either move it in the view (X/Y) or you can use the Send commands. The send commands change the stacking order of the objects. There are commands to Send to Front, Send to Back, Send Forward, and Send Backward.

In most cased Send to Front or Send to Back will be what you want. If you have many objects, Send forward (or backward) will only move the object one place in the stack. If there are 10 objects (or 1000) between the objects you are interested in, it will take many repetions of the command to get where you need to be.

Often it is best to select all the object you are interested in and Send Front on them together. Then you can use Send Forward/Send Back to get them in the right order.

I hope this has not been pendantic.

Pat

[rsa]

I find the way selecting works in vw very frustrating also.

If you try to select by draging a marquee and there is an object with a fill where your marquee starts then you will NEVER be able to create the marquee. instead you end up moving the filled object. if you have to use the marquee in this situation you can...

zoom out so that you can start your marquee where there is no filled object

change the fill to no-fill do your selecting/editing and then re-fill

select the filled object, 'cut' it out, do your editing, 'paste in place' the filled object.

having said all that though I have situations many times a day where I try to click select an object and VW selects a nearby different object. I now believe it is doing this on purpose to drive me crazy.

Regarding the send to back by Pat Stanford - this is critical to know about but I think it is a major flaw that you have to monkey around with this to just select an object. I often have several filled objects and have their stacking order the way I want it - it is a pain to send it to back to select something and then restack every thing else.

Sorry = this post touched a nerve - why can't VW fix this obvious weakness.

[jan15]

Let's not forget that this problem only arises because the Select tool can also move and copy objects, without issuing a command or changing to another tool. And that's a very good feature, whose benefits far outweigh the occasional inconveniences described here.

If separate Select-Only and Move/Copy-Only tools were added, to prevent these problems, what percent of the time would you use those, and what percent of the time would you use the traditional Select tool that does it all?

[rsa]

Yes great point!

I added the vectormove tool from ???vectorbits.com?? is that right?

It is a great tool and I've assigned it the valuable 'b' key shortcut I love it so much. it is so convenient to have a separate move tool that as a BIG bonus allows remote basepoints. I know you can turn the modify button off with the VW select tool, but I find this a hassle. Also - I don't know if it is my imagination but it seems as though the vector move tool snaps onto points much more effectively than the VW tool does.

[islandmon]

IanH makes some very good points regarding the learning curve. Sometimes the simplest paradigm can be the most difficult for Neophytes to grasp. Especially, if prior CAD experience did not involve the manipulation of 'stacked' or grouped objects but of parts.

At its core VW is an object selection program with selection based on handles to objects, and as other have noted here , these objects can be arranged in peculiar ways requiring proximity and various ordered hints prior to selection.

The best way to get a handle on the selection process is to practice doing it.

Recalling those halcyon days playing with the original 1984 Mac ...sooner or later it becomes second nature.

[Dieter @ DWorks]

For better handling of objects and stacking order, you can use groups. This way you can work in a group and be able to select instead of moving other things etc.

I also found the select and dragging frustrated, but not anymore when using groups.

[jcooper]

Now that you mention it, programs I use to perform other design tasks such as Adobe InDesign allow you to select stacked objects by clicking while holding down a command key. Each time you Command-Click, it selects each successive item from the top down. It would be really cool if VectorWorks had such a feature.

[RubenH]

When you are over an object with fill, press shift before opening the marquee (you'll see the cursor is grayed), this makes no selection on the object with fill, only the ones inside the marquee. Hope this helps.

[jan15]

Brilliant, Mr Gog! You must have read the manual, to know a thing like that. Thanks for sharing it.

[boxjoint]

Now that you mention it, programs I use to perform other design tasks such as Adobe InDesign allow you to select stacked objects by clicking while holding down a command key. Each time you Command-Click, it selects each successive item from the top down. It would be really cool if VectorWorks had such a feature.

I think the above would be a good feature.

Additionally, when you select multiple objects, the OIP currently tells you that you have 'x' objects selected and you can click the button with three dots which allows you to use the arrows to move through the selected items one at a time and see info about object in succession.

I think it would be helpful to have a button there that allows you to deslect the others and make the object that you are viewing the "selected" object (similar to the force select command).

As it is now, you can find the object you want pretty easily, but getting it selected by itself can sometimes (often) be a challenge.

[IanH]

Wow - I never expected the topic to bring up so many comments.

Whilst I have been using VW for 2+ years, its been one of those inconveniences that I thought had an obvious solution - well it had with the stacking order - a concept that I do use, but only for visibilities rather than object selection. In a previous CAD package that I had used, the issues of stacked objects was resolved in a manner that jcooper mentions. Its unfortunate that VW means that you need to keep an eye on stacking order and sometimes reorder when multiple clicks would be so much nicer especially with the new highlighted object selection. The other alternative is selecting an object, irrespective of stacking order, if a selection handle is clicked directly and its selection is unambiguous. One or two for the wish list although I must look up the manual and experiment to see if this is covered by the force select command.

Thanks to all that responded.

[DDDesign]

Now that you mention it, programs I use to perform other design tasks such as Adobe InDesign allow you to select stacked objects by clicking while holding down a command key. Each time you Command-Click, it selects each successive item from the top down. It would be really cool if VectorWorks had such a feature.

I entirely agree, and I've mentioned this on several posts, but I think they've mainly fallen on deaf ears. I think most of the users here don't use inDesign and therefore don't have an understanding how easy and straightforward it is to select stacked objects this way. No messing around with stacking order. I would think it a very simple modification - and one that would not upset anyone who didn't want to use it.

The second part of my selection tool modification is to have a mode whereby the selected object is the one that is dragged, not the front object. This is entirely logical, because in all other operations it is the selected object that is operated on by a tool. VW seems to defy logic in making an exception for 2D selection tool. Once again this is how inDesign works. The change would be of even greater benefit when working in 3D.

This also has been the subject of several posts.