Selecting Entities

Many of DesignCAD’s commands work only on selected objects. Other commands work on the entire drawing or selected items only, depending on the options you choose. Below are instructions for selection tasks you’ll often use in your drawings.

Once entities are selected, you can use any of the Selection Edit commands on them.

2D Selection Mode: In 2D Selection Mode the ursor assumes an arrow shape. To change to this mode, press Ctrl+2 or select Options / 2-D Selection Mode. When you are in 2D Selection

Mode, you can always select an object, either by clicking it or snapping to it with point commands. In 3D Selection Mode that is not always the case.

3D Selection Mode: The 3D cursor is formed by three intersecting lines-a black one along the X-axis, a red one on the Y-axis, and a green

For most cases, you’ll want to use 2D Selection Mode. After you start a new drawing or open an existing one, press Ctrl+2 or use the Command Menu to change to 2D Selection Mode. In 2D Selection Mode, the cursor is a wide arrow when there is not a drawing or editing command active. 3D Selection Mode should be reserved for complex drawings that have drawing entities in close proximity.

How to Select Various Entities

Selecting a single object: Move the arrow- shaped cursor near the object and click. If you are close enough, the object is selected, turning magenta and showing a blue bull’s-eye where you clicked. The bull’s-eye is a selection handle.

If you click too far away, either nothing gets selected or something closer to the cursor than the object you want gets selected. Pressing Esc will clear the current selection, as will clicking in a blank region of the screen.

NOTE: Pressing Delete erases the current selection

With the Gravity command, it’s easy to select an object and simultaneously set the handle at an exact location in the object. To set a Gravity point, right-click the mouse (if the Enable Right Click Popup Menu option in the General Options folder is disabled (period) key with the cursor near the desired point in the object you want to select. The cursor snaps to the point placing the selection handle there and selecting the composite object that contains that point.

Selecting a group of objects in a region: Move the mouse to one corner of the region. Hold down the left button and drag a selection rectangle around the region. Release the mouse button at the opposite corner. Every item that was completely enclosed in the region is now selected. The handle is placed at the center of the area that the selection rectangle encompassed.

Selecting objects enclosed in or touching a selection rectangle: Click and drag the selection rectangle, but press Ctrl before releasing the mouse button. All objects that were enclosed by or touching the selection rectangle when you released the mouse button are selected.

Adding or deselecting a single item: To add a single item to the selection set, or to deselect a single item in a selection set, move the mouse near the item, press Shift, and click the left mouse button.

Adding a group of objects to the selection set: After selecting one group of objects, drag a selection rectangle around another group as in normal selection, but press Shift before releasing the mouse button. The items must be completely enclosed by the rectangle to be affected. Any items in the region which were already selected will be deselected.

Selecting specific items: Sometimes you need to be even more specific about which items you want to select. If DesignCAD is in 3D Mode, you can select objects by dragging a 3D rectangle around them. If you press Ctrl+3 while your arrow cursor is showing, it turns into a 3D cursor like the one you see when you draw a line. This signifies that you are now in 3D Selection Mode. You select items as before, but for regional selections, you must enclose the items in a 3D selection box rather than a simple 2D rectangle. To return to the 2D Selection Mode, press Ctrl+2.

Selecting all objects: Finally, let’s not overlook the convenience of the Select All command. This command, located in the Edit menu, selects everything in the drawing.

Using Selection Handles: When you work with selected objects, you often need some way to specify how DesignCAD will manipulate the items. This is the purpose of selection handles. The selection handles are the specific points in the object with or around which DesignCAD moves, copies, and rotates the selected object or objects. A moved object or copy of an object is built around the handles according to the same relative relationships as the original object.

In many cases, you just want to move your object, or a copy of it, somewhere else in the drawing.

For these tasks, one handle is enough.

At other times, however, you might need to control the size and orientation of the moved or copied object. Now you need two, or possibly even three handles by which to locate the object. The primary handle (Handle 0 if you just selected the object, the blue bull’s-eye if you have used the Set Handles command) establishes the starting location for the object. Handle 1 provides a reference point for both the direction and scale of the object’s primary axis. Handle 2 provides a second directional reference for orientation.

Placing specific handles: You can set specific selection handles on a selected object or group of objects by pressing Ctrl+H or using Edit / Selection Edit / Set Handles. The Status Bar prompts you to set one, two, or three points for the handles. If you set less than three, press Enter to end the command.

You can use any of the point commands to set these handles, including Point XYZ, Point Relative, and Gravity. You can set or change your handles even if you have already started another command.