BIM Coordinator Program (INT) April 22, 2024

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Modeling
About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

Tips for selection?

pejotu
Participant
Hi

I like to think I'm a fairly seasoned Archicad user, but every now and then I find myself suspecting I'm missing something obvious, namely:
Is there a way to lock a selection?


By this I mean for example a situation where I've laboriously selected (Shift-clicked one by one) a bunch of objects to do an operation on all of them, and I would then like to make sure I will not lose the selection if I happen to make a mistake and for example click somewhere that will cause me to lose the selection.

Another example is when I've got a bunch of overlapping objects, and I've carefully Tab'ed to select the correct one, and then I try and click a point on said object to start an operation, only to erraneously click on one of the other overlapping objects -> selection lost.

So I'd like a way to hold the objects selected for however long until I expressly choose to clear the selection.
This should be possible, right? Kind of like a temporary saved selection?


Or do I just have bad habits, and there's some perfect way to accomplish fool proof selections, Shift+clicks, etc. without dropping the selection?
[n.b. - some of my problems may stem from the fact that for ergonomic reasons I use a Wacom pen pad, which isn't quite as precise as using a mouse]
4 REPLIES 4
Anonymous
Not applicable
Use the palette "Selections" to save your selected elements!....Windows > Palettes > Selections
Anonymous
Not applicable
One thing I do is use the undo/redo queue for this. After I'm done selecting the objects I'll change a parameter or delete the selected objects and then undue that action. You should notice all of the objects that were acted upon are highlighted. This sets the selected group in the undo/redo queue. Like you, I've dropped the selection by "accidentally" selecting the wrong object but all you have to do is clear your wrong selection by hitting escape, hit ctrl-shift-z to redo the action and then undo it and what you have selected is again highlighted.
Stress Co_
Advisor
I'll sometimes "group" (command - G) the objects.... That is,....as long as they are not already in a "group".
Marc Corney, Architect
Red Canoe Architecture, P. A.

Mac OS 10.15.7 (Catalina) //// Mac OS 14.2.1 (Sonoma)
Processor: 3.6 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9 //// Apple M2 Max
Memory: 48 GB 2667 MHz DDR4 //// 32 GB
Graphics: Radeon Pro 580X 8GB //// 12C CPU, 30C GPU
ArchiCAD 25 (5010 USA Full) //// ArchiCAD 27 (4030 USA Full)
Anonymous
Not applicable
Well, I learned a way of doing this that is cleaner.

After selecting a group of objects, press ctrl-D before you click on them to move them. That's the keyboard shortcut for the drag command. It will only allow you to grab those items and you won't accidentally grab something else wrecking your selection.
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