Copy & Paste and objects remain selected in version 9 ?

[Anonymous]

I thought the documentation of version 9 stated that objects once pasted "the copies remain selected" "leaving the original unselected" . Not having the objects that I pasted not selected after I pasted them was a thorn in my side. I really thought this problem was solved with the upgrade to 9. Am I missing something that I should toggle on for this feature to work?

[Thomas Holm]

Matthew, I'm no expert like you. I have to admit (blushing) that I wasn't aware of this. It's of course a HUGE enhancement to AC7, in which I worked until a couple of weeks ago.

But still. This way I have to remember key combinations, I have to use both hands like in Autocad of old, and I have to remember the right order to click on things to make it work. As an example of the mistakes possible, when i was testing your suggestion, I by mistake started by command-clicking a line. The line of course disappeared, because this is the shortcut for Trim.

If you think about what I described of how Microstation works, you might see what I mean. The dual functionality (verb-noun and noun-verb) lets you click away one-handedly without thinking too much. It just works.

Microstation has many drawbacks, but there are things for Graphisoft too look at, like this detail. Also: great use of multi-threading (on 68K Macs!), several customizable simultaneously active windows/views on the model, and non-modal dialogs wherever possible. 'Nuff said. I wouldn't buy it today, but in the early nineties, they had good programmers.

[Djordje]

kevin wrote:
My question is, can you have it so the copy is not selected? Some type of override key that keeps the original selected. There are a few cases where this is the preferred method, it would be nice if there were a choice of whether the originasl or the copy is selected.

Yes.

[kevin b]

Thanks, I saw that too. But that's not what I'm looking for. I like the new method, I just want to be able to override it every once in a while. What I was looking for was something that would let you switch on the fly. A key combination or something that lets you choose whether you want the copy selected or the original each time. Or maybe not that you have to chose each time but a key combination or whatever that lets you override the default.

[Anonymous]

Thomas wrote,

The copy command can
work noun-verb wise like in Archicad (that is you can select the
subject to be copied first). But they can also work the other
verb-noun way (like i think in Autocad). If you select the command
without any object selected, it allows you to select the object to
copy after the command

Data CAd uses a similar "verb-noun" methodology. Having both methods available would be ideal. A classic example is that you could choose a distance and direction to copy elements, and each element selected after issuing that command will be copied that distance and direction. This can be useful when selection of the elements to copy is cumbersome to do in a single step.