Prevent locked objects from being selectable

[Professor Pickle]

When working with a busy model it is often difficult to select the right object/element. Tabbing through the available selection candidates sometimes doesn't work and it takes a bit of zooming in and out to finally get at the right thing.

Other times we have some objects whose shape and position has been set and locked and they won't change. Selecting those elements doesn't make sense most of the time.

It would be really helpful if there was a way to disable selection of locked items. This of course would be a toggle option of the selection process.

[Karl Ottenstein]

It's too bad that the poll is gone (it is on the old archicad-talk forum), but at least according to Minh this is #11816 in the wishlist database...

I find tabbing fine...but I, too, would like locked elements not to show up in the tab sequence = the original wish of locked being not selectable.

It seems to me (at his moment anyway) that the only reason to 'select' a locked element would be to use it to populate the Find & Select fields... but that can be done with the eyedropper.  And speaking of the eyedropper, that could still be used to pick up the tool and element settings even if the locked element could not be selected just by eyedropping over a hotspot... which is a non-selecting operation.  Similarly, drawing a selection marquee around elements that include locked elements should just ignore the locked elements.  At least that's my interpretation of the 2 year old wish, which I think would be useful. 🙂

And, then the issue of needing to select to unlock... as Tomek said, you untoggle the 'locked elements are selectable/or not' toggle .... which I see as being very similar to the 'suspend groups' button.  I could see an icon of a padlock with hotspots around it for the locked items are/are not selectable.

[massimozeni]

yes of course, but in a certain moment i have to switch on the layer...and is a mess only moving the cursor...

[runxel]

This is one of the things that bewildered me the most when I started with Archicad.

I think AC is the only program to ever have this quirk. Very unnatural, I have to say. Also makes the onboarding process for new users difficult.

[Professor Pickle]

You know what would be really awesome? If GS published at least a read-only list of all the wishes in their secret squirrel database. Wish #11816 doesn't mean anything at all. Being able to see the wishes that have been selected though, now that would be something.

[jl_lt]

As i speculated somewhere else the number is a formality; the real method is putting the list on a wood board and throw dards on it (with eyes closed).  Then see which wishes were hit and then work on something else.

I would really like to work with snapable (when using other tools) but unselectable locked layers. Would speed up lots of things.

[DGSketcher]

Had another room in roof job to do the other day. I needed to see the part of the roof below the cut plane, but still ending up picking lines that are cut and not visible. Job took twice as long as it needed to. 😠

[bvd]

This would be particularly useful, especially dealing with reno's and existing structures. I want to draw the existing then lock them and not touch them, but still see them and be able to snap to them. Not accidentally select them when working with something adjacent. Locking floor slabs / remove selection would also be ideal, turning them on when required. I appreciate there is a quick selection toggle, but prefer selecting walls etc in their area as opposed to zooming into a corner which is often shared by other elements, initiating a tab sequence. 

At a fundamental level, the reasons you would want to select a locked layer are far outweighed by the reasons not to, in my opinion.

[bvd]

Looks like you can take them off your pop up. couldnt find a way to make them void from selection 

[mthd]

I wonder if there is a way to create a special selection gravity cut plane. One horizontal and one vertical and we can set it where we want when creating and editing elements. Only elements cut by the plane can be selected when this cut plane is turned on. Just another of my crazy ideas.

Turning elements off and on will not help when you need these elements to show up as reference. I think this is probably why many use Trace & Reference where possible. I think I need to brush up on T&R.

[thesleepofreason]

Whats really frustrating is that this functionality actually got implemented in AC27 - but just for design options. The 'edit default only' functionality does exactly this - avoids selection but keeping them as reference and snap. I've played around with a workflow where you relink items to a "focus" option but it's a bit cumbersome for general use. 

GS seem oblivious to the every day workflow potential of the functionality implemented with design options and the fact that it got implemented as a separate feature rather than an enhancement of layers is symptomatic for the current marketing plagued mindset of GS. The marketing value of a design option feature - however shortsighted jerry rigged and not BIM - is higher than fundamental enhancements to an already implemented features which would give the same functionality.