Select inside marquee window
Create a toggle-able feature like the one found in many CAD programs:
Select ONLY the objects ENTIRELY inside the selection window marquee via the following methods:
1. hold Shift+drag
2. Dragging left-to-right enables "select inside", dragging right-to-left enables "select touching" (as per most CAD programs)
Buck
shared this idea
Excited to share that the requested functionality is now available in the public builds starting from V 28.3.0.
WIth the new Enclosed Mode, you can now select ONLY those objects which are completely INSIDE the marquee.
To activate the Enclosed Mode, just press 'E' ONCE after you start doing the marquee with the Normal Selection Tool or Group Selection tool.
Please note that,
1. The button E acts as a toggle, which means you just have to press E once, to get into or out of the enclosed mode.
2. You have to press E only after doing the marquee, pressing E in empty canvas will invoke the Free Transform tool or the tool the shortcut 'E' is assigned to.
We made a lot of effort in building this capability, so please try it out and let us what you all think!
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An now there is also a separate request about making it a permanent option we tan toggle to change the default behavior: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/49503929
All who clearly asked about this in the comments for the original request got added as voters to this branched request.
As usual, if you feel this matches with your idea about how it should work — please upvote it. -
Anonymous commented
Just add Enclosed Mode switch into the preferences so it can be enabled or disabled forever long as I want.
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Raunchy Butts commented
"We made a lot of effort in building this capability,"
Good lord, that's embarrassing. You guys suck.
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There is a separate request now about having it the CAD-way, when a direction of the marquee toggles the mode: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/49489604
I added all of those who clearly messaged it was they preferred method as voters.
If you feel this is something you like as well — please upvote it.
I personally don’t see why Illustrator, being a professional tool, should offer only ONE of FOUR methods we all came up with in the comments. -
If you're still using Illustrator at this point, you're doing it wrong.
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Clay Ravin commented
Why was this implemented as a mode (with additional keyclicks required) rather than as an option for ALL MARQUEE SELECTIONS?
It is a lot more logical and useful than the default AI method of marquee selection. -
Szasz-Fabian Jozsef
commented
The implementation is better than nothing, but it is done in the worst possible way.
The E key has to be hit EVERY SINGLE TIME a selection is started... Nobody has imagined, this functionality has to be switched on or off PERMANENTLY.... ?
So users have something but in reality they doesn't have an easy, functional way to use in-marquee selection. Everybody would expect a permanent toggle.
You say, you.made a lot of effort building this capability, it is beyond incredible, nobody in your team realized, this is the most UNUSABLE way to implement in-marquee selection...
There are straightforward ways to implementation:
- Toggle button on the toolbar
- Hit E to permanently toggle the selection mode
- Settings - [x] Select objects inside the marquee
Yet, Adobe invented the wheel, provided a new, nowhere-to-be-seen functionality.
Please rethink this solution... -
We repeatedly said NOT to make this function dependent on a hotkey, and they did it anyway.
So... fail.
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akshay korlekar commented
This is good. I tried it and works well. I think if we could have a option in preferences that would be better since, selection is something which one does without much thought and efforts so adding another key to it makes it uncomfortable.
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Another third-part solution would be Area Select Tool from ESKO’s boostX plugin pack:
https://docs.esko.com/docs/en-us/boostx-for-ai/16/userguide/home.html?q=en-us/common/bx/topic/to_areaselect.html -
Guys in Adobe, could you please stop reinventing the wheel? Could you just make the selection like in other apps? Just make a switch to either select new way or old way in preferences.
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Alessandro Anselmi
commented
@Egor THIS is what we all need
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Oscar Goldman commented
Thanks for the update. Having to tap a key before every selection activity is still dumb and unacceptable. Why not just do it right, with a persistent toggle in settings? Other vector-art applications have managed to pull this off for decades. DECADES.
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Here is what I think.
1. Users need a way to permanently toggle the mode. It is clear, if you read comments below.
2. Users need a hotkey slot to toggle the mode.
3. Users need hotkeys to toggle other modes in Illustrator:
- Transform Pattern Tiles
- Scale Stroke and Effects
- Scale Corners
- Use Preview Bounds
4. Users need a way to toggle these on the fly, when a transformation has already started.
5. Some modes have hotkeys, but are impossible to toggle after dragging has started:
- Smart Guides
- Snap to Grid / Pixels / Point / Glyphs
6. Illustrator requires us to hold standard modifier keys (Alt/Opt, Shift, Cmd/Ctrl) all the time until the mouse button is released, unlike Photoshop. This is both useful and confusing (and the request even exists(http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/44954005), 1 vote)
7. Professionals are 'speedrunners'. Illustrator desperately needs to introduce more modifier keys(http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/34616848) for many tools, to help the professionals to be productive — the same way Illustrator introduces contextual panels.
8. There is an established workflow third-parties developed to toggle modes for tools (not one developer, not two, but many at once) — use letter keys one can tap or hold. This method works.
9. The method is yet unfamiliar to basic Illustrator users.
10. The method requires some in-app education, in a way it doesn’t distract professionals but helps newbies.
11. Illustrator has been requiring a method to inform users about possible modifiers for many decades.
12. All competitors and third-party developers solved this problem many years ago. They use hints near cursor / a dedicated panel with a column view / a dedicated panel slot to display hints. There is a request to introduce one for illustrator(http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/32403871), reviving the section at the bottom. Another request directly asks for a panel(http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/40470892).
13. Without a panel/section, it’d be hard to educated people about the enclosed mode. People got fed up with rich tooltips and 'Try this' and 'This is new' popups really fast, since they interrupt the workflow (the one in Photoshop can’t even be closed!), so there should be a calmer way to do it.
14. The panel makes sense if you introduce other keys to control other modes along with the Enclosed Mode or soon enough. These can be:
- T for Transform Pattern Tiles
- S for Scale Stroke and Effects
- C for Scale Corners
- P for Use Preview Bounds
- U for Smart Guides
- G for Snap to Grid
- X for Snap to Pixels
- O for Snap to Point
- L for Snap to Glyphs
- etc., you get the idea
15. Another key like this exists already, it’s ` or ~ (tilde), and it allows many things, including temporarily Transform Pattern Tiles. This key is broken(http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447/suggestions/41072941) — it works poorly on non-English keyboards (including me). The new mode-toggling method could solve it.
16. We need a way to both toggle modes temporarily and permanently on the fly. This can be easily done with distinguishing 'hold' and 'tap'. If a user holds the mode key — then the mode works only until the mouse key is released. If a user taps a key while holding a mouse button — the mode stays toggled permanently.
17. Both methods require clear on-canvas confirmation.
18. `Opt/Alt` is as good as `E`, faster to learn, but will cut off all the things above. But — you can use both. It’s a normal practice to allow different methods to regulate an option (take Scale Stroke and Effects we can toggle in three different places).
19. You can solve many more issues at once with this. Limiting it to only 'good-enough' solution and cutting off branches that can grow into other solutions is the exact way that led Illustrator to the condition it currently stays in.
20. You definitely need to learn to highlight objects that are going to be selected — as a separate option, for all the selection tools, including Direct Selection. Third-parties solved this, so can you.(Edited by admin) -
Yup, Alessandro, it’d be. The team knows about this, and thanks for speaking about it.
Have no idea though if they will add it and when. -
Alessandro Anselmi
commented
It would be really great if only the objects totally enclosed in the marquee were highlighted while dragging the selection
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Rob
commented
Right Oscar, I feel the same. My comment really wasn't sarcastic, I'm sad to see Adobe crumbling. And this uservoice thing... it's weird when you're asked for advice but the answers are so off that it feels like they actually don't want to hear from you. Actually it feels like they hate you. And I don't understand why.
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By the way, thank you for soliciting input, Adobe reps. But this implementation is so brain-dead that you're going to have to expect scorn for it. I hope you guys read this and do the simple implementation we asked for.
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Rob
commented
I wonder what's wrong with Adobe that it takes them 5+ years to come up with such a terrible answer to that simple a problem in 2023. Are they understaffed? Busy working on something else? Become incompetent? Maybe they don't care? Have their programs become so bloated that it's become impossible to touch parts of the code without making everything explode? Maybe parts of the older code, core functions, have become obscure to present-day development teams? Maybe a bit of all of those? Honestly, I wonder.
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@adobe could you please do like it is in all other apps in the universe. Please stop reinventing the wheel. Just make it drag to select.