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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User
commented
It needs an option to switch this behaviour so anyone can use default way of selection or the other way. Simple as that.
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Doug Roberts commented
To the previous poster:
It would be strange for this behaviour to be the default now, after nearly 30 years. Many Illustrator users will be used to and find the current selection method familiar and even desirable.
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GHS
commented
I agree. I consider Illustrator unusable until this is fixed. I bought Affinity Designer because of this defect alone.
And I agree that NO HOTKEY or DIRECTION should be required. This needs to be a persistent selection mode that we can activate in preferences and leave alone.
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Tio Sancho
commented
NO hotkey or drag-direction requirement, please.
The drag-direction method will defeat the purpose of this feature in a great many cases, because you're trying to avoid selecting certain objects. Sometimes that requires coming at the drawing from a particular direction.
The hotkey method forces users to treat this selection method as somehow exceptional, when in fact it should be the default. At the very least, it should be PERSISTENTLY SETTABLE.
Also, Shift and Ctrl/Command can't be used because they're already used to extend, add to, or subtract from an existing selection.
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Anonymous commented
Yes, this is a must have for a professional app.
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What Haveyou
commented
I agree that this basic feature is essential, but I don't agree that any modifier keys or specific dragging directions should be required. Shift-drag is already used to add to the selection. so that won't work.
This should be a selectable selection mode, and in fact it should be the default.
New idea from comment
This comment was upgraded into a new idea: Make Enclosed Selection Mode a permanent option