In this lesson, we're going to look at a more advanced way of selecting.
We looked at selecting very early on.
It's one of the basic skills which just basically clicking.
But there are other ways of selecting multiple objects.
I left it later on in the course because you do need to know about things like layers and colors to
appreciate how to use this.
But once you once you do know that this selection tool is quite powerful, really, So there should
be a drawing in your resources folder under the basic modules called selection.
Okay.
And if you open that up, you'll see we have these circles and squares, just random sizes, but they
are different colors and they are under the layers.
So we have layers, blue circles, blue squares, etcetera, etcetera.
Okay.
And you could use this to practice your layer control and turning layers on and off, putting things
on, correct layers, that kind of thing.
But in this lesson we're going to look at the quick select tools.
So let's suppose we wanted to select all the red circles and nothing else.
Well, we could go around, we could clip the red circles individually, but supposing there was lots
and lots of them, one of the easiest ways is to click the red circle.
Just one of them.
Any one.
And then if we right click, you'll see we have this option select similar.
If you select that, you'll now see all red circles are selected.
So what AutoCAD is doing, it's saying we basically telling AutoCAD, go and select anything else that's
similar to this object.
Okay, so let's try that on the green squares.
Select similar, the green squares.
So it's a great command.
And it can come in handy, but it does have its limitations.
The whole concept of selecting similar, it needs to be based on a certain property so colors, layers,
that kind of thing.
And if I was to take this, I'm going to take this circle here and I'm going to put it on the green
squares layer.
Okay?
And I'm going to select this red circle and go to select similar.
You'll see now it hasn't selected that.
So AutoCAD isn't selecting all the red circles.
What it's actually doing, it's got some kind of priority built in.
It's looking for things on layers.
Layers is a main priority.
It'll look for objects on the same layer.
And if it's not on the same layer, it won't select it.
Okay, so select some.
It's one of those commands.
You try it and you hope that it does what you want, but if it doesn't, you need to do something else.
So it's always worth trying.
Select similar.
And if you've got if you just wanted to select all the text or something like that or all the internal
walls on the internal walls layer, something like it will work for you.
But if you've got a bit more complex of a drawing, then it might not.
So it's worth trying.
And when it works, it is a great command, believe me.
But what do we do if we want to refine it further?
Okay, well, let's.
I'm going to bring up our properties panel.
And we have here.
Quick, select this button here.
Okay, I'm going to click that and you'll see now we this is it brings up some options and here we can
specify what we want to select in terms of a multiple selection.
Okay, so the first option is apply to entire drawing.
That's basically means, as it says, everything in the drawing.
Okay.
Object type.
Multiple.
I'm just going to keep it on multiple.
And now what do we want?
So we want if we want to select all the red objects, for instance, we can say, okay, I want to select
throughout the entire drawing.
I want multiple objects wherever that have a color.
Of red.
Okay.
And how to apply, including a new selection set.
So we want a new selection set.
And I'm going to say, okay, now nothing's happened.
And that's because our array, we we need to differentiate between the different colors.
So under your colors we have.
Red, which is this one.
But then we also have these reds.
Okay.
And what you'll find is these are actually under this red 205 2239.
Okay.
So let's try that again.
And let's say this time entire drawing multiple objects where the color equals to zero five 3239 including
a new selection set.
Okay.
And now it's selected all those red objects.
Okay.
But maybe we wanted to do so multiple objects where the layer is equal to green squares, including
a new set.
Okay.
Now it selects everything on the green squares layer.
You can see it's selected this that is actually on the green squares layer rather than red circles.
So it selected it.
So you can use this to create a new selection.
Sometimes you've already selected everything.
So let's say we've got all those selected.
We can go to quick Select and this time, instead of entire drawing, we get this option here.
Current selection.
So.
Maybe you only want to work on this first half here so you can select those objects.
We don't want to deal with anything here, no matter what it is.
We just want this.
We go to quick select and we can, instead of entire drawing which will select these as well, we just
go current selection.
So it's only going to deal with these collection of objects here.
This would be useful if you were just looking at objects in one room, for instance, instead of a whole
layout.
And now we want objects whose color equals.
That's the green we used include a new selection set.
Okay, so now it's selected these objects which are on the green.
So you can use that quick select on a selection.
You can also say, okay, I want to select the whole thing.
So current selection.
Multiple objects.
I don't want any.
I don't want anything on the blue squares layer.
So you can say layer equals blue squares.
And instead of including new selection set, I want to exclude that from the selection set.
Okay, so now it's deselected those blue squares so you can see you have all these different options.
You can select things by layer, by color, by line type.
So maybe you had lots of squares that were dashed and you didn't want to select them.
You can do it by line type scale plots by line weight, all these.
Okay.
You can either even have things like these functions.
So.
So in the current selection, I want the color.
Is not equal to red, including new selection set.
So now we're going to select everything that is in red.
Okay, So that's quite powerful.
Again, in a small drawing, in the kind of small objects we have here.
It seems like it might be easier to just click them individually, but when you've got a big plan,
trust me, this this stuff, this is a great way of selecting things.
And.
You can add it to the selection set.
You can include it.
Okay, you can have.
So it's just a quick way of selecting objects.
And I wanted to leave it until later on before I told you about it because you needed to know what layers
were, what about colors and line types and things to appreciate how you can differentiate.
But that's the quick select tool.
I don't I use it when it's another tool that I don't use all the time, but every now and then it's
a massive time saver, so it's good to know about it and then select similar.
I always try that if I if I if I need multiple objects, I always give it a go because it's just a right
click and a click.
So it's so simple.
And when it does work, yeah, it's great.
So that's the advanced selection tools.