Keep selection after moving objects

ALAIN HEDDE

Hello,

I'm new to bricscad (to CAD in fact) and I have a question : I select several objects, I move/rotate/resize them and these objects are automatically de-selected, I know that I can use "selection set" but is there any way (or option) just to keep objects selected ? I think it's faster than working "with selection set", but maybe I'm wrong and I don't work the way it should be, what's your opinion ?

Thanks.

Greg Skelhorn

Once  you run one command on a set of entities, you can have the next command operate on the same set of entities by entering P (for Previous) when being prompted to select the entities. I do not know if the P varies by language... See SELECT in the user's guide.

Anthony Apostolaros

Alain, I've been using Autocad and Bricscad since 1989, and I've always felt the same way you do, that objects should remain selected after a command is finished. But we're in the minority in the DWG world.

Outside the DWG world, many CAD and graphics programs do it that way, including Sketchup, Vectorworks, and Photoshop. A selection set stays selected until you start a new selection set. But the normal drawing methods of Sketchup and Vectorworks make it easier to select everything with a single window or crossing, and so their selection method is non-cumulative: objects are not added to the selection set unless you hold down the shift key. Clicking on something that's not part of the selection set begins a new selection set. Clicking on nothing de-selects all. I think it really has to be done that way if you don't use the Autocad method of automatically de-selecting all after each command.

Brics has to maintain close compatibility with Autocad, so they probably couldn't provide an option to preserve the selection set even if they wanted to.

But AC and BC allow, via the PICKADD variable, non-cumulative selection. And with Lisp programming you can create custom versions of all the commands, adding a Select Previous operation to the end of every editing command, and a Select Last operation to the end of every entity-creating command.

I've done that, and I've turned off cumulative selection, and so when I use Bricscad it works just like Vectorworks. Objects remain selected until I either start a new selection set or draw a new entity, and any new entity automatically becomes the new selection set. I also draw using polylines rather than lines, multi-text instead of text, blocking of sub-systems, etc., which makes it easy to select everything with a single window or crossing.

I like this system much better, and would hate to have to go back to constantly pressing "P space" in order to keep operating on a selection set. But there's no built-in option for that system, and I doubt that there ever will be.

ALAIN HEDDE

Thanks a lot Anthony, you have exactly understand where my problem is. I'm not a very advanced user at this time but I will try to apply your advice, it's a good way to improve.

Have a nice day.