Selecting Features

Before you can edit an existing feature or features, you first must select them. Choose the Digitizer tool from the Selection Toolbar. Once a feature is selected, you can tell that it is selected because it will be drawn with a different style. The different methods for actually selecting features are described below.

Manual Selection

One way to select features is by simply by clicking the left mouse button near the feature, or in the case of area features, within the feature. Using this method, the closest point or line feature will be selected, or if no point or line features are nearby and you clicked within an area feature, the area feature will be selected.

To select multiple features at a time, you can drag a selection box by holding down the left mouse button to draw a box. Any features entirely within the box drawn or features which are cut by the box will be selected. If you hold down the 'I' key while dragging the box, only features and vertices that are completely within the box will be selected. This is useful for things like selecting a point feature that is on top of a line/ area border.

You can add to an existing selection by holding down the CTRL key while performing a selection with any of the above described methods. You can deselect features by holding down the SHIFT key while performing a selection. You can toggle the selection state of features by holding down both the SHIFT and CTRL keys while performing a selection. As a final option, holding the 'P' key when clicking to select the feature may be used to select the topmost area feature at a location. This is useful for selecting area features that may be overlaid by a line or point feature. It's functionally equivalent to using the Vector Display tab of the Configuration dialog to enable only the "Select From Areas" option - a temporary selection filter.

If you are planning on moving lots of features, you can speed up the process by holding down the ALT key when selected features and/or vertices. Doing this will cause you to automatically put into move mode when selecting new features and/or vertices.

Keyboard Shortcut List

DIGITIZER/ EDIT TOOL OPERATIONS

CTRL + Z	UNDO the last operation, if possible (example: when digitizing new features)
DELETE	MARK the selected feature(s) AS DELETED
CTRL + DELETE	DELETE the selected vertice(s)
SHFT + DELETE	UNDELETE the selected feature(s)
LEFT DOUBLE-CLICK	EDIT FEATURE under cursor
CTRL + ALT + M	MEASURE the cut-and-fill VOLUME of the currently selected line or area feature
CTRL + N	Cycle through non-connected line endpoints (end-NODES)
SHFT + T	Create new line (TRACE mode)

DRAW SHAPES

SHFT	Causes the shape to be ELLIPTICAL or RECTANGULAR rather than the default of circular or square
T + LEFT CLICK	Causes shapes to be ANCHORED at the CENTER OF SHAPE rather than the top left of shape

SNAPPING

ALT + LEFT CLICK	DISABLE automatic SNAPPING behavior
V + LEFT CLICK	ONLY snap to EXISTING VERTICES/ FEATURES (advanced snap option that restricts snap to active vertices, lines or areas

SELECT FEATURES

CTRL + LEFT CLICK	ADD/ APPEND selected features to cached selection
SHFT + LEFT CLICK	REMOVE selected features from cached selection
CTRL + SHFT + LEFT CLICK	Toggle the SELECTION STATE of selected features
A + LEFT CLICK	Select only the topmost AREA feature at the clicked location
L + LEFT CLICK	Select only the topmost LINE feature at the clicked location
P + LEFT CLICK	Select only the topmost POINT feature at the clicked location
ALT + LEFT CLICK	Automatically enter MOVE mode for selected feature(s) after selection
I + LEFT DRAG BOX	Only select FEATURES that are completely CONTAINED WITHIN the drag box
S + LEFT [CLICK or DRAG BOX]	Only select VERTICES from line or area features that are ALREADY SELECTED

INSERT VERTICES

SHFT + LEFT CLICK	New vertex will be inserted at NEAREST LOCATION to clicked location on selected feature rather than at click location
I + LEFT CLICK	STAY IN VERTEX INSERT MODE after inserting vertex. Useful if needing to insert multiple vertices

MOVE FEATURES & VERTICES

X or SHFT	Clamp (restrict) movement of features/ vertices to the HORIZONTAL axis
Y or CTRL	Clamp (restrict) movement of features/ vertices to the VERTICAL axis
CTRL + SHFT	Clamp (restrict) movement of features/ vertices to the DIAGONAL axis
R	Toggles clamped movement to RIGHT-ANGLES from direction of last drawn segment
CTRL + SHFT + M	MOVE the selected features
ALT + LEFT CLICK	Automatically enter MOVE MODE for selected feature(s) after selection
J + LEFT CLICK	Automatically enter JOIN MODE if more than one vertex is selected

Other selection options

Select by Drawing Polygon - draw a polygon around data to select data within

Clear Current Selection - choose this button to deselect all data that is currently selected. The ESC key will also do this.

Advanced Selection

You can also select area, line, and point features within selected area features by first selecting one or more area features using the previously described methods, then right clicking and selecting the appropriate option under the Advanced Selection Options sub-menu. This makes it easy to find and edit all of the point, line, and/or area features within some other area feature(s).

When working with island and parent areas, there are also some options available under the Advanced Selection Options sub-menu that make it easy to select all of the island areas associated with selected parent areas and to also deselect the parent area for a selected island area. You can also select lines or points within selected areas, or also select any area that share a vertex with the selected area(s) or any areas that they were connected to, or select any line features that share a vertex with the selected area(s).