I have never felt that this is a big problem. A lot of my selections are through the layers palette, or select by color/stroke (selection menu, and more rarely using the wand). Also select by group (group selection tool).

My documents are reasonably well organised in the layers palette though.

Then there is the lasso tool.

Depends upon how it's added.

I can see why you feel it's needed David. Good luck with it. For me, I've never missed such a feature in Illustrator, but then I started long before there was a lasso tool as well.

I've learned not to try and guess at what implementation route may be taken.

And you prove my point, Kurt.

>to switch to the "touch-sensitive" selection behavior

This means the standard behavior that's been around for 20 years would now require a modifier key. Not good. Leave the standard behavior alone, require a modifier for the new behavior.

We're going to need new keyboards, since all available modifiers already have a task. I guess any key can be a modifier (space for Hand tool).

> Some people might think that their layer palette or shift-click solutions are ideal, but i think they would be amazed how much time the freehand selection method could save them.

Very very true.

In FreeHand, a doubleClick on the selection tool provides a "Contact Sensitive" checkbox for marquee selections. Pressing a momenatry modifer allows you to quickly and fluidly select underlying objects (including hidden points). A momentary modifier allows you to drag retracted handles out of their anchor points individually. A momentary modifier allows you to bend straight segments without switching tools and without adding an unwanted point to the segment. There is no tedious switching between "direct select" and "normal select" and "convert anchor point" tools, and yet you can do far more operations than possible in AI.

While drawing paths, FreeHand users can do most everything they need without breaking stride mererly by using the three main momenatry modifiers, Shift, Ctrl, and Alt.

The problem of all of Illustrator's available keyboard shortcuts being "used up" is itself both a symptom and a proof of the horribly inelegant and cumbersome design of Illustrator's interface.

Competing programs do all this stuff more easily, more intuitively, and with the use of a small set of momentary modifier keys. As always, other programs do more with less complication than does Illustrator.

Illustrator's whole selection interface--and its whole environment organization scheme sorely needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. It is inefficient, scattered, and unnecessarilly tedious in too many ways to list here.

JET

I'm not one who typically defends Adobe, and I still think I could work in Illustrator 6 faster and more efficiently than in any version since, but I have never found selection to be a problem,

The lasso tool hard-selects everything it contains and leaves as soft-selected all points that are connected to the contents of the selection lasso. To me, this is not only intuitive, but also works well. IMHO, if you are using the lasso tool and you don't want something selected at all, then wiggle your lasso around only the things you want to select. That's why it's a lasso, not a rectangle whose boundaries are not flexible.

Maybe the rodeo riders who also use real lassos will complain that a true lasso always has a perfect contour. Maybe the lasso is not the best metaphor for the tool, which behaves more like a butterfly net. Alas, I guess it depends on what creatures you want to capture.

That's funny. I must have a super secret version of AICS3 because when I use the lasso tool it only selects the points I surround with the tool. What it doesn't do, thank god, is select the all the objects that the lasso's tool has crossed. That's what the move and direct select tools are for.

I am a large format printer and get files from a variety of designers. Since most of them will not draw on seperate layers, I desperately need Illustrator to have a 'select only enclosed' feature! The owner of my company won't even work with Illustrator until it does (he uses Corel :-P ). PLEASE include this feature in future builds!!!! It can't be that difficult and according to the web it is a HIGHLY desirable feature.

Thank you