Adobe Community: CS6 Issue selecting multiple objects via layers panel

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1. Jesseham,

Jun 13, 2012 3:05 PM in reply to Also Menford

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It appears to be another casualty of The 64bit Rewrite... There's also some interface weirdness that came along in the Layers panel as well - if you click on the selection dot, you can dupe with alt/option, but there's no indication that you are. If you click in the area around the name of the object/layer, then you see a box with a plus, indicating duplication...

I would submit a feature request... https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

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2. Wade_Zimmerman,

Jun 13, 2012 10:37 PM in reply to Also Menford

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Any thing wrong with holding a shift key and rather than dragging through a bunch of layers just clicking on the first and last one you want?

A lot more efficient.

If you need then to be selected in a incongruous sequence then use the control key and click on each layer regardless of the order or sequence.

Yeah, yeah we know but it was so challenging to drag through twenty layers that clicking twice is really spoiling the fun.

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3. Jesseham,

Jun 14, 2012 8:12 AM in reply to Wade_Zimmerman

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How funny. Did that work in previous versions too? I always thought you had to have the selection dot on the layer to dupe them via the layers panel...

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4. Doug Katz,

Jun 14, 2012 10:00 AM in reply to Wade_Zimmerman

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Wade, in CS5 and earlier, if you shift-click multiple layers, they are highlighted (which means you can act on them in certain ways, e.g., with the buttons at the base of the layers panel) but the objects on each of those layers are not selected. The only way I know to select all the objects on multiple layers is to option-drag through the layer names in the layers panel.

Has this changed in CS6?

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5. Also Menford,

Jun 14, 2012 10:24 AM in reply to Doug Katz

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@Doug Katz Yes this has changed in CS6 (tested Mac and PC) alt/option dragging "grabs" and copies the first layer clicked. instead of selecting all objects on the layers the cursor is dragged accross.

@Wade_Zimmerman - the action you mention only selects the layers (when clicking the layer name space), not the objects within the layers. This action when applied to the selection dot would make a great feature request (and seem like it should've been obvious to adobe's programmers) but currently that action applied to the selection dot has the same outcome as holding the cotrol key (2 separate selections instead of selecting all objects first to last clicked.)

Even a combination of selecting the layers and then a key command for "select objects on highlighted layers" would be sufficient.

@Jessham, I noticed that duplication oddity as well but i've just chalked it up to new version quirks.

If anyone reading this knows a work around to selecting many objects at once via the layers panel (e.g. not single clicking each selection dot or hunting for them in the artboard) be it a series of key commands or a script etc, posting here would be hugely appreciated.

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6. mapsnmad,

Aug 10, 2012 2:56 PM in reply to Wade_Zimmerman

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Your suggestion doesn't work in CS6. We're talking about selecting the contents of the layers, not merely layers in the layers panel.

I'm looking at over 100 layers right now, and I've got to select dozens at a time. It's a real pain having to click each stinking selection circle.

Yeesh, there's no way to select a bunch of adjacent layers in the panel? Seriously?

I'm moving my project back to CS5. I liked some of CS6's new features, but this won't do.

Message was edited by mapsnmad; sorry, was too sarcastic before.

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7. Janduza,

Jan 11, 2013 2:15 PM in reply to mapsnmad

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I know this is not as efficient as the alt+drag object selection (I need it back in CS6 too), but here is a method:

Note: I use "layer" to refer to the row of each object in the layers panel.

Select the first object and group it
Select the layer of next object and then shift+click the layer of the last object
Drag the layers into the group (of the first object)
Object select the group
Ungroup

All the objects should be selected.

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8. Arrakis,

Apr 15, 2013 10:03 PM in reply to Janduza

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So what is the solution to this? Is there a way to select multiple objects in the layers panel anymore besides grouping in this way?

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9. jmgpsp2,

May 13, 2013 12:47 PM in reply to Janduza

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Ingenious workaround! But it's too bad they omitted the previous method, ie: option-drag. BTW, I keep an emty layer for this purpose, since I'm usually trying to collect a bunch of items into a group.

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CS6 Issue selecting multiple objects via layers panel

Jun 13, 2012 1:55 PM

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