8 Replies Latest reply: Jun 17, 2009 5:52 PM by Simon Gregory RSS

    selecting... I want to like Illustrator, please help!

    Simon Gregory Community Member

      Hi,

       

      I've decided I need to learn Illustrator. I've used FreeHand forever, its like an old shoe as they say. Gotta move on sometime though.

       

      So I'm trying to get to grips with Illustrator CS3, and the thing that bugs me most is selection. Selecting overlapping objects, underlying objects etc.

       

      Here's an example. I draw a box, no fill, just an outline. I draw a bigger box that completely covers it, with a fill, maybe 50% opacity.

       

      There appears to be no key command to drill down through Items below my cursor and grab them. I would have to use a long winded 'next object beneath' multi-key shortcut, or drag over both items and deselect the top one.

       

      That may be OK, but what about when I have several things underneath that top box. I have never found a way way of selecting multiple things under another object. So if want to make the same change to them all, I have to change each one individually. This really make me resent Illustrator!

       

      in FH, I could have multiple items completely obscured by something above them. Holding down 'control' and clicking would cycle between selecting what was under my cursor. Adding shift would make multiple selection of the hidden objects. Then holding shift alone and clicking in the top element would deselect it. Holding Shift and option and clicking will deselect other underlying objects, rather than reselecting the topmost item. So in a few simple clicks, using only modifier keys and mouse clicks, not multi-hand un-ergonomic keyboard shortcuts, I can select and deselect multiple elements that are beneath other elements. My brief experience with Illustrator CS3 seems to show its even worse than InDesign in this matter.

       

      Is CS4 better? any help you can give me would be appreciated. I know Illustrator can do heaps more than FH could, but it surely needs to do the basics right? There are a couple of tricks FH had that would be good to put in FH. And unless I'm missing something, better selection tools would be one of those things.

       

      Actually, I've just made a little video to show what I'm talking about... please watch FH selection in action! You'll see a big pink box over some other coloured boxes. I demonstrate how easy it is to select underlying objects, deselect the top one, select and deselect various items in the stack, resizing items etc. Obvioulsy this is not a real-world example, but I run into this kind of scenario frequently whenever I use Illustrator, and also Indesign which I use a lot. I SOOOO wish I could do this in Illustrator or Indesign. If I'm missing something, please let me know... I really do want to like Illustrator, but all the fancy painting, warping, texture, 3D tools etc are not that much use to me if I keep tearing my hair out with selections when trying to build a standard vector object like a logo...

       

      I used a trial version of a program to make the vid, excuse the resulting 'demo limitation logo' bouncing around...

       

        • 1. Re: selecting... I want to like Illustrator, please help!
          KC29 Community Member

          There appears to be no key command to drill down through Items below my cursor and grab them. I would have to use a long winded 'next object beneath' multi-key shortcut, or drag over both items and deselect the top one.

           

          That may be OK, but what about when I have several things underneath that top box. I have never found a way way of selecting multiple things under another object. So if want to make the same change to them all, I have to change each one individually. This really make me resent Illustrator!

           

           

          Not the answer to all cases, more a workaround, but one way to select things which you can't see is to switch off visibility of the items above

          • 2. Re: selecting... I want to like Illustrator, please help!
            Jesseham Community Member

            The group selection tool will help with some of this.  It's the direct selection (white) arrow with a +.  You get it either by picking it out from under the direct selection arrow in the tools or by holding alt/option to toggle between the direct selection tool and the group selection arrow.

             

            Basically what it does is selects up a level.  If you click on a point, it'll get the whole shape.  If you then click on the whole shape, it'll get the whole group that it's in.

            • 3. Re: selecting... I want to like Illustrator, please help!
              Doug Katz Community Member

              Illustrator users who have not used FreeHand will give you several workarounds. They'll offer the keyboard command (cumbersome),  the contextual menu (the command itself is quite buried within this menu), the layers panel from which to select objects beneath others (it means moving you cursor from where you're working), the lock and hide commands (tedious if you have multiple objects or if you want to select multiple objects hidden behind a top one).

               

              NONE of these can make any claim to elegance compared to the control-click methods of FreeHand.

               

              Here are you choices:

               

              1. Learn the inelegant workarounds. Keep using them over and over again until you forget how graceful FreeHand was. It's worked for me. The only burp is when posts like yours awaken my memories of FreeHand's simpler and more intelligent interface.

               

              2. Hope that Adobe incorporates this and a scad of other FreeHand conveniences into upcoming versions of Illustrator.

              • 4. Re: selecting... I want to like Illustrator, please help!
                Larry G. Schneider CommunityMVP

                Or go back to the original technique and in Preferences>Selection & Display check the box that says Object Selection by Path Only.

                • 5. Re: selecting... I want to like Illustrator, please help!
                  Doug Katz Community Member

                  Larry, if the objects above the one or more you want to select is filled, you can't SEE the path(s) of the object(s) below to click them. With smart guides on, you can forage about and those paths will eventually display. You can also do this in Outline mode and not have to set the preference to "by paths only" in the first place.

                   

                  But compared to the ease and elegance of clicking with modifier keys to get behind objects on the surface, these are clumsy, don't you think?

                  • 6. Re: selecting... I want to like Illustrator, please help!
                    Steve Fairbairn Community Member

                    Far the easiest way to select objects that are underneath others is to temporarily turn off the preview (Cmd-Y).

                    Your can also do it by selecting sublayers in the Layers palette.

                    • 7. Re: selecting... I want to like Illustrator, please help!
                      Simon Gregory Community Member

                      Thanks for those replies, I'll work through all the suggestions.

                       

                      I wonder if anyone who hasn't used FH looked at the video and saw how easy it is to very specific selections of overlapping/hidden objects just using the mouse and modifier keys? I would be interested to know your thoughts about it.

                       

                      The ability to add and subtract various items from a selection is one of those basic things makes FH feel very fast to work with. I would have thought even hardened Illustrator fans would be demanding this kind of thing. I guess you get used to workarounds, In know FH had some dodgy stuff too...

                       

                      thanks again

                      • 8. Re: selecting... I want to like Illustrator, please help!
                        Simon Gregory Community Member

                        KC29 wrote:

                         

                        Not the answer to all cases, more a workaround, but one way to select things which you can't see is to switch off visibility of the items above

                        is that 'hiding'? ... object/hide/selection? that may be useful for some things. but if I hide the topmost and select the underlying, then go to show all, my selection switched back to the topmost item. so not useful for this, where I may want to select some stuff and change it, while still seeing whats above it...

                         

                        Jesseham wrote:

                         

                        The group selection tool will help with some of this...

                        Yes, I use this in InDesign and its handy, but doesn't help with the scenario as in my video, when you may have multiple ungrouped items below another and want to make specific selections of them.

                         

                        Larry G. Schneider wrote:

                         

                        Or go back to the original technique and in Preferences>Selection & Display check the box that says Object Selection by Path Only.

                        I can see where that might come in useful too, worth persevering with...

                         

                        steve fairbairn wrote:

                         

                        Far the easiest way to select objects that are underneath others is to temporarily turn off the preview (Cmd-Y).

                        Your can also do it by selecting sublayers in the Layers palette.

                        These 2 suggestions seem the closest to getting the FH functionality. It's unfortunate  you need to switch off preview to get that functionality but better than nothing certainly. And the sublayers thing is good too. I feel a little better now that there are a few workarounds to my selection hassles!

                         

                        thanks everyone.