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Learn/Drafting/2D Sketch Editor

Selection Modes

At a glance

  • Click to select — or select the whole group if the entity is grouped
  • Drag left-to-right: window selection (fully enclosed only)
  • Drag right-to-left: crossing selection (anything the box touches)
  • Space: chain-select — flood fill all connected lines and arcs
  • Cmd/Ctrl+A: select everything in the sketch
  • Shift+Click: deselect individual entities

Selection in the sketch editor works the way AutoCAD veterans expect, with a few additions for parametric work. Click an entity to select it — clicking it again deselects, Shift+Click removes it from a larger selection, and clicking empty space clears everything. If the entity belongs to a group, the whole group selects as one.

Window vs. crossing

Drag a box left-to-right for a window selection (blue) — only entities completely inside the box are selected. Drag right-to-left for a crossing selection (green) — anything the box so much as touches is included. Crossing tests against the actual curve, not a bounding box, so a skinny box across one edge of a part grabs just that edge. Hold Shift while box-selecting to add to the existing selection instead of replacing it.

Chain select

Select any line or arc and press Space: the selection flood-fills outward through every connected line and arc until the chain ends or closes. This is the fastest way to grab a whole profile, and it's how you feed the chain-based modify tools — Offset takes the chain as its input, and Fillet switches to fillet-every-corner mode when it's handed a closed chain. With several entities selected, Space chains from each one, so disconnected profiles select in one press.

Cmd/Ctrl+A selects everything, Esc clears, and Delete removes the selection — constraints and dimensions attached to deleted entities are cleaned up automatically.