Applied Parameters: Scope=TouchingRectangle
Summary
This feature is used to select any design objects that are touched by a user-defined rectangle on the active Draftsman document (*.PCBDwf).
For a high-level look at how the Altium Draftsman Drawing System provides an interactive approach to the creation of production documentation for your PCBs, see
Draftsman.
Access
The command is accessed from the Draftsman editor in the following ways:
- Click Edit » Select » Touching Rectangle from the main menus.
- Click within the workspace (away from objects) then holding and dragging (right-to-left) to define the selection area.
- Press S in the main design window to access the Selection pop-up menu then choose the Touching Rectangle command.
Use
All objects that fall completely inside this defined area will become selected.
After launching the command, the cursor will change to a cross-hair and you will be prompted to select the first corner of the selection rectangle. Click to anchor the first corner and hold the mouse button then drag the cursor to set the rectangle area. All objects that fall inside this defined area or are touched by its boundary will become selected.
Smart Drag Selection
The Draftsman editor supports drag-to-select functionality directly within the workspace. How the feature behaves and what gets selected depends on the direction in which you drag the selection rectangle:
- Drag the selection window from left-to-right - all objects that fall completely within the bounds of the selection area will be selected. This behavior is the same as using the Edit » Select » Inside Area command.
- Drag the selection window from right-to-left - all objects that fall inside the selection area or are touched by its boundary will be selected. This behavior is the same as using the Edit » Select » Touching Rectangle command.
Coloring is used to visually distinguish which mode of selection is being used. These are user-definable but, by default, dragging left-to-right uses a blue rectangle while dragging right-to-left uses a green rectangle.
