When selected, an object displays eight selection handles. To select an object, click on it with the Arrow pointer. The Arrow pointer is used to select and deselect individual objects.
 
To select all objects in a drawing choose Select All from the Edit menu or press Command-A.
To select an object, click on the Arrow tool then click on the desired object.
To select more than one object at a time, click in an open, blank area in your drawing (not on an object) and drag a selection rectangle around the desired objects. All objects that are completely within your selection rectangle will be selected when you release the mouse button.
If you hold the Option key while dragging out a selection rectangle, all objects that are touched by the selection rectangle will become selected. In this way you do not need to completely enclose the desired objects within the selection rectangle. This is handy when you are trying to select some but not all objects that are closely spaced.
To add objects to or subtract objects from a selection of objects, hold the shift key down when clicking on the objects or when starting a selection rectangle.
To deselect all selected objects in a drawing, click on any drawing tool in the tool palette or click in any blank area of your document.
2.2 Selection Pointers
As a drawing grows and becomes more complex, it can become quite difficult to predict exactly what will happen when you click in the document. ShareDraw helps to make this easier by using a variety of pointer types. As you move the Arrow tool around in the document window, the pointer will change its appearance as an indication of what is beneath it.
 
2.3 Preselection Highlighting
Another aid to help you determine what will become selected when you click is the Preselection Highlighting feature. When Preselection Highlight is turned on, a gray outline surrounds the object that is currently beneath the pointer. Preselection Highlight is an option set in the Preferences dialog found in the Project menu.
 
2.4 Object Stacking Order
All objects have a stacking order for display and selection. As you create objects in your drawings they are placed above previously created objects in the object stacking order. Three items in the Arrange menu allow you to change the object stacking order.
Bring To Front moves all selected objects to the front of all other objects in the drawing. Send To Back moves all selected objects to the back of all other objects in the drawing.
 
To change the order of objects, choose Order Objects from the Arrange menu. The Order Objects pointer then appears when the pointer is over any object. Clicking on an object selects that object and immediately moves it behind any other selected objects. If no objects are selected in your document when you click on an object with the Order Objects tool, then nothing will happen.
To select an object that may be underneath and possibly hidden by, another object choose Select Under from the Edit menu then move the pointer over the top objects. As you move the pointer over the top object, a preselection highlight will appear around any objects that lie behind that top object. A click within that preselection highlight will select the lower object.
 
Select Under is especially useful for selecting objects that may be completely hidden behind other objects.
If Preselection Highlight is not turned on in the Preferences dialog, choosing Select Under will temporarily turn it on. Preselection Highlight helps insure that the correct object is chosen when selecting underneath.
2.5 Grouping Objects
Multiple selected objects can be grouped together to act as a single object by choosing Group from the Arrange menu or by pressing Command-G. Multiple selected groups can also be grouped together.
When a group is selected, selection handles appear around the perimeter of the whole group, not around the individual objects that comprise the group.
When Preselection Highlight is turned on, a secondary gray preselection highlight box appears when the pointer is over a group, indicating which object within the group is below the pointer.
Grouping objects can make your drawing easier to work with since the objects within a group act as a unit. When a group is selected, changing an attribute such as color, pattern, or pen width changes that attribute for all objects within the group.
When selected objects are grouped, the stacking order of those objects may be modified. The objects within the group will maintain their stacking order relative to each other, but the group as a whole will have the stacking order within the document that is the same as the frontmost object within the group.
 
Notice how the rectangle in the above figure moves in front of the circle– which is not a part of the group.
To ungroup the objects in a selected group, choose Ungroup from the Arrange menu or press Command-H. If the selected group contained other group objects, you will need to choose Ungroup more than once to remove all grouping.
2.6 Locking Objects
To protect objects from being moved or modified, select the object or group object and choose Lock from the Arrange menu. A locked object can be selected, copied, or duplicated but no changes can be made to that object. If a group object is locked, all objects within it are locked.
Locked objects will display special hollow handles when selected.
 
To Unlock locked objects, select the object and choose Unlock from the Arrange menu. Locked groups can also be unlocked by choosing Ungroup. Unlock is dimmed in the Arrange menu until a locked object is selected.
2.7 Moving Objects
Pressing the Shift key after you start dragging a selected object will constrain the movement of that object to horizontal, vertical, or 45° angles.
To nudge a selected object by one pixel at a time, tap one of the four arrow keys on your keyboard. Pressing the Option key while tapping an arrow key increases the size of the nudge to 10 pixels.
2.8 Resizing Objects
The size of an object can be changed by dragging one of the eight selection handles on the object. The pointer changes to a pointer finger when it is above a selection handle.
 
Dragging a corner handle on an object allows you to resize it along both the horizontal and vertical axes. Dragging a side handle constrains resizing to just horizontal or vertical.
When a selected object is resized, any other currently selected objects will be resized by the same amount. Objects within a group resize proportionately to each other. The results will be different than when the same objects are resized separately.
 
2.9 The Edit Menu
Standard Edit commands are found in the Edit menu. Selected objects can be cut, copied pasted, duplicated, and cleared. Choosing Clear deletes the selected objects without copying them to the clipboard. You can Undo the effects of a Clear but you cannot Paste cleared objects.
Paste
By default, pasted objects are placed in the center of the document window. However, you can control where the object will be placed:
1. Click in the document area where you want your object to be centered, just before choosing Paste.
2. Select an object or group, then choose Paste, to center the object on the selection.
Normally, pasted objects are placed in front of all other objects in your document. Two of the Paste options in the Paste Special submenu give you control over the stacking order of the pasted objects:
1. When In Front is chosen, objects are pasted in front of any selected objects wherever they fall in the stacking order. If no objects are selected when In Front is chosen, this command works just like Paste.
2. When In Back is chosen, objects are pasted behind any selected objects. If no objects are selected, this command will paste behind all other objects in the document.
The remaining three items in the Special Paste submenu– Paste in Same Place, Same Place in Front, and Same Place in Back place objects in the same position from which they were originally cut or copied.
Duplicate makes a copy of all selected objects, placing them about 1/4 inch down and to the right of the originals. If you immediately drag the new duplicate object to a new position, a new duplication offset is temporarily created. If your next action is to choose Duplicate again, the duplicate object will use this new offset.
Multi-Copy allows you to create many duplicates and place them in complex offset patterns. This feature is described in detail in Chapter 7 - “More Draw Features.”
Get Info lets you name objects and find their dimensions. The area of the object is also displayed for polygons and geometric objects.
Colors
The display of color in your ShareDraw document depends upon your monitor and the settings in the System Monitor Control Panel. If you wish to display colors in your ShareDraw document at a different level than you have set in your Monitors control panel, choose one of the items in the Colors submenu located in the Edit menu. Doing so will change the color display and available color palette of your document on all monitors but does not affect the control panel settings of your monitors.
