About Marquee Areas

The Marquee tool is used to define areas for selection, editing and visualization purposes. The capabilities of the Marquee tool complement those of the Arrow tool, and are particularly useful in selecting and moving groups of ArchiCAD elements.

A Marquee area does not display selection dots on the included elements; the marqueed area is shown by a dashed line of “marching ants.” The color of the Marquee is the same as that of Selection dots: set this color at Options > Work Environment > Selection Dots and Marquee color.

Marquee selection is often used when:

•	You wish to define a smaller area in which to select all of the elements of a given type.

•	You want to visualize a particular part of the design in 3D.

•	You need to move or resize a number of elements of different types at the same time: for example, you can stretch all polygonal and linear elements of a building simultaneously.

The Marquee tool is available in the Floor Plan worksheet, the 3D Window, Section/Elevation/Interior Elevation windows, Detail and Worksheet windows, Layout windows, and the 2D Symbol window of GDL Objects. In image-type windows (PhotoRendering or picture windows) or the GDL Object’s 3D view, the only operation available for a marquee selection is Copy.

To use the Marquee tool for selection and editing, you must first define a rectangular or polygonal Marquee area. All construction aids are available.

•	If you inadvertently start to draw the Marquee area at an unintended point, press Esc or the Cancel button.

•	If you click a node or an edge inside the Marquee area, the cursor will assume the Checkmark or Mercedes shape. If you then move the cursor, the Marquee area will be moved with all the nodes or edges included in it.

•	All polygonal or linear elements with a node included in the Marquee area can be stretched simultaneously.

For a detailed description, see Modifying Element Sizes and Moving Elements .

•	If you click inside the Marquee area without touching a node or an edge, the cursor will assume the Trident shape. In this case, moving the cursor will only move the marquee, leaving all enclosed elements unchanged.