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Select, Move and Rotate Objects

Keyboard shortcut: S

This tool has four possible modes:

TOC(inline)

Select tool

This MapMode enables the user to make selections of different objects. The selected objects are drawn in a different style, depending on display preferences and the active styles. The cursor icon will also change depending on the selection mode.

Selecting single objects

Left-click to select the node or way nearest to the pointer. Depending on settings, the node or way that would be selected is highlighted as a hint.

If multiple objects overlap or are very close to each other, there are several ways to select a specific object.

• Middle-click to show a pop-up window of nearby objects and to cycle through them.
• Left-click while holding the Alt (or AltGr) key to cycle through nearby objects without showing a pop-up window. To make this type of selection the default, and thus not require the use of the Alt key, change the advanced preference selectaction.cycles.multiple.matches to true.

Hold the Shift key while left-clicking to add an object to the current selection. Hold the Ctrl key while left-clicking to toggle the selection of the object (if the object is already selected, remove it from the selection, otherwise add it to the selection).

Selecting multiple objects

To select all objects, press Ctrl-A.

Hold and drag the left mouse button to draw a selection rectangle.

• Release the left mouse button to select all objects within the rectangle. All nodes within the rectangle and any ways which are entirely within the rectangle will be selected.
• To cancel the selection rectangle, hold the right mouse button when releasing the left mouse button.

When the mouse button is released and either Alt, Shift or Ctrl is held, following selection is made:

• Alt : in addition to the normal behavior, select all ways that have at least one node within selection rectangle.
• Shift : the objects are added to the current selection.
  • If Shift is not held, the current selection get replaced.
• Ctrl : remove all objects under the current rectangle from the active selection (if there were any). Nothing is added to the current selection.

Alt can be combined with Shift, but cannot be combined with Ctrl, as this is used for the *Scale* command.

Unselecting

To unselect everything you can either click on an empty area of the screen, or press U or Esc on the keyboard.

If you have more than one object selected, and just want to deselect one particular object, them click it with the 'Select tool' while holding down Ctrl.

Selecting particular ways

For help on selecting a certain way which shares common nodes with one or more other ways see here.

Move

You can move selected objects in the main window, by moving the mouse cursor close to one of the selected objects and then left clicking while dragging the mouse.

• If the mouse cursor is near a node when performing the move action, then just this node is moved.
  • If you move a node very close to another node and hold Ctrl when releasing the left mouse button the moved node will be merged with the other node.
• If the mouse cursor is near a way when performing the move action, then the way, together with its associated nodes, is moved.

Merge nodes

You can merge a selected node with another one by holding down the Ctrl and dragging the selected node onto the other one.

Rotate

You can rotate selected ways while the cursor is near one of them by holding down the Shift+Ctrl + left mouse button and moving the cursor.

Scale

You can scale selected ways while the cursor is near one of them by holding down the Ctrl+Alt + left mouse button and moving the cursor.

Advanced details

Whether a mouse action is considered a selection or a move depends on some settings, to prevent objects from being moved when a simple selection was intended; this is particularly important on devices such as tablets that are touch sensitive or use a stylus. If the pointer is moved between pressing and releasing the left mouse button, the object will only be moved if the pointer moved more than 5 pixels or was held down for more than 0.2 seconds, otherwise the object will simply be selected. These two settings can be changed with edit.initial-move-threshold and edit.initial-move-delay.

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