Option to make hatching not selectable

[Wish List System]

Summary: Have an optional setting to make hatching not selectable.

Description: When working with files with hatching, particularly solid hatching, it is easy to accidentally select the hatch rather than the desired object. It would be nice to have a toggle to choose to make the hatching selectable or not.

Product and Feature: AutoCAD - Hatch

Submitted By: SPARKYFEETS on 12/01/2023

[Ed Jobe]

Turn SELECTIONCYCLING on, then you can hover over an area and if multiple entities are under the cursor, a popup will list them and you can select the one you want. TIP: SELECTIONCYLING is an icon in the status bar. By default, it doesn't show. You can enable it from the hamburger menu in the lower right of the status bar.

[SPARKYFEETS]

Thank you for this information. I regularly use SELECTIONCYLING and find it very helpful. Sometimes ,though, I would prefer that hatching not be selectable at all. Particularly solid hatching that covers large areas and overlaps many other objects that are being modified.

[Ed Jobe]

If you put your hatches on their own layer, you can lock the layer.

[SPARKYFEETS]

This is true, which allows the hatches not to be moved. But they still remain selectable. I have seen others struggle with this as well. They have developed little workarounds that they have feel comfortable doing, such as putting the hatching on the defpoints layer while freezing 0, and other shenanigans. It just seems like a lot of trouble. It would be nice if a setting was incorporated in future releases of AutoCAD.

[Ed Jobe]

I doubt that they would do that just for hatches. It is more practical to make a layer non-selectable, like non-plotting. If your wish gets voted on, they will look at these comments too.

[SPARKYFEETS]

That is a really good idea and would serve the purpose for the hatching and beyond. Thanks for bringing it up!

[Tom Beauford]

Retired and no longer have an AutoCAD license to check but I had various drop-downs in the Ribbon with various filters for selecting objects. Maybe something like this for filtering an implied selection for hatches that are not solid?

(sssetfirst (ssget "_I" '((0 . "HATCH")(2 . "~SOLID"))))

http://www.lee-mac.com/ssget.html
https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2...0-3A6CD0B0D2D8

[SPARKYFEETS]

Thank you for the code. I may have to look into this further.

My biggest issue is that I am accidentally selecting hatches when I am trying to select other elements within the hatch. I know the workarounds, like cycling, draworder, locking, etc. and it gets the job done. I think it would be nice to have an optional setting to allow hatching, or even a layer, to be non-selectable.

I appreciate the response. Thank you.