How to select only objects within a selection marquee?

It looks like this might be FINALLY implemented soon...

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657-illustrator-desktop-feature-requests/suggestions/31863601-select-inside-marquee-window?page=3&per_page=20

There is no built-in, direct way of doing what you suggest (which is dumb – Adobe should implement this!)

But a good solution is to move the objects you want to select onto their own layer. This is only really a solution that works in advance. That is, given that you probably will want to select those objects independently, you should have created them on their own layer in the first place. Then you can lock other layers and select them easily.

CoolSelection plugin solves this problem.  
It's similar to the Selection Tool (V), but it selects only objects fully inside the selection rectangle.  
You can select objects overlapping with many other objects, objects placed over complex backgrounds etc.  
https://www.cool-selection.com/index.html
This post was written by the author of CoolSelection.

Unfortunately intelligent FH selection methods disappeared in Illustrator. (Totally contained objects in selection rectangle + optionally change to 'touched' objects).

There's only the option for the second one in Illustrator.

Very sad.

For all of us who worked both with FH and AI and can make a comparison it's very sad to see so many smart options disappeared

Just installed CS6.  Sure enough, this pathetic defect still isn't fixed.

or... (here's a wierd work around)

select the objects (using the lasso tool) that you want plus the objects that overlap as show (ie just a portion of the object—outside the overlap).

Then goto select / same / appearence and then command Z to revert. Now the "half" selected objects are fully selected.

G

ps: you can also save selections if need be.

The sad fact is that this design defect renders Illustrator unusable for many people.  I run Corel Draw under Fusion or Boot Camp simply because Illustrator's selection mechanism is inexcusably incompetent.

Scripts, while appreciated, are not a viable workaround because (last I heard) they can't persistently be assigned to a hotkey (another WTF defect in Illustrator).  And even if they could, why should users have to continually tap keys or run a script after every selection attempt?

The failure to address this defect is a big "screw you" from Adobe to its customers.

When you combine this with Photoshop's lack of a "paste as new image" command, you have a picture of Adobe as a company out of touch with the most common tasks people do with their products.  But people put up with it because these shoddy products are entrenched and no one is going to spend years of development time to create a viable alternative.

One of the several other threads on this problem has been running for years:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3831695#3831695

The fact that there is no option to turn off AI's contact-sensitive selection is just part of the problem.

One of the many inconsistencies in Illustrator's tool-glutted but still inadequate selection interface is that the white pointer can be made to select all of the anchors of the paths touched by its rectangular marquee by holding a momentary modifier key (Alt). But that doesn't work with the Lasso. (In other words, in AI's multi-tool interface scheme, there is no "Group Lasso" tool.)

As a workaround for both situations, I hacked out a pair of scripts a few years ago. Applied after making a marquee selection with either the white pointer or the Lasso, one script deselects partially-selected paths; the other selects the rest of partially-selected paths.

The two scripts can be found here.

JET

This is the way Claris CAD, Freehand, Canvas, VectorWorks, etc. have worked and always worked.

FreeHand (sensibly) provides a tool-specific option for contact-sensitve selection. Double-click the selection tool and choose whether it selects objects merely touched, or only objects fully-enclosed.

Just one tiny part of the general tedium of Illustrator's selection/manipulation interface. Basic stuff that all competing programs do better.

JET

I've been waiting for this feature since around 1988 or so. In my experience, every application that has a selection lasso or box works in such a way that only the items completely inside the "fence" are selected. This is the way Claris CAD, Freehand, Canvas, VectorWorks, etc. have worked and always worked. Illustrator is the only application I've ever come across where objects are selected, counter-intuitively, by everything the "fence" touches. I chuckle when I see how hard it is to explain the "inside only" concept to those who have only used AI. It's like trying to explain the wheel to people who have been dragging things around all their lives. I've been asking for it on the feature request for as long as there have been feature requests, to no avail. I used Canvas for around 10 years before coming back to AI and I was shocked that the lasso still had the crazy, backwards select-all-it-touches system. Yes, you are correct. It should work the way you expect, capturing only what is completely inside the lasso, but it doesn't. I'm up to CS4 and I think it still doesn't, not even as an option. It is just about the strangest thing in software, but there you go. So many people have used AI and nothing else that they don't notice the backwardness of it and, in fact, get used to it. It just goes to show how adaptable humans are! Other than that, it's a fine application.

MGuilfoile