Control+click on layer

I don't know what else to call it. Before they made Photoshop so silly, I used to be able to hold control, then click on a layer - it would auto select whatever was in that layer, now..nothing.

When you would touch the Control key, the cursor would have a dotted line around it as you hovered over the layer.

So..this was awesome, why did they take that away?

Is there a way to get it back?