A simple way to select two or more objects is to hold the Shift key down while clicking the objects with the mouse. The Shift+Click acts as a toggle. If you Shift+Click once, the object is selected. Shift+Click a second time to deselect the object.

	Tip
	You can combine Shift+Click with any of the other methods outlined below to either select an additional object or deselect a selected object.

	Note
	When you have a set of objects selected, it is still possible to resize or change the properties of one object without affected the other selected objects. See the section Working With Selected Objects for more information.

You can select all of the objects within a rectangular region of the screen by placing the mouse pointer to the upper left of the top-left object in the set and then dragging the mouse to a point below and to the right of the lower-right object in the set. A thin dashed rectangle will be drawn on the canvas as shown in the screenshot below. All objects that COMPLETELY FIT inside this rectangle are selected. Objects that are only partly inside the rectangle are not selected.

Only objects entirely inside rectangle are selected.

Figure 7.2. Select By Area Example

	Tip
	You can select multiple regions using select by area. Objects previously selected will continue to be selected as long as you don't deselect all (e.g., by double-clicking on an empty region of the canvas or by clicking on an unselected object without using the Shift key). As noted above, you can also use Shift+Click to select or deselect an individual object at any time.

	Tip
	Normally, selecting from top-left to bottom-right is the same as a "reverse drag" -- starting on the bottom-right and dragging toward the top-left. However, you can set an option in Dia that allows you to select objects that are only partially contained in the selection rectangle when you "reverse drag". See User Interface / Reverse Dragging for more information.

The Select menu shown below has six options for selecting multiple objects. The first option is All.

Figure 7.3. Select Menu

You can select all objects on the canvas using the Select->All option or by pressing Ctrl+A. This selects all objects whether they are visible or not.

	Note
	As with any of the selection methods, if you are using layers, only objects in the current layer will be selected. See Managing Layers for more information on working with layers.

Select->None option will deselect all objects. It has the same effect as double-clicking on a blank region of the canvas.

This option allows you to select all objects except for those currently selected. Say, for example, that you have 20 objects and wish to select all but two of them. You can do this by (1) selecting the two objects to be excluded and then (2) using the Select->Invert menu (or Ctrl+I). This will deselect the two currently-selected objects and select the 18 unselected objects.

	Tip
	Another way to do this is to Select->All (or Ctrl+A) and then use Shift+Click to deselect the objects you don't need.

Objects in Dia can be connected using lines. The Select Transitive and Select Connected options allow you to select objects based on how they are connected.

The Select Transitive option selects ALL objects connected directly or indirectly to the currently selected objects, no matter how many levels deep the connection might be. To use this, select one or more objects and then choose Select->Transitive. All objects connected to the initially selected objects will be added to the selected set.

This option is similar to Select Transitive except that it only adds objects that are immediately connected to an already-selected object. To use this option, first select one or more objects. Then choose Select->Connected. Any objects that are directly connected to the currently selected objects will be added to the selected set.

	Note
	The Select Connected option only goes out one level. For example, if box A is connected by a line to box B, and box A is selected, Select->Connected will only select the line, not box B. If you do Select->Connected a second time, then box B will also be connected. You can use Select->Transitive to select all objects connected to the currently selected objects in one operation.

This option allows you to select all objects that are the same type of object as one already selected. To use this option, select one or more objects and then choose the Select->Same Type option. All objects that are the same type as one of the previously selected objects will be added to the set of selected objects.

For example, if you want to select all of the Line objects on your diagram, select one Line object and then use Select->Same Type to select all other lines.

	Tip
	The menu choice Select->Same Type can be combined with the menu choice Objects->Group to quickly change one or more properties of all objects of one type on your diagram. See Changing Properties for a Group of Objects for more information.

	Note
	The object type must match exactly. For example, a Line object and a Zigzagline object are different types.

You can move selected objects as a group, without changing their relative positions. To do this, place the mouse pointer inside a shape or on a blank spot on a line that is part of the selected set and then drag to the desired new location.

You can perform any of the normal edit operations on a set of selected objects, just as you would for a single object, using either the shortcut key or the Edit menu. For example, to Duplicate a set of selected objects, select Edit / Duplicate or press Ctrl+D. A copy of the entire set of objects will be created on your canvas, just below and to the left of the original objects. Note that when you Duplicate or Paste a set of objects, after the operation only the newly-created objects are selected.

Due to limitations in the implementation some operations on single objects in a selection were still only modifying the single object. Since dia 0.97 these inconsistency got resolved so the properties dialog allows to change multiple objects properties at once - without first grouping them.

Also the single objects handles change behaviour in a selection (shown by slightly dimming them). Instead of resizing the single object they can just be used to move the whole selection an align it on the grid, see snap to grid for details.

	Tip
	When pulling up the properties dialog, be sure not to double-click on the blank canvas or all of the objects will be deselected.

As noted above, it is easy to create and remove sets of selected objects, and a selection can be removed accidentally by double-clicking on a blank area of the canvas. If you wish to keep a set of selected objects as a permanent group so that you will not accidentally deselect them, you can create an object group. Just select Objects->Group to create the group. You can select Objects->Ungroup to remove the group. See Grouping Objects for more information on groups.