Selecting objects when other objects overlap them?

I have some objects that overlap one another. I am trying to select one of the objects in the foreground, though it keeps selecting the object in the background and vice versa. Is there an easy way to do this?
Thanks.

If you use CS5, there is a select-thru by holding down Ctrl while using any of the select tools. in older versions indeed selecting the layers first and locking the ones you don't want is the safest way.
Mylenium

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HELP! When I drag the graphics pen, it selects objects without clicking

Having a number of problems: the graphics pen selects objects without clicking them and "slides", the machine is beachballing for long periods and applications keep quitting unexpectedly. Please help!!!!

Welcome to the forums Monad!
A handicap we all share here is that we are not clairvoyant!
You give us too little to go on:
Which G5 do you have?
What operating system?
What graphics pen?
What applications are quitting?
When did the 'beachballing start'?

Crashes consistently when control clicking a selected object

CS4 InDesign crashes consistently when control clicking a selected object. Preferences have been reloaded, the program has been reinstalled, all without any effect towards this issue. Any suggestions?

Yeah, it was InDesign Hangs when right clicking on graphic.
There was a lot of head-scratching and the rather unsatisfying conclusion was when the OP removed ancient applications that might have been a choice for "Edit Original," then the problem went away.
I guess the conclusion is that right-clicking on an image iterates over the possible apps that can open an image (for Edit With and Edit Original) and does [something], and for some reason that [something] was hanging. Not clear what the app was. But presumably if you right click the file in the Finder and look at the list provided by Open With, it is similar.
Or you could try the suggestions I offered to the OP in that thread that it looks like he never used.

Very slow when selecting objects

I have a problem with illustrator CS5. Whenever I select an object on the canvas by clicking on said object Illustrator freezes for a few seconds (showing me the spinner). This happens whether there is 1 object or 50 on the canvas so it certainly has nothing to do with the number of objects. Oddly, if I click on the canvas and drag-and-select objects this does not happen; they are selected immediately. Of course most of the times I forget this and have to wait constantly because I accidently selected an object directly, which is extremely annoying and almost to the point of unworkable.
Anybody got any ideas about how to solve this?
Sys specs:
MacBook Pro
Mac OS X 10.6.7
2.66Ghz Intel Core i7
8GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Many reasons, to help narrow it down create a new document draw one lement and let us know if you have a slowdown.
Reset your preferences.
Cmd-Opt-Ctrl-Shift when restarting AI on a Mac or Alt-Crtl-Shift on a PC to reset to the defaults.
Flush Cache (Good for slowdown)
delete users\(username)\library\preferences\com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist
FONTS
Fo you have alot of fonts loaded. You may have a corrupt font. Close any you do nto use often
Permissions
Run applications >> utilities >> disk utility and repair permissions.
Ram
Run applications >> utilities >> system profiler and check the status of your ram and hard drive
HUH Error
If the test you did in the beginining returned your computer to a speedy apce, search the forums for HUH error.
OnyX
Download onyx from apples site for your OS version and do the cleaning tab.

"You are not authorized to download selected object" when trying to download SAP Kernel 7.21 EXT PL 500 with DL

Hello everyone,
Yesterday (April 30, 2015) SAP released the new patch 500 for SAP KERNEL 7.21 EXT 64-bit.
I am using Download Manager and I was able to download the Kernel Part II (DB-Dependent) .SAR file and other files as you can see in the screenshot, but for the Kernel Part I and disp+work files I get the error: "You are not authorized to download selected object".
On the other hand, I am able to download older versions of the Kernel Part I (SAPEXE_XXX.SAR).
Is this a technical problem on SAP side (SMP)? Did anyone encounter the same issue and found a solution?
Thanks.
BR,
Michel

Hello Michel,
Kernel Patch 500 is yet to release, to the customer.
Have a look at the below blog.
Surprise for Kernel version 7.21 patch level 500 !
Hope the above one helps.
regards,
pavan

Unable to remove a host from VMM - Error (2606) Unable to perform the job because one or more of the selected objects are locked by another job.

I am unable to remove a host from my Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2. I receive the following error:
Error (2606)
Unable to perform the job because one or more of the selected objects are locked by another job.
Recommended Action
To find out which job is locking the object, in the Jobs view, group by Status, and find the running or canceling job for the object. When the job is complete, try again.
I have already tried running the following command in SQL Server Management Studio
SELECT * FROM [VirtualManagerDB].[dbo].[tbl_VMM_Lock] where TaskID='Task_GUID'
I received this error back:
Msg 8169, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
Conversion failed when converting from a character string to uniqueidentifier.
I have also tried rebooting both the host and the Virtual Machine Manager Server. After rebooting them both, I still receive the same error when trying to remove the host.
Here are my server details
VMM Server OS = Windows 2012 Standard
VMM Version = 2012 R2 3.2.7510.0
Host OS = Windows 2012 R2 Datacenter
Host Agent Version = 3.2.75.10.0
SQL Server OS = Windows 2012 Datacenter
SQL Version = 2012 SP 1 (11.0.3000.0)

Hi there,
How many hosts are you managing with your VMM server?
The locking job might be the background host refresher job. Did you see any jobs in the jobs view, when the host removal job failed?
If there is no active jobs in the jobs view when this host removal job fails, can you please turn on the VMM tracing, retry the host removal, and paste back the traces for the failed job (search for exception and paste the whole stack)?
Thanks!
Cheng

Error on selecting object in ILLUSTRATOR CC

Hi everyone, i have problem with selecting object in illustrator CC, when i select the current object it will also select the other object, i cannot select the object i want, not on the group or clipping mask.. always highlight it both. it often times happen when i doing so much vector object. any help from you guys is so much appreciated..
thanks
Creig

This has been happening through so many versions that I no longer remember when I first encountered it.
One trick that occasionally works when you get such a 'ghost' selection;
Create another object (a small square or whatever).
Select it. Your new object and the ghost will be selected at this point.
Align them using any one of the alignment buttons, it doesn't matter which one.
Immediately undo the move (Cmnd/Ctrl + z) and deselect your new object. About nine times out of ten the ghost selection will be gone as well. If so, you can delete your extraneous object and continue working (until next time).
It doesn't always work. But it is quicker than a restart when it does.
--OB

How to select when multiple shapes overlap in the layout view

When editing in the layout view of EM structure, it is quite common to have multiple shapes and/or port objects overlap each other at the same location. How to pick the desired object in this case?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

In general in any layout view, when you select objects that overlap, the smaller shape will be selected by default. Hold down the Ctrl + Shift key and then click in the same spot to cycle through all the objects that are under the mouse.

Selecting objects below

I am a Freehand fan who has now had to use Illustrator almost exclusively. The whole access to vector points in illustrator bugs me but most of all access to objects below. In Freehand and Indesign and even Photoshop it is possible to hold either the control or command key and click thru the layers. Adobe now own Freehand why cant they make this available in illustrator. It would save me a lot of time. I know placing objects on separate layers is sort of a solution but I have to usually work on other people's work or do something in a hurry.

Back when I worked in Illustrator 8, I had a boss who was a complete Freehand nut. So, seeing I was weak in Freehand, my boss pushed every Freehand job in the shop he could find onto my desk. This made me a lot quicker and better at Freehand. However my skill set had to drop Freehand years ago to survive in the industry. There are many great ways of selecting objects below others, as in the previous example in this thread. There is also clicking the circle on the right side of each layer and sublayer. Clicking the circle in the layer will select everything on the layer. Clicking on the circle on each sublayer selects the individual item. This is not the method I use when picking through a file. I have gotten real good at keyboard shortcuts, which can be easily customized in Illustrator. To select items below others I select the top item and use the Command+3 which is the shortcut to Object>Hide Selection. The other shortcut I use all the time is Command+Option+3 which is Object>Show All. This is just my personal preference of how to get through a lot of objects in a file. If you try this you can get very fast and fluid at these two shortcuts. The best thing about keyboard shortcuts is people who don't use them look at you like you are doing some magic trick.

Turn off "favor the selected object"

I recently switched to CS5 and discoverd the new "favor the selected object" feature. And i don't like it!
I can see the advantage of not accidentally selecting an overlapping object, but after a few hours of indesigning it drives me mad! It makes me accidentally deselecting the bottom object when trying to select multiple objects.
I found that CMD+selecting makes the selection tool work like in previous versions. Is there a way to turn this feature off, and perhaps make CMD+selecting act in the new CS5 way?

I can't tell you how often this feature was requested in the old days. It certainly makes my life much simpler than having to zoom out so I can see enough of an overlapped frame to find the center point to grab, and I know many other users appreciate it too. I don't have a problem with making it a user prefernce, however.
Basically, the selection priority is now reversed, is all. If you want to move a front object instead, you just have to click on a spot where it doesn't overlap the one you've selected.

Service template problem - Unable to perform the job because one or more of the selected objects are locked by another job - ID 2606

Hello,
I’ve finally managed to deploy my first guest cluster with a shared VHDX using a service template.
So, I now want to try and update my service template. However, whenever I try to do anything with it, in the services section, I receive the error:
Unable to perform the job because one or more of the selected objects are locked by another job. To find out which job is locking the object, in the jobs view, group by status, and find the running or cancelling job for the object. ID 2606
Well I tried that and there doesn’t seem to be a job locking the object. Both the cluster nodes appear to be up and running, and I can’t see a problem with it at all. I tried running the following query in SQL:
SELECT * FROM [VirtualManagerDB].[dbo].[tbl_VMM_Lock] where TaskID='Task_GUID'
but all this gives me is an error that says - conversion failed when converting from a character string to uniqueidentifier msg 8169, level 16, State 2, Line 1
I'm no SQL expert as you can probably tell, but I'd prefer not to deploy another service template in case this issue occurs again.
Can anyone help?

No one else had this?

Script to apply a random CMYK swatches from a group of swatches to selected objects.

I would like to write some scripts for randomising the allocation of swatches to adjacent object.
Example:
Imagine a map of Europe and all her nation states/territories. I have a User Defined Swatch Library. I can open the AI document it was made from as I understand from this thread that having the swatches as objects on the page makes them easier to be referenced in a script.
I want to iterate through the selected objects and randomly assign one of the colours in the swatch document as a fill to each object. It would be great if hidden swatches (they are all small rectangular 'colour chip' filled paths) on page were not included in the reference swatches randomly choosen from.
Iterating the selected objects I can do, but not sure what references I need to use to create an array of swatches to randomly choose from.
I see I can make an array of swatches using the general swatch group from Adobe's CreateSwatchGroup scripts:
JS
var docRef = app.documents.add(DocumentColorSpace.CMYK)
// Create a new SwatchGroup
var swatchGroup = docRef.swatchGroups.add();
swatchGroup.name = "CreateSwatchGroup";
// Get list of swatches in general swatch group
var genSwatchGroup = docRef.swatchGroups[0];
// Collect 5 random swatches from general swatch group and move to new group
var i = 0;
while (i < 5) {
          var swatches = genSwatchGroup.getAllSwatches();
          swatchCount = swatches.length;
          var swatchIndex = Math.round(Math.random() * (swatchCount - 1)); // 0-based index
          // New swatch group does not allow patterns or gradients
          if (swatches[swatchIndex].color.typename != "PatternColor" && swatches[swatchIndex].color.typename != "GradientColor") {
                    swatchGroup.addSwatch(swatches[swatchIndex]);
                    i++;
// Updates swatch list with swatches moved to new swatch group
swatches = swatchGroup.getAllSwatches();
// [… etc etc]
AS
tell application "Adobe Illustrator"
activate
          set docRef to make new document with properties {color space:CMYK}
-- Create a new SwatchGroup
          set swatchGroupRef to make new swatchgroup in current document with properties {name:"CreateSwatchGroup"}
-- Get list of swatches in general swatch group
          set genSwatchGroup to swatchgroup 1 of docRef
-- Collect 5 random swatches from the general swatch group and move to new group
          set i to 0
          repeat until i is 5
                    set swatchesRef to get all swatches genSwatchGroup
                    set swatchCount to count every item in swatchesRef
                    set swatchIndex to random number from 1 to swatchCount
                    set currentSwatch to item swatchIndex of swatchesRef
-- New swatch group does not allow patterns or gradients
                    if class of color of currentSwatch is not pattern color info and class of color of currentSwatch is not gradient color info then
add swatch swatchGroupRef swatch currentSwatch
                              set i to i + 1
                    end if
          end repeat
-- [… etc etc]
If someone can help me to create the Swatch Array object of swatches loaded from a seperate document (or unique layer) then I think I can work my way to changing the fill on the existing paths (the nations in my map of Europe example).
Would be very cool if I could detect neighbooring paths (nieghbooring nations in my map of Europe example) make sure the colour being assigned is not within a certain hue/CMYK range of the random colour and if it is rechoose random colour. I have no idea how to perform the logic of determining neighbooring paths in an Illustartor script. Anybody?!
I'd prefer Applescript for sake of readiblity and also I'm learning AS ATM. Plus I'm using Script Debugger.app (which is excellent) to work with AS and I can't seem to run JSX scripts from within Extend Script Toolkit 2 (perhaps I need to make my scripts point to Illustrator?)
But Javascript is okay if someone has this covered already :-)

I would like to write some scripts for randomising the allocation of swatches to adjacent object.
Example:
Imagine a map of Europe and all her nation states/territories. I have a User Defined Swatch Library. I can open the AI document it was made from as I understand from this thread that having the swatches as objects on the page makes them easier to be referenced in a script.
I want to iterate through the selected objects and randomly assign one of the colours in the swatch document as a fill to each object. It would be great if hidden swatches (they are all small rectangular 'colour chip' filled paths) on page were not included in the reference swatches randomly choosen from.
Iterating the selected objects I can do, but not sure what references I need to use to create an array of swatches to randomly choose from.
I see I can make an array of swatches using the general swatch group from Adobe's CreateSwatchGroup scripts:
JS
var docRef = app.documents.add(DocumentColorSpace.CMYK)
// Create a new SwatchGroup
var swatchGroup = docRef.swatchGroups.add();
swatchGroup.name = "CreateSwatchGroup";
// Get list of swatches in general swatch group
var genSwatchGroup = docRef.swatchGroups[0];
// Collect 5 random swatches from general swatch group and move to new group
var i = 0;
while (i < 5) {
          var swatches = genSwatchGroup.getAllSwatches();
          swatchCount = swatches.length;
          var swatchIndex = Math.round(Math.random() * (swatchCount - 1)); // 0-based index
          // New swatch group does not allow patterns or gradients
          if (swatches[swatchIndex].color.typename != "PatternColor" && swatches[swatchIndex].color.typename != "GradientColor") {
                    swatchGroup.addSwatch(swatches[swatchIndex]);
                    i++;
// Updates swatch list with swatches moved to new swatch group
swatches = swatchGroup.getAllSwatches();
// [… etc etc]
AS
tell application "Adobe Illustrator"
activate
          set docRef to make new document with properties {color space:CMYK}
-- Create a new SwatchGroup
          set swatchGroupRef to make new swatchgroup in current document with properties {name:"CreateSwatchGroup"}
-- Get list of swatches in general swatch group
          set genSwatchGroup to swatchgroup 1 of docRef
-- Collect 5 random swatches from the general swatch group and move to new group
          set i to 0
          repeat until i is 5
                    set swatchesRef to get all swatches genSwatchGroup
                    set swatchCount to count every item in swatchesRef
                    set swatchIndex to random number from 1 to swatchCount
                    set currentSwatch to item swatchIndex of swatchesRef
-- New swatch group does not allow patterns or gradients
                    if class of color of currentSwatch is not pattern color info and class of color of currentSwatch is not gradient color info then
add swatch swatchGroupRef swatch currentSwatch
                              set i to i + 1
                    end if
          end repeat
-- [… etc etc]
If someone can help me to create the Swatch Array object of swatches loaded from a seperate document (or unique layer) then I think I can work my way to changing the fill on the existing paths (the nations in my map of Europe example).
Would be very cool if I could detect neighbooring paths (nieghbooring nations in my map of Europe example) make sure the colour being assigned is not within a certain hue/CMYK range of the random colour and if it is rechoose random colour. I have no idea how to perform the logic of determining neighbooring paths in an Illustartor script. Anybody?!
I'd prefer Applescript for sake of readiblity and also I'm learning AS ATM. Plus I'm using Script Debugger.app (which is excellent) to work with AS and I can't seem to run JSX scripts from within Extend Script Toolkit 2 (perhaps I need to make my scripts point to Illustrator?)
But Javascript is okay if someone has this covered already :-)

Create a new object that surrounds the selected objects

Is there anyway in illustrator to create a new vector object from selected objects?
IE if i have three rectangles selected, can I make a new vector path that surrounds them all.
I dont mean welding a group of vectors together or offsetting a path...which isnt exactly what i need.
What Im needing to do is create cut lines around complex vector art quickly.
Thanks in advance.

Mike i need to make an outline around a logo but if the logo has many elements that make up the edge of the logo does that method work?
As the cut line needs to be a closed path
Ideally i want to avoid tracing around the logo with the pen tool or add to shape area in pathfinder tab.
I sure theres a really easy way to do this.
Kurt its an interesting discussion however in need a closed path to surrond artwork and live paint does just the opposite :)

Resizing selected objects

Ok, so I am trying to write a script that resizes an object that is selected. I have two objects selected, the one on top is a group item, the one below it is a rectangle. I am trying to resize the rectangle to the size of the group item on top of it with a little margin around it. Here is what I have so far.
var design = app.activeDocument.selection[0];
     var top=design.visibleBounds[1]+5*2;
     var left=design.visibleBounds[0]-5*2;
     var width=design.visibleBounds[2]-design.visibleBounds[0]+10*2;
     var height=design.visibleBounds[1]-design.visibleBounds[3]+10*2;
var background = app.activeDocument.selection[1];
background.position = (top, left, width, height);
The problem is the last line there. I'm not sure how to manipulate the position/size of the selected object or if it is even possible I have searched for it and haven not found an answer. Thanks in advance!

position property expects an Array, with x and y values, in that order. As for the width and height properties, use them in separate statements
background.position = [left, top];
background.width = width;
background.height = height;

Selecting objects in a layer to copy and paste into a new doc?

How can I select all objects in a layer and copy and paste the objects into a new document? We are having issues with the copy and paste method. Is this because it uses the operating systems clipboard?

the sample I mentioned describes how to duplicate all selected objects in a document, using
var docSelected = app.activeDocument.selection;
it is usually not advice to use the selection for this kind of stuff, to work with ALL pageItems in a document use
var allPageItems = app.activeDocument.pageItems;
now if you only want to copy items in a layer you can use either the index number (for instance, top layer index = 0) or the name of the layer (for instance "Layer1"), use this, you don't have to select them
var topLayerPageItems = app.activeDocument.layers[0].pageItems;
or using the layer name
var Layer1PageItems = app.activeDocument.layers['Layer1"].pageItems;

Selecting objects when other objects overlap them?

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