Why selection matters
Almost every correction you make to a takeoff starts with a selection. You select a marker to move it onto the symbol it should be sitting on, to resize a box that came back too tight, to delete a false positive, or to move it into the group it belongs in. The same gestures work on Detection, Count, Linear, Area and Annotation markers.
Two things are worth knowing before you start. Plain left-drag on empty canvas pans the drawing, so the rubber band needs a modifier key. And panning switches off automatically while the cursor is over a marker, so a drag that starts on a marker always moves the marker rather than the sheet.
Selecting on the drawing
- 1
Click a marker. It becomes selected and, in Takeoff mode, a small action menu appears beside it.
- 2
Hold ⇧ or CTRL (CMD on a Mac) and click another marker to add it to the selection instead of replacing it.
- 3
Hold CTRL or CMD and drag a rectangle across empty canvas to rubber-band select everything inside it.
- 4
Press ESC, right-click empty canvas, or choose Actions → Deselect All Markers to clear the selection.
If you have turned on Legacy Controls in User Preferences, the modifiers swap over: plain left-drag rubber-band selects and draws, and CTRL or CMD drag pans instead.
Moving and resizing
Drag any selected marker to move it. Drag one of its grips — the small round handles on its outline — to resize it. A Linear run and an Area polygon carry a grip on every vertex, so you can pull a single corner without disturbing the rest of the shape.
Detection boxes are worth resizing when a symbol came back cropped, because the box is what the thumbnail is cut from. After changing a box, right-click its thumbnail and choose Reimage Detection(s) to refresh the picture.
Moving a detection marker sets its match score to 1.00. That is intentional — you have confirmed by hand where it belongs — but it means you can no longer sort that one by how confident the original match was.
Deleting markers
Press DEL to delete every marker currently selected, whatever mix of types it contains. There is no confirmation and no undo, so check the selection first. Single markers can also be deleted from the action menu beside them, from the icon that appears when you hover a child row in the sidebar, or from the right-click menu on a detection thumbnail.
Working with detection thumbnails
Each detection in a group shows as a small card in the sidebar, sorted by match score with the best first.
| Gesture | Result |
|---|---|
| Click | Selects or deselects that detection. The card is outlined in red while selected. |
| CTRL+CLICK | Adds or removes it from a multiple selection. |
| ⇧+CLICK twice | Selects everything between the two cards, in score order. |
| Hover | Thickens that marker's outline on the drawing so you can see where it is. |
| Drag onto another group | Moves it, and every other selected detection, into that group. |
| Right-click → Focus | Centres the drawing on that marker at double zoom and selects it. |
Selecting a marker on the canvas scrolls its card into view in the sidebar, so the two lists stay in step with each other.
Moving detections into another group
Dragging a thumbnail is the quickest way to fix a misfiled detection.
- 1
Select the detections you want to move. One is enough; the whole selection travels together.
- 2
Press and drag one of the selected thumbnails towards the target group. The target group's thumbnail area highlights in its own colour.
- 3
Release. The detections move across, take on the target group's colour, and their match scores become 1.00.
This works in Zones view as well — only the group changes, never the marker's position on the drawing. To move a whole group in one action, use Merging groups instead.
The match score badge
The small badge on the bottom-right corner of a thumbnail is the match score, shown to two decimal places. It is how closely that instance matched the example you outlined. A score of 1.00 means either an exact match or a marker you placed or moved by hand.
Scores are most useful for review: work down from the bottom of a group's grid, where the weakest matches sit, and you will find any false positives quickly.
Common issues
Clicking selects the wrong marker
Where two or more markers overlap, a click opens a picker listing everything at that spot instead of selecting the topmost one. Choose the row you want. See Marker menus.
The drawing pans instead of selecting
The rubber band needs CTRL or CMD held down before you start dragging. If nothing is selected when you release, check you started the drag on empty canvas and not on top of a marker.
The action menu will not stay open
The menu beside a selected marker hides for the whole of any canvas drag, resize or pan, and reappears when you let go. It is also hidden in Review mode and for annotation markers.
Next steps
- Marker menus — the action menu, the overlap picker and the thumbnail right-click menu.
- Managing groups — rename, duplicate and delete the groups your markers live in.
- Merging groups — combine two groups instead of moving markers one at a time.
- Keyboard shortcuts — every key and mouse modifier in one table.