'V' Tool to surround-select layers in an art board

What features would you like to see in Pixelmator Pro?
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2019-11-06 14:01:39

Hey guys - I'm new to Pixelmator Pro, starting to enjoy it.

I use Pixelmator to create small designs for events. For example, for a single event, I'll create dozens of Instagram cards, Twitter cards, web banners, online ads and email attachments.

Each card or banner design is made up of around 30-50 separate objects, shapes and images (layers).

So, on a single canvas, I'll have all these designs spaced next to each other neatly.

Each design is made up of shapes and text, with perhaps one or two images.

My main concern is the selection of a group of layers. This is a real hassle, as per my screenshot, selecting 30-50 layers in an artboard where there are 100s of layers, is a real challenge. This can be so easily resolved by creating a function where the 'Arrange / V' tool could possibly surround the layers within an artboard. Whatever is within the area that you surround is then selected. 

I searched the tutorials, and the answer I found required me to manually select each layer holding down COMMAND. This is incredibly laborious and
time-intensive. It would be much simpler to use the 'Arrange' tool (V-tool) to merely surround the layers I want on the canvas - and then duplicate.

This seems to be standard in other design packages, please add this to Pixelmator Pro.

My feature request is:

Please add the function to the 'V' tool so that we can select designated layers by holding down left-click on the mouse and surrounding the area/layers that need to be selected.
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2019-11-14 09:04:51

This would be really cool...
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2019-11-14 16:24:23

Hey Heavy Chef, I was sure I'd replied to this somewhere else, but I must've missed it... apologies! Yes, this feature would be cool to have, it's just that it's quite tricky and, for now, there are some other, more important things we'd like to focus on. But I have a feeling it might eventually make it into Pixelmator Pro!

In the meantime, you can also try Shift-clicking layers — for example, clicking one layer, and Shift-clicking another layer, 10 layers below the first. This will select all the intermediate layers as well and should hopefully speed up your workflow!