Freehand selecting in Designer

[Bryonie]

Hi.

Happy New Year to everyone 🙂
I have a vector clipart file that I am opening in Designer. The file has multiple animals on it, each composed of multiple objects. Unfortunately they aren't all lined up neatly and it's very difficult to select an animal (and all it's components) with the square selection box. I need a freehand selection tool. I know that if I go to the pixel persona I can make a freehand selection, however it doesn't select everything - it will only select one object within the animal. I feel I accidentally did what I want yesterday, but can't remember how (and I may have been imagining it!). 
Is there a way to select (and maintain as vectors) objects with a freehand tool?

Thanks in advance for any help. I've attached a jpg of the file in question to give you some idea.

[Alfred]

37 minutes ago, Bryonie said:

Is there a way to select (and maintain as vectors) objects with a freehand tool?

You can use the ‘Mode’ option on the Context toolbar to add a new selection to the current one.

Depending on how the layers are arranged, you might find it quicker and easier to select them via the Layers Studio.

[Bryonie]

Thanks Alfred. Unfortunately that is quite a long process when you have at least 15 components for each animal (as it appears you can't do that by a selection box - only clicking on each individually) and they're not all visible anyway.

[Bryonie]

Sorry - I meant they're not all visible on the document - of course you can see them all in the layers panel, but sometimes they're all mixed up.

[MEB]

Hi @Bryonie,
The selection tools in Pixel Persona only allows you to work with/select raster data, you can't use them to select vector objects. There's a method you can use in Designer for desktop for which i have recorded a video (see below) - however I only realised you are working on an iPad after I recorded it. I haven't tried it on iPad yet (you may need a wireless keyboard connected to the iPad to perform this there) but i believe it's possible to do the same there (I'm a bit late for lunch now to check and record a new one on iPad). Hope it helps anyway:

[Bryonie]

Thanks so much MEB (?) That looks like it will work much better 🙂 (I am doing the editing on both Windows and iPad) It was the node step I hadn't thought of. 
Does the video have sound? I can't figure out what the tool is that you are using to draw the freehand selection after you have done the initial selection and then turned on the nodes.

Thanks.

[MEB]

Hi @Bryonie,
The video doesn't have sound. I'm using the Node Tool but you have to press and hold ALT (on Windows) to be able to draw a "freehand selection" around the nodes. On macOS the equivalent modifier key is OPTION/ALT as i highlighted in the video at 0:53s (the symbol that appears in the dark overlay on the bottom right of the video).

[Bryonie]

Thank you so much - that's great!

[Bryonie]

Just had to share the results - that was a real game changer for me!