Selection Operation

A selection operation is an action that modifies the current selection and/or the current subgroup. Example selection operations are box-select, select control group, previous subgroup, select larva.

Selection operation can be carried out
 * via hotkey (select control group 1, select larva)
 * via the buttons on the command card (select larva)
 * via buttons at the edge of the screen (select control group 1, select idle workes, select warp gates)
 * on screen (click-select, box-select)
 * on the unit information panel (unit information panel select).

Each of these has a different effect depending on whether SHIFT and/or CONTROL are being held down during the operation. In this context, SHIFT and CONTROL are also referred to as selection modifiers. Only a few of these operations are configurable via hotkey bindings. In particular, selection modifiers are not re-bindable.

Select control group, via hotkey
Selection modifiers do not work with this selection operation.

todo

Select control group, via on-screen buttons
todo

Click-select
Click-select is executed clicking the left mouse button on a unit on the screen.

A click-select with no selection modifiers discards the current selection and selects the clicked unit.

A click-select with SHIFT adds the clicked unit to the selection when the unit was not in the selection already.

A click-select with SHIFT removes the clicked unit from the selection when the unit was in the selection already.

A click-select with CONTROL discards the current selection and selects the clicked unit and all the units that are of the same kind of the clicked unit that are visible on screen, plus some that are not visible but that are close to the area visible on screen.

A click-select with CONTROL and SHIFT adds to the selection the clicked units and all the units that are of the same kind that are visible on screen, plus some that are not visible but that are close to the area visible on screen, when the unit was not in the selection already. If the unit was in the selection already, it has no effect.

Box-select
Box-select is executed pressing and holding the left mouse button on an empty area on the battlefield (not on a unit?), moving the cursor in a diagonal direction and then releasing the mouse button. While the button is held, a green box appears on screen, and every unit that is inside the box is said "boxed" for the purposes of this operation.

Box-select is not affected by CONTROL, but it is affected by SHIFT in a special case.

If a box-select boxes no units, the operation has no effect.

If a box-select boxes exactly one unit, the operation is affected by SHIFT: if the boxed unit was not in the selection, the operation adds the boxed unit to the selection; if the boxed unit was in the selection, the operation removes the boxed unit from the selection.

If a box-select boxes more than one unit, the operation is not affected by SHIFT. For each boxed unit that was not in the selection, the operation adds the boxed units to the selection.

Unit information panel select
Unit information panel select (uip-select) is executed clicking on a unit icon in the unit information panel. This is only possible when more than one unit is selected.

This operation is affected by SHIFT and by CONTROL.

When no modifiers are used, the operation replaces the selection with a selection that contains the unit corresponding to the clicked icon.

When the SHIFT modifier is used, the operation removes from the selection the unit corresponding to the clicked icon.

When the CONTROL modifier is used, the operation removes from the selection each unit that does not have the same type as the unit corresponding to the clicked icon.

When both CONTROL and SHIFT modifiers are used, the operation removes from the selection each unit that has the same type as the unit corresponding to the clicked icon. If all the units in the selection are of the same type, the operation will empty the selection.

Uip-select operations are in most situations the best way to remove units from a selection.

The next-subgroup and previous-subgroup commands speed up the execution of uip-select operations.

How to clear the current selection
To clear the current selection, there are various techniques.

It is possible to clear the current selection by holding shift and click-selecting or box-selecting each single unit in the current selection. This is the only way when the selection is a single unit.

Another way is to hold CTRL and SHIFT and uip-select each unit in the selection until none is left. This only works when there are at least two units of the same type in the selection, and each unit that is one-of-a-kind is removed from the selection before those two.

Yet another way is to select a single unit, set the group to it and then have the unit die.

Select via on-screen buttons
Idle worker select is influenced by SHIFT and CONTROL.

Idle worker+shift Idle worker+ctrl Idle worker+ctrl+shift

Select via command card buttons
Select larva is not influenced by SHIFT and CONTROL.

Idle worker+shift Idle worker+ctrl Idle worker+ctrl+shift