Identifying Elements

You can identify an element or groups of elements by selecting them with the Element Selection tool. By default, selected elements are highlighted. If any elements are selected, an arrowhead icon displays in the status bar. The number to the right of the icon is the number of selected elements.

Identifying Elements Manually

Many tools require that you identify one or more elements. You can do this manually by placing the pointer over the element and entering a data point to highlight the element. If you want to preview which element is being selected, you can enter tentative snap points first, until the correct element highlights, and then accept with a data point.

AccuSnap

AccuSnap automates the identification of elements and the placement of tentative snap points, so that you do not have to enter all tentative snap points manually. You can turn on the Enable AccuSnap setting in the General tab of the AccuSnap Settings dialog to automatically locate and snap a tentative point to elements. You simply move the screen pointer to the region of the element that you want to identify and AccuSnap snaps to it automatically.

Note: Even with AccuSnap enabled, you can still enter tentative snap points manually.

Automatic Identification of Elements

Separately or in conjunction with AccuSnap, you can enable the capability to automatically identify elements for various tools. This feature is enabled with the Identify Elements Automatically setting in the AccuSnap Settings dialog, General tab.

Pop-up Info

As part of the automatic element identification functions, you can turn on Pop-up Info in the AccuSnap Settings dialog, General tab. With this setting enabled, when you pause the pointer over a highlighted element, information about it appears in a pop-up window.