By Dani Beaumont
In the latest release of Adobe XD we've made it even easier to select overlapping objects on the design canvas.
I have a really simple layout here to show you the concept. If I come in and bring up the layers panel, I've set them up to be somewhat transparent so that you can see even the objects that are totally covered up by other objects.
If I come to the layers panel here and expand out the layer, you can see I have a hierarchical structure. So I have a square that's sitting on top of a triangle and it's partially covering over that triangle. I have a circle that's entirely covered by that square and then a rectangle that lies behind it.
In the past, I've been able to direct select an object by holding down the Command key on the Mac or Control key on Windows and then clicking on the object, but it was a bit tricky to get the selection just right.
Now with that same CMD or CTRLkeyboard shortcut, I can click to select the non-visible objects. So if I hold CMD here and I want to get to that circle the first time I click, notice it takes me to the top of the stack. The second time I click using that same keyboard command, it's going to tunnel me down until I get to the circle that is totally hidden by that rectangle.
As I continue holding the CMD key, it's just going to cycle all the way to the bottom of the stack and then bring me right back up to the top again. So I'll click a few more times to get right back to that circle selection.
Once I have that circle selected in this way, I can't really drag it away. We found this to be too disruptive as we validated the feature set with users, but I am free to come in with that object selected and change some of the properties that might be associated with the object here in the Properties Inspector. This feature also works nicely with groups.
So let's say I come in and select that entire group and I press and drag a second copy of the group set. Looking back into the layers panel here, I can see I've got those two sets of objects. If I come in now, let's bring them a little bit closer just to illustrate this concept and we'll do this real overlap. I'm going to come in now and with that Command key held down start to tunnel through the hierarchy. So notice I'm in the first group and then I slip down to that second group and then cycle all the way back up to the top.
Well, that's about it, another powerful keyboard command that you can use in your everyday work. I encourage you to give it a try.
Overlapped layers occur when creating overlays, using blend modes, or using one of the Boolean operators available in XD like Intersect, Add, or Subtract. Although some layers may contain hidden content, it’s easy to select the layers buried beneath one another by pressing a keyboard modifier. See how easy it is to access objects in layers that are covered up by objects in other layers. The ease of selecting any object on the design canvas speeds your workflow in Adobe XD.
