Is there a way to select ALL copies of the same symbol?

01i

I've created a large forest in CD3 using the variations of CD3B Tree and CD3B Bush and have noticed that by default these symbols are loaded onto the SYMBOLS sheet and the VEGETATION layer.

I've found that I could easily move all the trees and bushes to the VEGETATION sheet, but I'd ideally like to have all the trees on a TREES sheet and the bushes on the VEGETATION sheet. That way I can apply different shadow lengths to them and also ensure that the bushes drawn before the trees preventing a small bush overlapping a large tree.

I can obviously do this by selecting each tree manually one at a time, but based on the number of individual trees I've already put down, this will take forever.

Is there a way that I can select a tree (e.g. `CD3B Tree 1`), and then have CD3 select all other copies of the same version of that tree that are on the map?

If not, can it be done by a macro? and if so, how?

Ralf

Unfortunately not, no. You can scale, edit or delete all instances of a symbol by going through the Symbol Manager, but you can't select the instances to move the to a different sheet or layer. I would suggest hiding all but the SYMBOLS sheet and VEGETATION layer and then selecting manually.

01i

That's a shame, hopefully we'll see something like that in the next version as I'm sure lot's of people would find it useful. Both the trees and the bushes are on the VEGETATION layer so that wont enable me to just move the trees, and picking them all manually would be a nightmare. Guess the answer is to start a fresh map and learn from my mistakes, I was considering doing that anyway.

Raiko

O1i, try this:

1) Copy all the symbols from your VEGETATION layer to a new map (using ctrl-c & ctrl-v with an origin of 0,0).
2) Name the new map "trees.fcw"
3) Save the new map again, this time call it "bushes.fcw"
4) Using the symbol manager to delete all the trees from bushes.fcw, and all the bushes from trees.fcw.
5) Set up the symbols onto correctly named sheets within the two new maps.
6) Delete all bushes and trees from the original map.
7) Use ctrl-c / ctrl-v to copy the symbols back from "bushes.fcw" & "trees.fcw" (they'll paste into the correct sheets, creating a new sheet on the top on the stack if no sheet with the correct name exists).

Ralf

Oh, that's clever! Thanks for the idea, this never occurred to me.

Dogtag

Posted By: RalfOh, that's clever!

Wow, yeah. I couldn't say it any better! Way to "think outside the box!" *doffs cap*

Cheers,
~Dogtag

jaerdaph

Raiko, that is an awesome suggestion! All the pieces where there in front of our eyes and you put them together. Like Dogtag said, way to think outside the box!

Posted By: RalfOh, that's clever! Thanks for the idea, this never occurred to me.

I guess sometimes it's hard to see the trees for the forest (yes, I went there!)

Raiko

Thanks everyone.

I hope 01i saw the idea before restarting the map.

01i

I had restarted the map, but still have it, and this is a useful thing to know, thanks I just came in here because the map I'd been working on after the restart seems to have gone wrong. I'll open another thread though as it has nothing to do with the question in this one.

http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=4257