How can I prevent the user from selecting "ALL" when using acedSSGet() using ObjectARX?

By Gopinath Taget

Consider this: You would like to stop the user from selection ALL when using acedSSGet()? This because acedSSGet selects all of the entities in all of the spaces and this is not your intent. You only want it selects ALL the entities from the current space. So how can you go about doing this?

In AutoCAD there is no way to stop the acedSSGet() from allowing the user to use the "All" option; this is as designed. The best way to do what you want is to simply check the selection set after the acedSSGet() and make sure that each entity is owned by the current space… Please check the code below:

// this function allows the user to     // type "all", but only the entities    // in the current space are selected    void asdkSelectALL()    {     ads_name ss;     // get the selectionset     int res = acedSSGet (NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, ss);     // if ok     if (res == RTNORM)     {      // get the length of the selection set      long length = 0l;      acedSSLength (ss, &length);      // see what we have      acutPrintf(L"nBefore ss length = %ld", length);      // now loop round and find out which ones are in Paper space      for (long i=0l; iownerId();        // get the current dwg database        AcDbDatabase *dwg =          acdbHostApplicationServices()->workingDatabase();        // if the entity owner id is not the         // same as the current space id        if (dwg->currentSpaceId() != ownerId &&          dwg->viewportTableId() != ownerId &&          dwg->paperSpaceVportId() != ownerId)        {         // remove the entity from the selection set         acedSSDel (ename, ss);        }       }      }      acedSSLength (ss, &length);      // see what we have      acutPrintf(L"nAfter ss length = %ld", length);      // test code      acedCommand (RTSTR, "._SELECT", RTPICKS,        ss, RTSTR, "", RTNONE);      // free the selection set after use      acedSSFree (ss);     }    }

Alternatively, you can implement an AcEdSSGetFilter to filter out whatever selections you want but that is the topic for another blog post .