How to change the highlighting of selected objects in AutoCAD

Autodesk Support

May 15, 2024

Products and versions covered

Issue:

You want to change or disable the highlight of objects when they are selected or when the mouse cursor rolls over them. You would like to change the highlighting behavior back to how it worked in prior AutoCAD versions.

Note: Before AutoCAD 2015, selected objects appear as dashed lines when selected. Starting from AutoCAD 2015, the default behavior (when hardware acceleration is on) is that selected objects are displayed as colored, thicker lines (blue glow).

Solution:

You can use several methods to address selection highlighting.

  • To get the legacy selection and pre-selection effects:

  1. Enter SELECTIONEFFECT and PRESELECTIONEFFECT on the command line.
  2. Set their value to 0 (zero).

SELECTIONEFFECT = 1

SELECTIONEFFECT = 1

SELECTIONEFFECT = 0

SELECTIONEFFECT = 0
 
Note: PRESELECTIONEFFECT has been discontinued in AutoCAD 2020.
  • Change the highlight color. Starting with AutoCAD 2016, you can also change the color of the highlight by using the SELECTIONEFFECTCOLOR system variable.
  • Change the highlighting of selection areas created by the Window, Crossing, WPolygon, and CPolygon options when selecting objects using the SELECTIONAREA (System Variable)
  • Turn off hardware acceleration through the GRAPHICSCONFIG command to disable the selection effects.
These variables can also be controlled through the Visual Effect Settings dialog box under Selection tab in Options.
 
Note: PREVIEWEFFECT and PREVIEWFACEEFFECT have been discontinued in AutoCAD 2015.

Products:

AutoCAD for Mac; AutoCAD LT for Mac; AutoCAD Products;

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