Multiple concepts, or a single edge, can be selected at one time. Lasso selection (or the canvas context menu) only selects concepts. The other approaches described below work for everything.

Tap

Tapping on a concept or link will either switch from connection mode back to placement mode, or select it.

Holding Shift while tapping (in placement mode) will toggle selection.

Lasso

In placement mode, gestures will normally draw new concepts. As soon as the gesture’s trail starts to surround a concept, the lasso will be active.

By default, when the lasso gesture is complete, the selection will be changed to only include the surrounded concepts.

While active, the current lasso type is shown in the hex button, which you can tap (or press Tab) to cycle through the following other gestures:

Lasso Toggle

Toggles selection of the surrounded concepts. You can also temporarily enable this by holding down Shift.

Lasso Inverse Select

Selects all concepts except those surrounded. You can also temporarily enable this by holding down Alt.

Pro-tip: When there are many (or spread out) concepts, it may seem tricky to ‘Select All’ by a single gesture.

However, the lasso has a quirk: a double-lasso around concept(s) is the same as selecting none. So, the inverse of an empty select selects all.

Lasso Zoom

Along with behaving like a regular lasso, lasso zoom can be used to zoom and focus the view on the surrounded concepts.

Keyboard Selection

In placement mode, Tab, when there are concepts visible, will cycle selection around those that are visible.

Ctrl-A selects all. Ctrl-Shift-A or 0 (zero) selects none. All these shortcuts also restore placement mode.

Ctrl-Alt-A, Ctrl-Shift-Alt-A, and Alt-0 (adding the Alt modifier to the above) behave similarly, but affect only the currently visible concepts.