Ctrl A layer behavior hardcoded by Behavior->Selecting and not changeable through Interface->Keyboard Shortcuts

[Formerly Kevin Yin, now disabled]

Sometimes, it's hard to select all objects in a layer manually because there are a lot of layers.
A convenient place for this feature would be the right-click menu for individual layers, in the layers panel.

This would make merging layers easy: see bug 170614.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

'Ctrl+A' selects all within the current layer (unless you changed the preferences). Isn't this easy enough?
<http://inkscape.org/doc/keys048.html#d0e2260>

Re merging layers: quickest way to merge (flatten) all layers:
select all across all layers, group, ungroup ('Ctrl+Alt+A', 'Ctrl+G', 'Ctrl+U') - no need to select all objects within each layer individually.

[Formerly Kevin Yin, now disabled (kyin)]

>'Ctrl+A' selects all within the current layer (unless you changed the preferences).
Ah, I didn't realize. Then, if I have Ctrl+A select across all layers, can I force Ctrl+Alt+A to select only within the current layer?
I like Ctrl+A selecting everything, but I also want the extra functionality of choosing objects in a single layer.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

> Then, if I have Ctrl+A select across all layers, can I force Ctrl+Alt+A to select only within the current layer?

Yes. With a recent trunk revisions you have a new Interface>Shortcuts page in the preferences (Edit>Inkscape Preferences) that allows you to change the shortcuts.
With older revision and official releases, you can modify the default keys file directly (see http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Customize-Files.html#Customize-Files-Shortcuts).

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Proposing to reopen:

On 2013-03-22 11:48 , JazzyNico wrote:
>> Then, if I have Ctrl+A select across all layers, can I force
>> Ctrl+Alt+A to select only within the current layer?
>
> Yes. With a recent trunk revisions you have a new Interface>Shortcuts
> page in the preferences (Edit>Inkscape Preferences) that allows you
> to change the shortcuts.

I can't confirm that (0.91pre2, OS X 10.7.5):
- If the behavior of 'Ctrl+A' is changed in the preferences (Behavior > Selecting) to '[x] Select in all layers', remapping 'Select All in All Layers' (default: 'Ctrl+Alt+A') to any other custom modifier+key combination doesn't change that action into a 'Select all in current layer' command.
- The keyboard shortcut 'Ctrl+A' in the select tool context seems to be hard-coded [1] and can't be remapped or disabled via shortcut editor.

Currently, It seems not possible to swap the behavior of 'Ctrl+A' and 'Ctrl+Alt+A' via shortcut editor alone, nor in combination with the other settings for 'Behavior > Selecting'.

[1] http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~inkscape.dev/inkscape/trunk/view/13527/src/ui/tools/select-tool.cpp#L1052

[Formerly Kevin Yin, now disabled (kyin)]

Confirming behavior in comment 4.