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THE TOOLS MENU

COMMAND

DESCRIPTION
Select Tool Lets you quickly drop into the building tools on the panel of your choice.
Select Only My Objects When checked, any drag-selection you make across an area whilst in Edit mode will only select objects that belong to you. Very useful when building in tight areas.
Select Only Movable Objects Will only select items that it is possible for you to Move, so ignoring objects that you have Locked for example.
Select Inclusive When checked, drag selecting (using the yellow selection box in edit mode) only selects things that are fully inside the selection square. When this is unchecked you will select any object that is even partially within the selection square.
Show Hidden Selection When editing objects, if this is checked then all vertices - even those that you cannot see such as the back of cubes or objects inside others, will be shown with a yellow highlight.

When unchecked, only vertices that you can actually see will be highlighted.
Snap To Grid When checked, grid rulers will appear when dragging objects around allowing you to optionally snap the object to Grid.

When unchecked these rulers/gridlines do not appear, so you cannot Snap to Grid.

This command is mirrored as the Use Grid tickbox on the Edit pane (ctrl-3).
Snap Object XY To Grid If you select an object whilst building, and then choose this menu command - that object will be immediately snapped to grid in both X and Y axis. It does not have any effect on the Z axis (height).

This command also works on multiple objects at once.
Use Selection For Grid This is a very under-used but powerful feature. By default the grid applied when building with Snap To Grid enabled is based upon the world coordinates, each region is 255m along each edge - and so the grid is anchored to that system.

Sometimes however, you may have an object perfectly placed that is not snapped to grid or that is an unusual size, and want other objects to snap to multiples of its dimensions instead of the World grid.

If you select an object then choose this option, your grid will be reset based upon that object - in each axis the grid will represent multiples of that object's dimensions. Any rotations applied will also affect the reference grid. This allows experienced builders to build uniform surfaces, perfectly aligned, outside of the usual world grid system. This change will be mirriored on the Edit pane, where the Ruler Mode will appear as Reference.
Grid Options... This opens the Grid Options window where you can choose your base grid spacing for the World grid. A setting of 0.125m and multiples of that figure tend to be best for building, so 0.250m, 0.500m and 1m.

Clicking Sub-Unit Snapping will allow finer levels of grid snap, within the overall grid size you have set. The further in you are zoomed, the finer that level of sub-unit snapping will be.
Link To create a single object made from several prims, you will need to link those prims together. Most creations in Second Life are made from multiple prims, textured, arranged and linked together to act as one.

To link several prims together.. Right-Click one and choose Edit (or press ctrl-3), then with shift key held down - left click all of the objects you want to link together. They will all highlight in yellow. Then choose Link (or type ctrl-L). As long as you have permissions on the objects, they will join to become one.
Unlink Having linked prims together to make something, you can also unlink them so that they are once again separate prims. Simply edit the object and choose Unlink (or type ctrl-shift L)
Make Joint Provides a way to make a Joint style relationship between two prims, one of which will be free to move whilst being anchored to the other. Joints are very tricky and are rarely used.
Remove Joint Removes the Joint relationship between two prims.
Focus On Selection Immediately snap the camera to focus on the selected object, putting it in the center of your view. Zoom level remains the same.
Zoom To Selection Both centres the view on, and zooms close into the selected object. If you are already very close to the object, this may actually move you back out a little.
Take Object If you have permissions, this will Take the object back into your inventory.
Take Copy

If you have permissions, this will take a copy of the object into your inventory, and leave the selected one inworld.
Save Object Back To My Inventory Having taken an object out of your inventory and placed it inworld, this will save any changes made back to your inventory, whilst leaving it inworld to continue work on it.
Save Object Back To Object Contents Having taken an object out of the contents of another object that you have been editing, and placed it inworld, this will save any changes made back to the contents, whilst leaving it inworld to continue work on it.
Recompile Scripts In Selection Forces a recompile of any scripts within the selected object.
Reset Scripts In Selection Resets the state of any scripts in the selected object.
Set Scripts to Running in Selection Any scripts in the object that are not already Running, will be set to Run.
Set Scripts to Not Running in Selection Any scripts in the object that are Running, will be turned off..