Named Selections

A named selection is a set of atoms and annotations saved under a name. Once you name a selection, you can select it again with one click, move it as a unit, give it metadata, and export it, even after you have edited the drawing around it. Named selections are saved in the .mkit file.

A named selection stores atoms and standalone annotations (arrows, text, brackets, and so on). Bonds belong to it when both of their atoms do, and lone pairs, radicals, and orbitals travel with their atoms. If you delete some members, the named selection keeps the rest.

Resonance sets and Visual Sets are special named selections that group several drawings of one species. How to make them is covered on Views and Resonance; the boxes and the panel work the same way for them as for any other named selection. See also Resonance sets and Visual Sets below.

Creating a named selection

Select what you want to save, then use any of these:

In the Named Selections panel, click ＋ (“Name the current canvas selection”). A row called “Untitled selection” appears with its name ready to edit; type a name and press Enter.
Right-click the selection and choose Name Selection…. The metadata editor opens so you can enter the name and other details.
Export the selection (File > Export SVG…, Export PNG…, or Export PDF…) and type a file name. The selection is saved under that name, together with the SVG or PNG options you used.

If the selection is already saved, ＋ tells you its name instead of making a second copy.

Boxes on the canvas

Every named selection is drawn with a thin violet box around its members, with the name set into the top edge of the box. The boxes are always shown. They are editing aids only and never appear in SVG, PNG, or PDF exports.

To	Do this on the canvas
Rename	Double-click the name on the box, type, and press `Enter`. `Escape` cancels.
Select and move the members	Press on the box border and drag. The inside of the box is not clickable, so you can still click individual atoms inside it.
Edit metadata	Click the ✎ icon next to the name.
Export	Click the ⤓ icon (“Export box as SVG”). Everything in the box is selected and the SVG export dialog opens, set to export the selection.
Add a structure	Drag it and release with the pointer inside the box. A message confirms which named selection it joined. Dragging one box by its border into another merges them, and `Ctrl+Z` undoes the move and the change together.

The ✎ and ⤓ icons fade in as you zoom to about 100% and are hidden when you are zoomed further out, so they do not clutter small boxes.

A box’s name carries a bold Vis or Res tag when it is a Visual Set or a resonance set.

The Named Selections panel

View > Named Selections shows or hides the panel, and a check mark shows when it is open. Until you choose, the panel opens by itself when a document has named selections and closes when the last one is deleted. Once you show or hide it yourself, it stays that way for all documents. The canvas boxes are not affected by this setting.

Click the chevron in the panel header, or the header itself, to collapse the panel; the collapsed state is remembered.

The panel lists the document’s named selections in alphabetical order. The Search… box filters the list by name as you type.

Click a row, or focus it and press Enter, to select its members and zoom the canvas to them. Double-click the name to rename it in place (Enter saves, Escape cancels). Each row also carries two buttons:

Button	What it does
✎	Opens the metadata editor (“Edit metadata”, “Edit visual set”, or “Edit resonance set”)
✕	Deletes the named selection. The drawing is not touched, and `Ctrl+Z` brings the named selection back. Deleting a Visual Set removes only the grouping; each structure keeps its view label.

When the canvas selection matches a named selection, its row is highlighted and scrolled into view.

Changing the members

To change what a named selection contains, click its row to select its members, change the selection on the canvas, then click the check-mark button (“Update this name’s members to the current canvas selection”).

The update applies to the named selection that the current selection matches. If you have already changed the selection so that it no longer matches, the panel asks you to recall the saved selection first. To add a single structure, dragging it into the box on the canvas is usually quicker.

Resonance sets and Visual Sets

A few box and panel behaviors apply only to sets:

Each drawing in a Visual Set carries a blue view label at its top left, such as LEWIS, VSEPR, CONDENSED, BONDLINE, FISCHER, or ORBITALS for a drawing that carries an orbital picture. A Lewis drawing adds its layout, as in LEWIS (SQUARE) or LEWIS (ANGLED), and a planar drawing that serves as both reads LEWIS + VSEPR. Like the boxes, the labels are not exported.
A set can hold several orbital pictures of the species. They are numbered pictures of one view, not resonance forms, so they get no Res box or weights, and the metadata editor does not let you change their view while the picture is there. Building a picture on a drawing already in the set, or removing one, updates its view in the same undo step.
Drawings in the same view inside a Visual Set get a dashed inner box tagged Res. Drag that inner box by its border out of the Visual Set to take it out as a separate resonance set.
The view the set shows first in the structure widget is set with Opens on in the metadata editor. On the canvas, that view’s label is marked with an asterisk.
Dragging a structure into a Visual Set’s box adds it as a new drawing, labeled with the view Molkit detects from its geometry.
Deleting a Visual Set in the panel removes only the grouping; each drawing keeps its view label.
Derive view on a structure inside a named group places the new drawing at the group’s right end and adds it to the group as a new form. A named molecule that gains a derived view this way becomes a Visual Set. See Views and Resonance.

Exporting named selections

To export one named selection, click its ⤓ icon on the canvas, or click its row and use Export Selection as SVG… or Export Selection as PNG… from the right-click menu. The export dialog suggests the selection’s name as the file name.
File > Batch Export… exports every named selection you tick, as SVG, PNG, or both, one file per named selection named after it. It uses the options last used for each selection. Files go to a folder you pick where the browser allows it, and otherwise download as a ZIP file.

See SVG Export for the export options.

Named selections are separate from groups: a group changes how clicks select objects, while a named selection only remembers a set. For groups, see Layers & Groups.