Selection

Choosing shapes is how you tell a tool what to work on. Style, Transform and Replace all narrow to the selection when there is one.

Three shapes picked out of a hexagon-and-square tiling, outlined with marching ants

Selecting by Hand

Marquee Selection — drag a rectangle across the shapes you want.
Lasso Selection — draw a freehand outline for awkward groups.
Shift+click — add or remove one shape at a time, and it works while marquee or lasso is armed.
Ctrl+A — select everything on the active layer.
Escape — clear the selection.

Select All of Same Type

Select one shape and extend it to every shape of the same kind. Selecting a hexagon and using this picks up every hexagon on the layer, leaving squares alone — the quick way to restyle one shape family across a pattern.

Every hexagon in the tiling selected while the squares between them stay unselected

Select All of Same Style

The same idea by appearance rather than shape: extend the selection to everything sharing the current selection's style, whatever its geometry. Pair it with the Style tool to recolour a whole motif at once.

Every blue shape in the tiling selected, hexagons and squares alike, while the green ones stay unselected

Working with a Selection

Delete or Backspace — remove the selected shapes.
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V — copy and paste a cluster. Pasted shapes arrive selected with the Transform tool active, ready to place.
Extract Selection to New Layer — move the selection onto a new layer.
Copy Selection to New Layer — the same, but leaving the originals in place.

Selection is per-layer: Ctrl+A and the extend actions work within the active layer, so a layer you aren't editing can't be disturbed by accident.