I have a picture that I would like to create a circular selection in. I select the eliptical selection tool, drag to create my circle, and release. I get marching ants around my selection.

So far so good. Now, lets say that I didn't quite get my selection right. The size of my circle is right (so I don't want to draw it again) but my selection area is wrong. I want to reposition the selection circle (not move the area underneath it).

This is what "Grokking the Gimp" had to say:

However, when I ALT+click and try to move the selection, my whole window moves instead of the selection. This is really driving me crazy.

I am using release 1.3.20.

I really hate it when I answer my own questions two seconds after posting. I had just upgraded from 1.2.3 to 1.3.20 and I noticed there was a nice little option when using the move tool called "move selection outline". That fixed it.

When you want to move the selection use the Alt key + the arrow keys - do not use the "click". Let us know if that works for you.

Yes, this also worked. I am guessing that somehow KDE was grabbing the ALT key and thinking I wanted to move the window. I am not sure though. Thanks for giving me a shorter way to do it.

Please tell me how you get the "move selection outline" choice with the move tool. I can't seem to find it, and would like to learn. Thanks!

What version are you running? When I upgraded to version 1.3.20 the tools dialog and the tool options dialog are connected. So, when using the move tool, one of the options says "Move selection outline", select that option and the selection should move and leave the picture intact.

You can also use the alt with arrow keys as noted above.

I'm using GIMP 1.3.23 and now I see how you do that. It just says "Move selection" in this version, but works by moving the selection with the mouse. Thanks for the pointer.