Hi Lang, I'm sorry but I'm not entirely sure if I understand.

> Is there a way of selecting the whole object from just picking up an
> edge or one side of the object?

That's how selection does work when you do an initial click on an unselected object - the first click on an unselected object, including on any edge or side of it like you're asking here will select the whole object. So that does what you seem to be asking here in this sentence but I'm not sure that it's really what you were after?

Then if you do further clicks on an already selected object it will "drill down" to select edge or face sub-objects.

Also you can use window selection to select objects - that's when you click in an empty area and then hold the mouse down and drag to make a selection window. If you start the window on the left and drag towards the right only objects contained entirely within the window will be targeted - if you start on the right and drag towards the left anything that's even partially contained within the window will be targeted. Often times strategic use of these different window modes can help.

See here for some other tips on selection and some links to some demo videos on window selection:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5118.10

If that does not answer what you are looking for maybe it would help if you could post the model file with your particular objects in it so that I could get a better idea of what situation you are working with.

- Michael