Grouping on or off?

[Anonymous]

I don't know if anyone else is bothered by this - but when I ask around the office the others all agree it drives them mad too.

The problem is whether to work with grouping on or off.

If on, then if you go stretch part of the building that includes a group, the group doesn't stretch. So you have to undo, turn off grouping, and try again.

If off, then you copy part of the building that includes a group, only to discover that your group is ungrouped in the copy, or worse - modules that don't get included in the copy at all.

How to overcome this?

One possibility might be to issue warnings:
"Your selection includes a group. Turn off grouping if you wish to stretch entire selection"
or
"Your selection includes grouped elements. Turn on grouping if you wish those copied items to remain grouped"

I imagine this might become irksome.

Alternatively, I wonder if there couldn't be a 'locked' status for groups that you would never want to stretch (or modify in any way). Then, grouped items would stretch along with other elements (with grouping turned on) unless the group was 'locked'.

Any thoughts?

[David Maudlin]

This is one reason I still have the Control Palette displayed in my Work Environment, it shows the current Group/Suspend Group status. Both states have their uses, I can't see having it on or off all the time.

David

[Laszlo Nagy]

Keith wrote:
Alternatively, I wonder if there couldn't be a 'locked' status for groups that you would never want to stretch (or modify in any way). Then, grouped items would stretch along with other elements (with grouping turned on) unless the group was 'locked'.

Any thoughts?

You can select any group and lock them manually with the Lock command. If you assign a key shortcut to the Lock command then it is pretty fast and easy to do. You can actually do this right after creating the group.

Otherwise I agree that there is no way of saying whether the Grouping is better ON or OFF, it just depends so much on the user, his/her working method and the situation.

[Anonymous]

Oh, so locking already exists! I didn't know that, after 10 years of working in Archicad!

So, what is the point of locking, if, when a group is unlocked, it can't be stretched or otherwise modified without first turning grouping off?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Well, that is a good question, but I would say locking was not meant only for groups. It was meant for any element or layer you don't want to be modified, temporarily or permanently.
But I could also ask you the opposite: if you don't want to move something, why put it in a group? Just lock those elements and you are set, they will not go anywhere.

But anyway, these two feature, I would say, have been in ArchiCAD since I know the program (since 1995) and have not changed.

But if you have a suggestion you can always make a wish and people can vote on it if they find it a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Laszio, I'll make a wish!

Yours is a good question too. I frequently work on drawings that have been started by other people, and often wonder why they have grouped certain elements. I'm always reluctant to ungroup what others have grouped (my pet hate in Autocad was discovering wcs that consisted of nothing but ungrouped lines and arcs!). I think it's often done as a way of 'recording' a selection of objects in case you wish to repeat the selection.

However I also think there are lots of good reasons for grouping elements, where you may want to modify individual instances of those groups later. For example, on an elevation, there may be an exit platt and steps or ramp which repeats around the building, and, unless they've been modelled, you draw a little group of lines and then stamp it on each door. Later you raise the finished ground level, forget to turn off grouping, and hey presto, your external thresholds are now higher than the floor level. I can think of many other similar instances.

[Laszlo Nagy]

These are legitimate issues you are raising here. Actually, these would be handled by something that I would love to see in ArchiCAD: the ability to associate elements with other elements. For example, imagine that you could associate a point in this group in this Elevation to a point of a Door. Then, if the Door moves anywhere, this group of lines moves with it. It would be awesome.

[Link]

Keith wrote:
I think it's often done as a way of 'recording' a selection of objects in case you wish to repeat the selection.

You can use the Selections palette (Window>Palettes>Selections) for this.

In fact I am sure you can add multiple selections from multiple viewpoints, such as plan and elevation, as long as the elements all belong to the same storey. This ~may~ be of use to you?

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

David wrote:
This is one reason I still have the Control Palette displayed in my Work Environment, it shows the current Group/Suspend Group status.

Same with me!

[Anonymous]

kliment wrote:

David wrote:
This is one reason I still have the Control Palette displayed in my Work Environment, it shows the current Group/Suspend Group status.

Same with me!

Yep, doesn't take long to check when you need to (although I do forget occasionally )