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?

[Anonymous]

Yes, for me, remembering is the problem.

Here's a typical scenario:

I'll fillet these 2 lines which don't quite join.
Oops - error. They won't fillet. Further investigation shows that one of them's a polyline. Explode the polyline. Try again.
Oops - error. Now the polyline's a group. Turn off grouping. Try again.
Success! Next!

Copy this section of the drawing over here. Now move that group.
Oops - it's no longer a group.
I forgot to turn grouping back on. Undo. Undo. Undo.
Turn grouping on. Do the copy again.
Success! Phew!

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

Yes, but I'm trying to figure out why other people make so many groups on their drawings - which I then have to edit!

[Link]

Sounds like you've got Auto Grouping on.

Turning that off as a standard across the whole office would certainly help!

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Good idea, Link. Thanks.

[Link]

No worries mate. Just make sure it's turned off in your template too. (You do have a template right?)

I think that will eliminate most of your problems moving forward.

Apart from that, having the Control box open for a quick visual check if grouping is enabled/disabled is key. You could also include the same in a toolbar so you have it in two places?

Better yet, how about what is shown in the image..?

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

I like it!

But I've discovered that knowing whether grouping is on or off isn't the problem.

It's more a case of whether there are groups lurking among the objects that you're about to stretch. Unlike a normal selection, when a group is revealed by its handles, when using a marquee, you only find the hidden groups when it's too late - i.e. when you find that part of the drawing has moved rather than stretched. Then you have to go and turn off grouping and try again.

It reminds me of the circumstance in Autocad, where, if you wanted to stretch objects you had to select them using a 'crossing' window. Since the command following 'Stretch' was always 'crossing' it made sense to write a LISP routine that combined these 2 commands into one.

Now, if I could only program Archicad I would automatically turn off grouping when instituting a stretch, and turn it back on when finished. That would be so neat! Is it too much to hope Graphisoft would do it for me?!