Visual Thought User's Guide
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Chapter 11

Grouping Objects

Grouping objects into a single unit provides you with several conveniences:

You can "freeze" the relative sizes and positions of the objects in a group.
You can move, resize or rotate a single group more easily than separate multiple objects.
You can duplicate or remove the group more easily.
You can then also group multiple groups into a single group. This technique can provide you with a useful hierarchy of objects. Even when objects are grouped, you can still edit the text of individual objects within the group. You can also create connections to individual objects within the group.
To change any other attributes of grouped objects, you must ungroup them first.

Grouping Objects

Grouping objects means to combine multiple objects so that they can be treated as a single object. Any group can be further grouped into other groups or ungrouped back into the original multiple objects.

To combine multiple objects into a single group,

Select all objects you want grouped.
Choose ArrangeGroup (Ctrl-G) or choose the Group hot button from the Hot Button bar.

Example of Grouping Multiple Objects

Create a rectangle, a circle and a star.
Select all (Ctrl-A).
Choose ArrangeGroup (Ctrl-G).

The three objects are now grouped.

Ungrouping Objects

Select the group.
Choose ArrangeUngroup (Ctrl-Shift-G).
The shapes are returned to their states as individual objects.
Click in the background of the View to deselect all the objects.

Hierarchical Grouping

You can group two objects together into one, then group that new object with a third object. When you ungroup the objects, they are first split into two objects. If you ungroup it again, they are split into the original three objects.

Select only the rectangle and the circle from the objects created in the previous example.
Choose ArrangeGroup (Ctrl-G).
Now select all (Ctrl-A).
Choose ArrangeGroup (Ctrl-G) again. You can treat this object as a single object. Then ungroup it once when you only want specific portions of the object.
Copy the object by choosing EditDuplicate (Ctrl-D).
Select all (Ctrl-A).

Choose ArrangeUngroup (Ctrl-Shift-G). This first ungroup leaves the original grouped objects-the circle and the square and their duplicate-still grouped.
Click in the View window to deselect all objects.

Editing Groups

A group can only be edited in certain ways. You can:

Move, scale, rotate, and resize the group. You can resize rotated groups of unrotated objects. For example, you can create two rectangles, group them, rotate the group, then resize it. You cannot resize groups of objects that have been rotated.
Delete the group.
Edit the text of individual members of the group. Double-click on a member to edit its text. You can move the text focus using Tab, Shift-Tab, and Ctrl-Arrows.
Attach or detach connections to individual members of the group. You cannot change the graphic attributes, shape attributes, or attachments, or resize any group members individually.

Visual Thought User's Guide
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