Michael,

I'm getting better at using groups effectively.

I am still making foolish mistakes such as trying to copy one object in the group and end up copying the entire group.

But one error that sometimes occurs is a bit more annoying.

When working on one object in the group I often use the boolean tools to make changes to the object and when I do it right they work fine.

What isn't so good is when I manage to select the group by mistake and then the program ends up working hard to apply the boolean operation to all of the objects in the group.

I realize they are my mistakes but what if you could somehow analyze what I just told the program to do and ask if I actually want to do what I just tried to do, such as asking me if I really want to union the 37 objects that are selected.

Not sure exactly what might help but Just a thought.

Thanks.

Frederick

Hi Michael,

I have been giving some thought as to why the Group feature is not proving to be as intuitive for me as everything else in MoI is.

I think it is because I see Groups as an organization feature, rather than an operational feature.

That is to say, I rarely want to operate on the Group itself but most always on objects in the group.

I know I can control-click on an object in the group and it selects just the object but I think that change is the source of my problems.

Perhaps you could have an option to "invert" that behavior.

With the "inversion" option active, control-clicking an object in the group would select the group, while "normal" clicking would be as it was prior to groups, it would just select the object clicked on.

I think having the option would solve most every problem I have had with groups.

Another thought.

Thanks.

Frederick

Hi Frederick,

re:
> With the "inversion" option active, control-clicking an object in the group
> would select the group, while "normal" clicking would be as it was prior to
> groups, it would just select the object clicked on.

Are there any examples of other programs that have this behavior with groups?

- Michael

Hi danperk, it's cool to see the cross hatching getting used!

> Has the copy Ai and Copy PDF to clipboard changed since version 4?

Not much.

What happens if you open the AI file made by Save As, then inside Illustrator select all and copy/paste into a new page do you see the same kind of layer mutation?

It seems to be something that Illustrator does when pasting.

Looks like there is a setting in Illustrator that you need to change so it won't merge all the layers when pasting:

https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/18438/how-to-preserve-layer-settings-when-copying-between-files

On the Layers panel, there is a little arrow in the upper right corner, click on it and pick the menu item "Paste Remembers Layers".

- Michael

Thanks Michael!

I deleted my post when I remembered the 'Paste remembers layers' setting. That was late last night, but you were on it!


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