I'm trying to understand group in v5beta.

Is there a way to graphically edit groups? In other words, can I drag items into and out of a group?

I understand how to group objects by selecting them and then running Group. But, I'm confused when it comes to editing existing groups. Selecting a group and another object and running Group creates a nest of groups rather than adding the object to the existing group. Selecting all items in a group and an ungrouped object and running Group groups all items, but does this by emptying out the original group creating a new group:


Selecting and unselecting the empty group causes the appearance of non-default styled objects to twinkle as though they are being moved forward an backward in a stack. I expected that this would have no effect:


Clicking on the name of an object while others are selected causes the selected objects to disappear from the Objects section of the Scene Browser, but not from the 3D scene and everything gets deselected. I found this very surprising at first, though now I believe that all of the selected objects are simply being assigned the name that I click:



It seems that I can also use this behavior to add an item to a group by selecting that item and then clicking the name of the group to which I want to add it. Am I understanding how this works?

What's the best way to move an item from one group to another: select the item and click the name of the target group?

Is there anything else that I can do by clicking the name of an item in Objects? I know that the name of an object in v4 turns blue on mouseover, which makes me think I can do something by clicking it, but unlike in v5beta, that doesn't seem to do anything in v4.

In short, I have not encountered this grouping paradigm before and am hoping that someone can give me a good mental model for it.

EDITS:
How do I set up a shortcut for grouping? I took a stab in the dark and tried moi.geometryDatabase.group(), but that doesn't work.

When I try to select 1 object in the 3D scene and that object is in a group the result is that all objects in that group get selected. Is there a way to use groups as organizational aids only that don't cause the group members to behave as a single object?

-Peer

Hi Peer,

re:
> Is there a way to graphically edit groups? In other words, can I drag items into and out of a group?

There isn't a drag/drop but you can put an object into an existing group by selecting the object and then click on the target group's name label inside the scene browser. Basically just click on the same thing that you would have dropped on top of.

To take something out of a group, select it and use Ungroup to move it one step upwards in hierarchy or UngroupAll to break it out completely no matter where it is nested.


re:
> What's the best way to move an item from one group to another: select the item and click the name of the target group?

Yes, that is the way to do it.


> Is there anything else that I can do by clicking the name of an item in Objects?

On an object name label (a named object that is not a group) clicking on the name label will assign the selected objects to have that same name property.

On a group clicking on the name label will assign the selected objects to go inside that group.


> I know that the name of an object in v4 turns blue on mouseover, which makes me think I
> can do something by clicking it, but unlike in v5beta, that doesn't seem to do anything in v4.

Prior to v5 it was not used for anything.


> How do I set up a shortcut for grouping? I took a stab in the dark and tried moi.geometryDatabase.group(), but that doesn't work.

Put in Group for the command part of the shortcut key.


> When I try to select 1 object in the 3D scene and that object is in a group the result is that
> all objects in that group get selected. Is there a way to use groups as organizational aids
> only that don't cause the group members to behave as a single object?

No, Groups are focused on making a set of objects behave as a single object. The primary model for it is how groups behave in 2D vector editing programs.

I also want to add in a "folders" mechanism separate from groups that would work more loosely as containers in the scene browser and not affect viewport click selection.

- Michael

Michael,

Thank you for answering my questions. I got Group set up as a shortcut key now and will experiment with this feature to see if I can get the hang of it.

Given that the goal of groups is making a set of objects behave as a single object, how should I think about the difference between groups and names? I can give 2 objects the same name to make them behave as a single object. Is the difference essentially that groups give the ability to create a hierarchy rather than say having 50 points and 2 curves referred to by a single name?

This meaning of Group is similar to that in CorelDraw, but is quite different from how Groups behave in Illustrator. I greatly prefer Groups in Illustrator because in Corel I am constantly having to break groups apart to make edits on individual objects. Though, I initially found the 2 types of selection available in the Illustrator Layers Palette confusing and still sometimes get confused momentarily. It sounds like "folders" will be more like what I want, so I'm looking forward to them.

Speaking of the scene browser, is there a way that I can have objects listed in order of creation (with most recent at the top), rather than alphabetical? Can I manually reorder items in the Objects section of the Scene Browser? In other words, the way that objects are listed in CorelDraw and Illustrator?

Hi Peer,

re:
> I can give 2 objects the same name to make them behave as a single object.

Not exactly - they will both be controlled by a single entry in the scene browser so they will behave as a single object when you use the scene browser controls to select/hide/lock them but they won't have any difference in behavior when selecting by clicking inside the modeling viewport.

If all you want to do is to be able to select or hide/show a particular set of objects then giving them the same name is an easy way to do that.

The limits to that method are that if you start to have a lot of names it can get awkward to scroll through a long list of names and it doesn't help to keep the objects to move as one unit if you are selecting using the mouse inside the viewport.

Groups can help with both of those since you can use hierarchy to collapse sections of the scene browser to reduce the visible list of names and the grouped objects will select together when you click on a group inside a viewport.


> This meaning of Group is similar to that in CorelDraw, but is quite different from how Groups behave in Illustrator.

It's the same basic structure as in Illustrator - a group in Illustrator is an object that contains child objects (including child groups) inside of it.


> Speaking of the scene browser, is there a way that I can have objects listed in
> order of creation (with most recent at the top), rather than alphabetical?

Nope.


> Can I manually reorder items in the Objects section of the Scene Browser? In other words, the way
> that objects are listed in CorelDraw and Illustrator?

No, not currently.

- Michael

Thanks Michael. Groups make more sense to me now. I'll try to integrate them into my day-to-day work and see how it goes.

What is exactly this type ? (all is selected)

Michael,

re:
> It's the same basic structure as in Illustrator

You're right. I thought that groups in Illustrator and groups in Corel behaved very differently, but that's not true. So, I dug into why I have so much trouble with Corel, but not with Illustrator. I think the answer is that in Corel I can't drill down into a group (select a subset of the group), but in Illustrator I can do this in the Layers Palette. Your version is better than both because I can drill down both in the Scene Browser and in the Viewports without needing to use a special selection tool.

Is there a way to select a range of items in the objects section of the browser, for example by selecting the first and then shift-click on the last?


Something that causes me some confusion is that the name in the Object Properties Panel in the upper right corner doesn't immediately get updated if I change the name of an object by clicking on the name of another object in the Objects section of the browser. For example, I select part of "Unnamed"

and then click the text "hatch" in the Objects section. The yellow selection indicator moves next to hatch, but "unnamed" is still shown in the Object Properties Panel:


Another issue I've run into is that selecting a group of points doesn't cause a yellow halo to appear around those points in the viewports. I see an Edit Frame in the ortho views, but nothing in 3D:

Hi Pilou,

re:
> What is exactly this type ? (all is selected)

That one will target all groups that are empty meaning they contain no child objects.

You don't have any empty groups there so that's why it doesn't show as active.

If you were to delete the "cube" object inside of Group 02 then Group 02 would be empty and would be targeted by that.

- Michael

Hi Peer,

re:
> Your version is better than both because I can drill down both in the Scene Browser and in the
> Viewports without needing to use a special selection tool.

In the next v5 beta there will also be an additional shortcut of using Ctrl+click on an unselected item
inside of a group will select just that object directly bypassing any group structures.


> Is there a way to select a range of items in the objects section of the browser, for example by selecting
> the first and then shift-click on the last?

You can use "swiping" where you press down and then drag vertically over other items.


> Something that causes me some confusion is that the name in the Object Properties Panel in the upper
> right corner doesn't immediately get updated if I change the name of an object by clicking on the name
> of another object in the Objects section of the browser. <....>

This is a bug, it's been fixed for the next v5 beta.


> Another issue I've run into is that selecting a group of points doesn't cause a yellow halo to appear around
> those points in the viewports. I see an Edit Frame in the ortho views, but nothing in 3D:

The yellow highlighting not working on point objects in groups is another bug that's been fixed
for the next v5 beta.

The Edit Frame not showing up in the 3D viewport with point objects selected is a separate bug from that
but that one that is also present in v4 and earlier. I'll see if I can get that fixed up too. But your case
there with them all stacked up along an elevation line probably won't work because the edit frame only
shows up in the 3D view on planar objects.

Thanks, - Michael

Ok! Was not evident! :)

The Groups in MoI is a great idea but it looks like a little confusing for many users here including me.
I have been using ArchiCAD for years.
For me the grouping in ArchiCad is the most intuitive and user friendly way of dealing with them.
Particularly after I had to deal with them in AutoCAD, where as most things related to editing is a nightmare,

You select objects, then Ctrl+G - group them.
And one command is crucial here - Suspend Groups (Alt+G).
After you execute it, all groups are open and then you just can select any object in particular group, then Shift+Ctrl+G and this object is not a member of this group any more.
And now you can make any changes in all groups you want - adding (Ctrl+G), deleting (Shift+Ctrl+G).

Alt+G and groups are closed again and all changes for just edited group or groups are implemented.

HI Marky, I'm sure the ArchiCAD method works well but that is fairly different from how groups are handled in 2D vector editing programs like Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, Inkscape, Microsoft Office, etc...

There is near universal treatment of groups in that class of programs and so I wanted to make MoI's grouping mechanism behave similar to those so it would have the greatest chance of being familiar to most people.

There is no concept in any of those programs for having a "suspend groups" / "resume groups" mode so that type of operation would be less familiar for a larger number of people.

- Michael

Just a little thing...
When 2 objects (in the same group with or not the same type) have the same name only one object appears in the list of the group!
Does it make sens to permit or forbid this? ( put something like 2 cube or never same name ...)
Permit seems very cool!
Say you have a group a 100 cubes (each cube is named box) maybe 100 box will be cool to have in the vertical list ?
Useful when you copy something for example! ;)
You are directly informed that there are 24 glasses named crystal on the table! ;)

Hi Michael.

And why groups should follow 2D programs in 3D program?
Problems with understanding this concept seen here don't confirm that's the best way.
But, I assume that's for sake the majority of users used to groups in those 2D applications.

Marek

Michael,

Direct selection with ctrl+click sounds handy.

Swiping is great on a graphics tablet!

Thank you for the bug fixes and generally being so responsive to criticism and questions.

A small question.

In the V5b, when I try scripts where the script crawls the objets like opencurves or SeparateObjectName with a moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects() or moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects().getCurves()
The grouped objects are not crawled, I think.

For exemple, SeparateObjectName verifies if objects have same name and then rename duplicate names with a "_NN" suffix.
I seems for V5b groups are objects and objects included in groups are not crawled as objects.
When I have two groups with same name, the two groups are renamed but objects in the groups with same names are not renamed.

For Opencurves, the scripts is now useless because with v5b we have the Menu Types/Curves/open

Have those scripts to be modified to scan objets in groups ?

HI Pilou,

re:
> When 2 objects (in the same group with or not the same type) have the same
> name only one object appears in the list of the group!

Yes, that's intentional. It's been a longstanding feature in MoI that you can give multiple objects the same name and then control them all as a set using the same label in the scene browser.

So named objects inside a group will have just one label inside that group, same behavior as named objects that are not inside of a group.

If you want to control them individually inside the scene browser you need to give them unique names.


> You are directly informed that there are 24 glasses named crystal on the table! ;)

You are already informed of that currently in the properties panel:



If those 24 glasses would have 24 individual name labels inside of the scene browser, that would not help to determine the number.

- Michael

Hi Marek,

re:
> And why groups should follow 2D programs in 3D program?

Because those 2D programs have had a feature called "Groups" for probably the longest time of any software and as a class of software they have the greatest consistency between them for how groups function.


> Problems with understanding this concept seen here don't confirm that's the best way.

It's incorrect to jump to that conclusion. The main response from people who understand it fine is just silence.


> But, I assume that's for sake the majority of users used to groups in those 2D applications.

Yes that's correct.

- Michael

Hi Phiro,

re:
> In the V5b, when I try scripts where the script crawls the objets like opencurves or SeparateObjectName
> with a moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects() or moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects().getCurves()
> The grouped objects are not crawled, I think.

In the current (May-22-2022) v5 beta they are crawled by moi.geometryDatabase.getSelectedObjects() but not by
moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects().

This has been updated for the next v5 beta so that they will be crawled by getObjects() too.

getSelectedObjects() (and getObjects() in the next v5 beta) can also take an optional true/false parameter for whether
to return objects inside groups or not. By default they will and will have both groups and all the objects inside
the groups within the returned list to help with compatibility with scripts.

So hopefully those scripts should be working ok after the next beta without the scripts needing
any adjustments for group handling.

The main kind of script that the "group crawling" causes problems with is ones that transform objects because
they try to transform the group and also additionally the group's contained objects. So that particular kind
of script needs an adjustment to get only the groups and no crawling which can be done by the true/false
parameter for .getSelectedObjects() and .getObjects() or by calling .excludeGroupChildren() or
.excludeGroupChildrenInPlace() on the object list which will remove objects in an object list that are contained
inside of any group also in the list.

- Michael

<< You are already informed of that currently in the properties panel:
Yes you right but it's some limited! ;)
Seems this is more informative! You see in a glance composition of any group!