Creating and Editing Groups
You can link disparate objects on different layers into what is referred to as a group. After a group is created, all the member objects of the group can be selected by selecting one member of the group or by naming the group. Assembling the objects into a group, however, does not prevent you from editing the member objects individually. To create and edit a group, you use the GROUP command, which you initiate by typing Group at the command line (see Figure 11.21).
Figure 11.21. The Object Grouping dialog box of the GROUP command enables you to create and edit a group.
The following sections discuss how to use the GROUP command for specific tasks.
Creating a Group
Every group must have a name. To create a group, you first type a name in the Group Name edit box. Then, click New and select the objects you want to include in the group. To complete the creation of the group within the drawing, you must click OK in the Object Grouping dialog box. If you do not want to name the group, enable the Unnamed option, and AutoCAD will give the group an arbitrary name that begins with an asterisk. Unnamed groups also are created when you duplicate a group using commands such as COPY or ARRAY. To include unnamed groups in the list of groups displayed in the dialog box, enable the Include Unnamed option.
By default, any group you create is selectable. This means that the group of objects can be selected by name or by selecting a member. If you turn off the Selectable option before you create a group, the group will not be selectable. The individual group members still will be listed as members of the group, but they will be selectable only as individual objects. You might want to create a non-selectable group, for example, if you want to associate various objects together for use with custom programs (created by you or a third-party developer) that interact with the drawing database but are not for use with AutoCAD editing commands. The typical user does not have an application for non-selectable groups; so as a rule, always make your groups selectable.
A group can have as many members as you desire, and an individual object can be a member of more than one group. The group description is an optional piece of information that you use to better describe the contents of the group or the relationship between the member objects.
Selecting a Group to Edit
After you create a selectable group, you can select all members of the group simply by selecting one group member or by naming the group. The Object Grouping setting controls the selection of all members of a group when one member is selected. This setting is found in the Settings tab of the Options dialog box. The Object Grouping setting can also be enabled or disabled with the Ctrl+A key sequence. Even with the Object Grouping setting disabled, the members of a selectable group can be selected by typing G at the Select objects: prompt, then entering the group name.
Inquiring About a Group’s Membership
If you ever forget whether an object is a member of a group or which objects are members of a particular group, you can use the following two buttons to find this information when in the Object Grouping dialog box:
Find Name. Use the Find Name button to determine the group, if any, to which a selected object belongs. This allows you to select an object within a group and report back the group name.
Highlight. Select a group name from the list of group names, and click the Highlight button to highlight all the members of the selected group onscreen.
Note
You also can use the LIST command to see the contents of a group. When listing a group, all the group objects are highlighted and descriptions of the objects contained within are listed.
Modifying an Existing Group
To modify the makeup of a particular group, first select the group name from the list of groups. The following list shows the buttons you use to modify the group you select (refer to Figure 11.21):
Remove and Add. You can use these buttons to remove an object from or add an object to an existing group.
Rename and Description. You can rename a group or change the group’s description by selecting the group name, typing in the new name or description, and then selecting the corresponding button.
Selectable. Use this button to change the selectable status of the selected group.
Re-Order. Selecting this button displays the Order Group dialog box, which enables you to change the order in which the member objects are arranged in a group. You can use this option to visually control how the objects in the group are ordered internally.
Deleting a Group
To remove or undefine a group, click Explode in the Object Grouping dialog box (refer to Figure 11.21). Exploding a group dissolves the associations between the member objects but does not erase the member objects.
The previous sections have discussed the various ways to select an object or objects for editing. After you have selected the object(s), you can edit the properties, as discussed in the following section.