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Groups

What are groups?

It might happen that once you've added a number of layers, you want some of those to behave as one layer, which means that you can select is as a whole and move it. In DrawIt we call this a group: A group can contain any number of layers (note that a group is also a layer) so you can go on nesting them ad-infinitum.

A group is more that just a collection of layers; it has its own coordinate-system which the inner layers conform to. This means that if you resize a group, all the layers in that group will also resize with it. This also means that a layer in a group snaps only to other layers in that same group. This might seem rather complicated but actually it's rather easy.

Creating and deleting groups

There are two ways to create a group:

- Create a group by choosing Insert → Empty Group in the menu.

- Select a number of layers and choose Format → Group Layers to create a group containing those layers.

A group can be deleted just as any other layer. When you want do remove the group, but not its contents, it is a good idea to ungroup before deleting it.

Navigating between groups

Let us assume that you have a group in your document and you want to edit its contents: Just double-click it or press Return.

Once your are in the group, you can edit the layers it contains. If this group contains another group, that group can be edited in the same way. Note that (by default) the region outside the bounds of the group is covered by a semi-transparent color indicating that you should remain inside its bounds. When you're done editing the group, you probably want to get out of it and return 'one level up': click outside the group or press Escape.

Check the topic on Navigating in general to learn more.