[Solved] Basic newbie Qs about groups in Draw

[jhc]

I decided to use OODraw for a little home project. Never touched the tool until about 6 hours ago, but I have used MS Visio so I have some vague notion of how to use this type of application (maybe ). I managed to brute-force my way through to success, but groups have me especially fuddled. Could some kind soul please set me right?

My project involves polygons with some internal lines (e.g. a square with a single diagonal line).

After I had created some of these, I decided I wanted to move them around on the page. A group seemed like the right way to do this. I could have been wrong about that...

I'm not at all sure I created the groups correctly. What I ended up doing was to select a single line, then shift-select every other line in the polygon, then hit Modify->Group. Is this correct? I got fooled by having the grid of green dots pop up after 2 or 3 selections, and found out the hard way that *only* the lines I had already selected were at that point included in the group (also that the already-selected lines were not obviously tagged in any way, so I simply had to remember which ones I had done already. I found out later than I could just add them to the group).

So eventually I get all the lines included and the little green grid up on the screen, and the bottom left of the window says 'Group object selected', which sounds right. Now I try to drag the group over to a different part of the window. No luck. Immediately I click inside the green grid, it goes away. I haven't even released the mouse button yet! I find that if I click on a little green square, I can stretch the image (as I would expect), but that's not exactly what I wanted. I can copy ctrl-C and erase ctrl-X the entire group, but there doesn't seem to be any way to change its position on the page that way - I click elsewhere and then hit ctrl-V, the group comes back exactly where it was before. So how can I move a group as a whole around a page?

A couple more oddities: while clicking around madly trying to make this work, I find that sometimes I get a grid of little red dots. I have no idea how I get this, or what it signifies, or what use it might be. I also find that sometimes the whole page just greys out. I have no idea what that signifies either, or what use it is. Sometimes this condition goes away on its own, but often I have to hit Modify->Exit Group to get back to being able to do anything useful.

Also (yes, I realize that I may have transgressed the rule about the number of questions in a single post), what is the different between grouping things, and combining them?

Lastly, is there anywhere I should have found before posting here? I did look... If this is just an under-documented area, then I do have some technical writing skills, Perhaps I can contribute?

Thanks for any help.

Jonathan

[acknak]

Greetings and welcome to the community forum!

... A group seemed like the right way to do this. ...

A group is handy if you need to operate on several objects together: you can easily select them all with one click. The down side is that it gets in the way any time you need access to the individual objects.

It's not necessary to group objects to move them around. Just select the objects, then click, hold and drag on any of the selected objects. All the selected objects will move together.

NOTE: You can tell when the mouse cursor is "on" a selected object: the cursor will change from the normal arrow shape to a hand shape.

You can also use the arrow keys to move selected objects.

... select a single line, then shift-select every other line in the polygon, then hit Modify->Group. Is this correct?

Seems fine to me, although it's often easier to just drag a "rubber band" rectangle around all the objects.

... Immediately I click inside the green grid, it goes away.

Right. You have to click on some part of the object, not just within the bounding box. Watch for the mouse cursor to change to the hand shape.

... I find that sometimes I get a grid of little red dots.

The round red handles indicate "rotation mode". If you have the red handles, then click+drag on any corner handle will rotate the object. Again, you get a hint when the mouse cursor changes shape.

If you click anywhere "on" the object, it goes back to "move/scale mode" (green handles).

I prefer to disable the "click to enter rotation mode" behavior; rotation mode is still available through the toolbar.

... I also find that sometimes the whole page just greys out.

This happens when you "enter" a group object. This is just a shortcut that allows easy access to the individual objects in a group without having to ungroup, make a change to one object, then re-group.

When you "enter" a group, everything not in the group becomes grayed out and can't be accessed.

You can use the menu: Modify > Enter/Exit Group, OR you can double-click on a group to enter it. This may be how you inadvertently entered the group. Double-clicking anywhere not "on" the group will also exit.

...what is the different between grouping things, and combining them?

A group is just a collection of objects. Modify > Combine converts the objects into a single object.

Lastly, is there anywhere I should have found before posting here?

The Draw Guide is quite good, if you like a manual. There are lots of blog articles and tutorial videos around the 'net, just search for what you want to do.

http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documen ... ser_Guides

[keme]

...

...what is the different between grouping things, and combining them?

A group is just a collection of objects. Modify > Combine converts the objects into a single object.

A few practical differences:

• When you combine multiple objects, the combined object will inherit line and fill settings from one of the original objects (all components will have the same line colour and thickness, and the same fill). When you group, component objects will retain those settings individually.
• Glue points can be set on groups, but are more robust and straightforward to work with on single objects. (connectors to groups sometimes jump around a bit, e.g. when you enter a group or move components.) If you use a lot of connectors between large groups, consider combining instead, or at least reducing group complexity.
• Component objects in a group can be on different layers. Moving a group will also move hidden parts of that group (components on hidden layers).

[jhc]

Hey guys:

Just wanted to thank you for the very helpful responses to my dumb questions. Of course, once I'd read them, it was obvious what was going on.

select a single line, then shift-select every other line in the polygon, then hit Modify->Group. Is this correct?

Seems fine to me, although it's often easier to just drag a "rubber band" rectangle around all the objects.

In my case I had foolishly drawn my originals so that they couldn't be selected by a rectangular box of the type you mention, and if there is a way to draw a random polygon and say 'select everything inside this shape', I couldn't find it.

Right. You have to click on some part of the object, not just within the bounding box. Watch for the mouse cursor to change to the hand shape.

And that was the trick. I was expecting that a click anywhere within the object would operate on the whole thing. After all, if I click on one of the little green dots, none of which are anywhere near my lines, *they* operate on the whole object. I had actually found the correct behaviour (click on part of the object) myself earlier, but unfortunately this was before I had worked out how to correctly get all my lines into an object, so when I did manage to click on a line and drag it, I would drag just that line, or just a couple of lines.

Lastly, is there anywhere I should have found before posting here?

The Draw Guide is quite good, if you like a manual. There are lots of blog articles and tutorial videos around the 'net, just search for what you want to do.

I had searched the Draw Guide but didn't get any hits, so didn't look further. Now I'm halfway through it. My Googlings led nowhere helpful. I was forced to the conclusion that either I was trying to do something that no-one had ever tried before (implausible), or was so obvious to the rest of the world that I must have been having a really bad day to not 'get' it immediately (much more likely).

What I was trying to do was to draw a regular hexagon with its vertical sides aligned to the long edge of a piece of 8-1/2" by 11" paper. Both of these turned out to take a lot more effort than I was expecting.

First, is there any way to draw a regular hexagon? I found out how to draw an *irregular* one, via the Basic Shapes menu, but turning that into a regular one was too hard for me. I also found how to draw a regular pentagon.

Second, if I had used an irregular hexagon, is there any way to rotate it around its centre without using the little red buttons? If I draw a hexagon, then right-click it and go to Position and Size->Rotation, there is no obvious way to do this, because there's no radio-button available for the centre-point. That was very frustrating. I couldn't use the little red buttons because I wanted the hexagon aligned exactly on 60 degrees rotation, and the mouse control simply isn't fine enough for that - seems like half a degree is its limit. Is there any way to put an exact angle into this mode of rotation?

I ended creating six lines of the same length, and then rotating them using Position and Size->Rotation, and then dragging them by hand until they made the figure I wanted. However, it took me some time to work out that the Rotation Angle is *absolute*, not *relative*, so if I put in my desired angle of 30 degrees, I didn't get what I was hoping for.

I'd love to know how I could have done this better.

Anyway, thanks for the responses.

Jonathan

[acknak]

...I ended creating six lines of the same length, and then rotating them using Position and Size->Rotation, and then dragging them by hand until they made the figure I wanted.

This is the best way (most accurate) that I know of, as long as the end snap is active.

There are a couple of different follow-up steps you can use if you need a closed polygon: select each set of end points and Modify > Connect, or draw an irregular hexagon as a closed shape and drag the nodes to align with the ends of the lines--that is, use the lines as a scaffold for the closed polygon.

... Is there any way to put an exact angle into this mode of rotation?

Press and hold Shift while rotating with the mouse. This snaps the rotation angle to multiples of 15°.

I'd love to know how I could have done this better.

The only other trick I'm aware of is to first draw a line, then use Edit > Duplicate ... to make rotated copies of the line. Saves a bit of arithmetic getting the angles right.