Paul,
All you have to do to select the object(s) you want to manipulate is simply select them on the page with a selection tool. You don't have to tediously dig through the so-called Layers palette. Selecting an object on the page will show it as selected in the Layers palette. But you don't have to select things "by Layer" anyway.
It sounds like you are making things difficult by assuming too much dependency on the Layers palette, or even over-using Layers in the first place. This is one of the most common conceptual points of confusion among newcomers to vector-based drawing, having only experience in raster imaging.
The best single piece of advice someone can offer a newcomer to vector graphics is this: Forget Photoshop.
You're now in the "other half" of the computer graphics world, and those two separate "hemispheres" are radically and fundamentally different. Layers is one of the most common stumbling blocks because those only accustomed to raster imaging bring with them a preconception of what a Layer is, and assume it's the same thing in a vector-based program. It's not.
For a physical analogy to raster imaging, think of this:
Suppose you want to paint one of those "visible human" illustrations commonly found in physical encyclopedias. So you:
- Start with stack of same-size transparent plastic sheets, bound together along the left edge.
- On the rearmost sheet, you tediously paint each of the major structural bones.
- You flip over the previous sheet, and, on it, you paint a bunch of internal organs.
- Flip over the previous sheet, and, on it, you paint the bones of the rib cage.
- Flip over the previous sheet and paint the muscles.
- Flip over the previous sheet and paint the skin.
And so on...Now what have you got? A stack of a few same-size "transparencies." Those are the only objects in the document. The individual bones and organs are not individual objects at all; they're just painted regions on a manageably few sheets of transparency film. Those "films" are necessary for the final appearance of the artwork.
For a physical analogy to vector drawing think of this:
- Start with a deck of photos, a ball of string, a few sheets of colored paper, and a scissors,
- Using the scissors, cut the sheets of paper into randomly-shaped pieces. Cut holes in some of them. Cut some of them into the shapes of letters.
- Cut the string into a bunch of random-length pieces. Tie some of the pieces into closed loops, leave other pieces open-ended.
- Cut some of the photos in half. Cut some others into quarters.
- Toss all of the pieces and bits into a paper bag, Close and shake vigorously. Then dump the contents onto a table.
Now what have you got? A pile of many individual objects made of different stuff, spread across an area. Some of them overlap, and are therefore partially hidden. Some of them are scattered away from the majority and are wholly visible. But none of them are attached to the same "transparency film" because there are no transparency films. You can individually rearrange, rotate, and restack (reorder) each and every colored shape, piece of string, letter, photo, or piece of photo.
Now think of the difference here in terms of "layers." In the raster analogy, you've got a few transparency films. Each film looks like it has a bunch of individual objects, but it doesn't. Those are just painted regions on a single piece of film. So Layers have a direct bearing on the appearance of the composition.
But in the "vector" analogy, each shape, each string, each photo, each piece of a photo is an actual, discrete object. They're not even attached to each other by film. There is no film.
Now, think about the significance of that:
In the vector environment there are no layers in the raster-based sense. There's just a stack of loose, independent objects created in a particular order and are "in front" of each other in that order. If you want, you can call each of those objects a "Layer," and list them in a palette, but what's the point? Compared to painting in a raster program, that's going to be a long list to scroll through, and whether portions of that same stack order are labeled "Layers" or not has no bearing on the appearance of the composition.
Suppose you want a particular five of those independent objects to be on top of the rest of the stack. You can pick up those five, one at a time, and hold them in one hand. With your other hand, you can record that list of five objects and call the list a Group. In your hand, they are still individual objects stacked in a given order. With that hand, you can then set them back down on top of the pile on the table in one move. You can later tell the software to refer to that list (the Group) and automatically select its other members whenever you select any one of the five, thereby making it automatic to move, rotate, scale, etc. that Group of objects all at once.
Or, you could do this:
You could select the same five objects, list them, call the List a "Layer" instead of a Group, and store that list name in another list called the Layers palette. Now when you select one of the five objects, the other four are not selected. To do that, you would have to refer to the list and "target" the Layer.
But here's the thing: Whether you call it a "Group" or a "Layer," those five objects still have an order within that set of five. One of those five is still "above" the other four. One is still "below" the other four. And you can still re-order those five objects any way you wish, within that Group or Layer.
Also, whether it's a Group or a Layer, the five objects are still next to each other (contiguous) within the overall object stack of the whole document.
So logically, Layers and Groups are much the same thing: Just a pair of referential "brackets" or "parentheses" around a portion of a list of objects. One could say Layers is more geared toward document organization, while Groups is more geared toward manipulation convenience. But they're still the same kind of logical construct.
Suppose your document contains 3000 objects. Suppose you don't use any Groups at all and you only use the one automatically-created (thereby "mandated") Layer. Your document still contains 3000 discrete objects and they are all still in an ordered stack. Using Groups and Layers is entirely optional.
In fact, there is nothing at all wrong with building your entire document in one Layer. I (and I'm sure many other long-timers) quite commonly do so.
This may come as a shock: For many years, mainstream vector drawing programs only listed Layers in their Layers palettes. (What a concept!)
Somewhere along the way, some company got the bright-eyed idea to also list all the individual objects which are within the Layers in the Layer's palette...but kept its label unchanged. And other programs (stupidly) followed in lockstep. This faux pas leads newcomers to think that each object is a "Layer" just like in Photoshop.
When a program insists on listing all objects in the Layers palette, it should be called the Object Stack, or just the Objects List, because the vast majority of what you see listed in the Layers palette are not Layers; they are just objects.
This has led to endless confusion among new users, especially those engrained with the Layers concept of programs like Photoshop.
JET
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