Merging and Grouping problems

[Shay5F9A]

Hi all. I'm pretty new at illustrator, but I have made other attempts to teach mysef before and have some knowledge.

Back in 2017, and with that illustrator version, things were simple. I highlighted all of the overlapping objects, and grouped them with the path finder tool, and the  I could move them all together by just clicking the body of one part (yes, the objects are filled). Likewise with merge--I ended up being able to move things made with multiple shapes without have to highlighting all parts all over again (which gets increasingle frustrating as layers build up etc).

I just got illustrator again, the newest version. I've watched several videos recently made on youtube and elsewhere, all showing its easy as pie and just like my previous experience.

However, when I follow the same steps, the only thing that "grouping" changes is adding an "ungroup" option in the object menu." And all that merging does is eliminate the strokes where the objects overlap. Either way, I'm forced to reselect all of the parts to move them as one.

I figure I must be missing some incredibly simple thing. I have not fooled with any preferences or anything.

plz help!

Thanks.

[Shay5F9A]

edit: did not "group" with pathfinder tool (obviously) but merged. Tried to group with object menu.

[Doug A Roberts]

What selection tool are you using?

[Shay5F9A · Accepted solution]

wow great question. for some reason I inconsciously ised direct selection as a default! The standard selection tool seems to have generally solved the issue so far. thank you so much.

If you don't mind, could you give a brief summary of the different uses of these 2 selection tools? I know everything in illustrator can be expounded upon for centuries (or at least that's how it feels), so  just a general thing would suffice.

[Doug A Roberts · Accepted solution]

See here for an overview:

https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/illustrator/using/selecting-objects.html#select_groups_and_objects_in_a_g...