Inspiring

Question

Layers Panel: be able to Group two Objects that are already in a Group with more than two objects

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
February 21, 2025
3 replies
1064 views

I have already posted this in UserVoice, but cross-posting here so others can see my workaround. And who knows, maybe suggest a better workaround?

I am creating flowcharts within InDesign as it seems to work better for me than in Illustrator. The Layers Panel allows me to do this. But I really, really wish I didn't have to do this workaround. These are my personal notes for future reference:
Grouping for complex assemblages of objects: creating a new group
This is needed because the Layers Panel won't allow you to group items deep in the Layers Panel, only if they're at the top level; you can't create a "Group within a Group."
- Use Layers Panel
- Keep two objects (doesn't matter what) off the page named "Dummy Object," select them with the mouse, then Menu > Object > Group
- Rename this to what you want your group's name to be
- Drag TWO OR MORE objects or groups into this group
- Drag the two Dummy Objects to the top of the Layers panel
to get them out of the group
- Drag the new group to the right position in the Layers panel

Feature request

Robert at ID-Tasker

Brainiac

But it's possible to UNGROUP objects that are grouped and are part of the group - without the need to ugroup everything - or moving this group out of the group and back:

Robert at ID-Tasker

Brainiac

And it looks like it's not possible to add new elements to groups through scripting...

Add() does nothing - no errors - move() accepts only (x,y), Page, Spread or Layer.

keithconoverAuthor

Inspiring

Here's why I was perseverating about this. I will not tell you how long it took me to make this in a way that (a was true to the original, b) pleasing to the eye, c) easy to understand, and d) easy to tweak or adapt for a new or changed triage system. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Final result:

Layers Panel, collapsed:

Layers Panel, expanded:

I hope that at least one other person finds this helpful. And if you're wondering how I made the diamonds for the flowchart without moving over to Illustrator:

Each diamond is a Groupof two text frames, one to hold the actual text in the diamond, the other to form the diamond.
1. Create a square frame.
2. Give it a one-pixel border
3. Object > Transform > Rotate 45 degrees
4. Object > Transform > Scale > [unlink X and Y scaling] > Scale Y to 50%

James Gifford—NitroPress

Brainiac

Maybe I'm misreading this, but my takeaway is that you want layers and grouping to be so... malleable that there's a diminished reason to use either.

I wouldn't disagree that the overall logic and limits could use some top-down TLC and reordering, but I don't really want entities to be able to "flow" from layer to layer and group to group, or create hybrid version that bridge either.

I have a flowchart doc I've developed over the years that gives me about 100 elements to pick and choose and build from. It lets me work fast with all the tools ID offers, for relatively small and occasional needs. (I do a lot of "illustration" in ID as well, just from... combined quirks of habit and skill.) But for the intersection of wanting to to charts in ID, it does take a lot of fairly manual operations. If I really need flowcharting that is fluid and automatic in the way the best apps present it, well... I use those apps. 🙂

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Well, I for one would like to be able to revisit a group and do some further organizing by selecting objects already in that group and making a subgroup from them without having to ungroup first. I find myself going back and reorganising "building blocks" after I've done a preliminary iteration of a new design.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Brainiac

You can crate separate groups - then group them together.

Group is like any other graphic object - can be grouped with other objects.

Unless I'm missing something?

Robert at ID-Tasker

Brainiac

And I've regrouped everything - doing drag&drop in the Layers pallet:

keithconoverAuthor

Inspiring

First, a digression that will make sense in a bit. As fas as programming language design, there are those like Pascal or Modula-2 that were designed to be "self-commenting." That means that when you go back a year later to try to figure out how to tweak your program, it's pretty easy. Then, there are languages like APL that are designed for getting the job done quickly and screw the commenting. And when you try to go back a year later and tweak and reuse the code? You realize why some people called APL a "write-only" language.

OK, so in my textbook I did some text-heavy flowcharts for triage systems in InDesign rather than Illustrator. And I wanted to tweak them. And I realized that, when I looked at them in the Layers Panel, they looked a lot like APL code. So I decided to clean them up, to basically change them from APL to Modula-2 or Pascal. (I would tell you how long it is taking me but I would be very embarrassed.)

One of the things that occur frequently in flowcharts are lines with an arrowhead and the word "Yes" or "No" attached to them. Of course in my original, each line and word "Yes" or "No" were not grouped together. So, in the picture below, I'm trying to group the word "Yes" and it's line together. I've selected both of them. But, presumably because they're both already in a Group, I can't group them together in a subgroup: the menu item "Group" is grayed out. (Right-clicking won't work either.) I did figure out, eventually, that I can just drag them out of the group to where they're right under the top Layer in the Layers panel and then group them, no need for Dummy Objects.

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