A few wishes for the pile (3- Group Names)

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

-Groups have numbers… it would be nice to be able to name them.

2

If you Group some objects, then select the group and use the Name field in Properties.
I just made 8 points, selected them and Grouped them. Then I named them Bill.
Is that what you’re after?

3

Yes but it seems if the group members are named individually, their names are replaced by the group name…

4

Hi Cairn- SetGroupName.

-Pascal

5

I get a different result here, if i have two objects named A and B and Group them, there name does not change, even when i use SetGroupName and name the group eg. C.

c.

6

Thanks. It would be good if the Group Name was exposed somehow- maybe new item below ‘Name’ in the Object properties panel. At the moment, the only way I can find the group name is in the ‘Details’ list at the bottom of the same (OP) panel.
MockUp:

1 Like
7

Hi cairn, _SelGroup shows an overview of all groups and allows to select from there. The additional display in properties would be useful too.

c.

8

Thanks that’s useful.
This dialog would be a good place to be able to rename groups…
Wonder what the ‘select’ button does?

9

I guess it does nothing. It seems to be a leftover from the SelName dialog where you can aquire the name from one object and all with the same name get selected. Unlike object names, group names are unique. It would be a good place for a Rename button :smiley:

c.

10

Well, that is certainly lame. We’ll fix it.
http://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-28345

But rather than put group Renaming in the SelGroup command, it really seems like there needs to be a sort of group manager panel to consolidate all operations for groups. Somehow I doubt, at this point, that it is something that will get into V6 ,but one never knows.

-Pascal

4 Likes
11

That would suit my needs Pascal. From reading other threads, it seems there are two user groups in this respect:

  1. Manufacturers/specifiers who are working from a repeatedly used
    library of parts, week in, week out (maybe even year in, year out).
    For them, Blocks are the way to go.
  2. ‘Light’ users and single-project
    users who don’t have a set library of parts that they will use on a
    regular basis, so it isn’t worth the hassle of setting up and managing Blocks.
    However, a more powerful set of tools based on Groups would still be
    useful. A kind of ‘BlockLite’, if you will.

Being able to nest Groups and retain the names of items within the nested Groups would be very useful for me. Adding buttons to the SelectGroup panel above that allowed you to expand nested groups (much like Layers) and extract an item from within a nested Group, edit it and then return it to that Group would be great. It could work very nicely in unison with your Isolate script. Drag and drop within the SelectGroup panel would also be a nice feature. SelName could also step forward and be counted in the same toolset.
Oh, and please make the panels permanently dockable. Repeatedly calling SelName drives me mad!

12

One thing which i found less pretty with groups.

  • create 2 boxes, select both
  • group them
  • group again

it creates two groups which always has been like that. But why ? There is nothing new inside the first group and nothing has been added to the group. I often get files from various sources where i first ungroup, then explode, then i see the exploded surfaces are still grouped… often 2-3 times. I guess these must come from users which either double click the group button or felt a sleep on the keyboard while hitting CTRL+G. :wink:

Funny thing is that when _RemoveFromGroup is used on one of the boxes it is removed from all groups.

c.

13

i did not even know groups could be nested because i never used them only recently. yeah group manager would be a cool thing. i rather call it “container” - independent object which is just like a block but without repetition.
group names seem to be really behind the scenes thing when only way how to set and see that is through setgroupname command and viewdetails…

14

Hi Ivan -

In the Rhino 8 WIP, there’s the Object Manager panel (which will change its name at some point). This one also shows groups in the document. It’s still very early in the development of this and I see that it doesn’t support nested groups at this point. I placed that on the list as RH-66499.
-wim