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5.Press Esc to deselect the objects and remove the grips. Now you’ll try the same thing using the FILTER command, but add a level of complexity.

6.Type filter . The Object Selection Filters dialog box opens.

7.In the Select Filter drop-down list, choose Text. Click Add to List. At the top, the filter reads Object = Text.

8.From the Select Filter drop-down list, choose **Begin AND (this is toward the bottom of the list) and click Add to List.

9.From the Select Filter drop-down list, choose Color. In the drop-down list next to X: choose ! = (not equal). Choose Select. In the Select Color dialog box, choose BYLAYER. Click OK. In the Object Selection Filters dialog box, choose Add to List. The BYLAYER color number displays as 256. (Layers and colors are covered in the next chapter.)

10.Say that you want to select only the smaller text, not the heading at the bottom of the drawing, and you know that the larger text’s height is greater than .1 but the smaller text’s height is smaller than .1. From the Select Filter drop-down list, choose Text Height. From the X: drop-down list choose < (less than). In the text box to the right of X:, type .1. Choose Add to List.

11.From the Select Filter drop-down list, choose **End AND and click Add to List.

12.In the Save As text box, type bad text. Click Save As. The Object Selection Filters dialog box should look like the following:

Object = Text **Begin AND

Color !=256 - ByLayer Text Height < 0.100000 **End AND

13.Click Apply.

14.At the Select objects: prompt, type all . The prompt tells you that 469 objects were found, and 467 were filtered out. Press Enter until you get the Command prompt.

15.Choose Color Control from the Object Properties toolbar. Choose ByLayer from the drop-down list. The two text objects change to the BYLAYER layer — they turn blue like all the other text.

16.Save your drawing.

As you can see, Quick Select is much easier to use than the FILTER command for all but quite complex filters, but the FILTER command offers more control.

Groups

Groups let you save a selection set of objects so that you can easily select them whenever you need to edit them. If you have a certain set of objects that you need to edit as a group, and a busy drawing that makes their selection time-consuming, groups are for you. After you set up the group, you pick any object in the group to automatically select all the objects in the group.

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Note	Although both AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT include the group feature, the dialog box for creating
	and managing groups is different for AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. Over the next few sections,
	be sure to note which program I’m discussing.

Creating and modifying groups in AutoCAD

To create or modify a group, type group on the command line to open the Object Grouping dialog box, as shown in Figure 10-45.

Figure 10-45: The Object Grouping dialog box.

Creating a new group

To create a new group in AutoCAD, follow these steps.

1.Type a name in the Group Name text box. You can use a maximum of 31 characters with no spaces. You can use the hyphen (-) and underscore (_) anywhere in the name.

2.If you want, type a description of up to 448 characters. The description can include spaces.

3.Click New. AutoCAD returns you to your drawing with the Select objects: prompt. Select the objects you want to be in the group. Press Enter to end object selection. AutoCAD returns you to the dialog box.

4.Click OK.

You can now use your group.

Note An object can belong to more than one group.

The Group Identification section of the Object Grouping dialog box also has a Find Name button. Use this to find the name of the group to which an object belongs. AutoCAD lets you select an object and then lists the group’s name or names.

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The Highlight button highlights a group. First choose a group from the list in the Object Grouping dialog box. Click Highlight and AutoCAD returns to your drawing and highlights all the objects in your group. Click Continue to return to the dialog box. Use this when you aren’t sure which group you want to work with.

Changing a group

The Change Group section of the Object Grouping dialog box gives you a great deal of flexibility in managing groups. To change a group in AutoCAD, click any existing group in the Group Name list at the top of the dialog box. The buttons in the Change Group section all become active. You can do the following:

Remove: AutoCAD switches to the drawing area with the Select objects to remove from group . . . prompt. Select objects to remove and press Enter to end object removal. AutoCAD returns you to the dialog box. Click OK.

Add: AutoCAD switches to the drawing area with the Select objects to add to group . . . prompt. Select objects to add and press Enter to end object selection. AutoCAD returns you to the dialog box. Click OK.

Rename: Choose the group you want to rename. Change the name in the Group Name text box. Click Rename. The name changes in the Group Name list at the top of the dialog box. Click OK.

Re-Order: Each group in the object has a number, starting from zero. In rare cases, the order may be important to you — for example, if you’re running a program that processes the members of a group. Choose the group you want to reorder. Click Re-Order. AutoCAD opens the Order Group dialog box. If you simply want to reverse the order of all the objects, click Reverse Order. Otherwise, click Highlight. AutoCAD opens a small Object Grouping message box with Next and Previous buttons. At the bottom-right corner, the box displays Object: 0, and one of the objects in the group is highlighted. Click Next to move from object to object. If you’re going to reorder the objects, you probably need to write down the number of each object. Click OK to return to the Order Group dialog box. Complete the following text boxes:

•Remove from position: This text box is the position number of the object you want to move.

•Replace at position: This text box is the new position number you want for the object.

•Number of objects: This text box is the object number or range of numbers you want to reorder.

Description: Updates a description for the group. Type a new description in the Group Identification section of the dialog box. Then click Description.

Explode: Removes the group entirely. All the objects remain in your drawing, but they are no longer grouped.

Selectable: Toggles the selectability of the group. If a group is selectable, selecting one object of the group selects the entire group. If a group is not selectable, selecting one object of the group does not select the entire group. This option lets you temporarily work with one object in the group without having to explode the group. You can also press Ctrl+Shift+A to toggle the selectability of the group.

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Tip	When you choose Highlight from the Order Group dialog box, the Object Grouping message
	box opens in the middle of the screen, covering your objects. Drag it to one corner of the
	screen so that you can see which objects are being highlighted.

Creating and modifying groups in AutoCAD LT

To create or modify a group in AutoCAD LT, choose Tools Group Manager to open the Group Manager window, as shown in Figure 10-46. You can dock this window by dragging to the top or bottom of the drawing area.

Figure 10-46: Use the Group Manager window to create and manage groups in AutoCAD LT.

Creating a new group

To create a new group in AutoCAD LT, follow these steps.

1.With the Group Manager open, select the objects that you want to include in the group. (An object can belong to more than one group.)

2.Click the Create Group button. An empty box appears under the Group column of the Group Manager.

3.Type a name for your group and press Enter. You can use a maximum of 31 characters with no spaces. You can use the hyphen (-) and underscore (_) anywhere in the name.

4.If you want, click in the Description column and add a description for your group.

A light bulb appears in the Selectable column to indicate that the group is selectable (that is, functioning as a group). To close the Group Manager, click its Close button at

the upper-right corner of the window. You can now use your group.

Changing a group in AutoCAD LT

Use the Group Manager toolbar to manage your groups. To work with your groups, click any existing group. You can then do the following:

Ungroup: Deletes the group. All the group’s objects become individual objects again.

Add to Group: Select an object or objects not in the group and click this button to add the selected object or objects to the group.

Remove from Group: To remove an object from a group, click the Selectable icon. You can now choose individual objects in the group without selecting the entire group. Click in your drawing and pick the object that you want to remove. Then click the Remove from Group button.