Gobe Productive User's Guide - Arranging, Grouping & Locking Items

- Working in the graphics environment
- Drawing tools
- Pre-defined Shapes
- Pen Attributes
- Fill Color
- Text Color
- Customizing inks
- Customizing ink sets
- Transparency
- Moving items
- Resizing & Rotating items
- Aligning Items
- Reshaping, reorienting & smoothing shapes
- Arranging, grouping & locking items
- Creating Outlines
- Views & Layers
- Styles

# Arranging, Grouping, & Locking Items

Arrange Items | Group Items | Ungroup Items | Lock Items

Arrangement refers to the stacking of items in three dimensions. Because graphics are such a fundamental aspect of the Gobe Productive suite, frames as well as graphic shapes can be stacked and grouped. Consider the following examples.

In this example, a spreadsheet frame is stacked on top of a rounded box graphic with a gradient fill. Both of these are then stacked on top of a yellow box with a black border.

In this grouping example, three shapes are grouped together to form one graphic item. You can group frames with other frames and graphic items.

## To Arrange Items

1. Select the item where you wish to change the stacking arrangement.
2. From the Arrange menu select the stacking position where you wish to place the item.

> - Bring to Front: Places the selected item on the top of an item stack. Whatever item was on top before is moved back one level.
> - Send to Back: Places the selected item on the bottom of an item stack. Whatever item was on the bottom before is moved ahead one level.
> - Move Forwards: Moves the selected item one level forward in a stack. If you have five items, and the selected item is on the third-level, this would swap the third and second items.
> - Move Backwards: Moves the selected item one level backward. For example, if you had five stacked items, and the selected item was on the third level, this action would swap the third and fourth items.

> The following diagram illustrates the arrange actions.

## To Group Items

1. Select more than one item. If you hold down the [SHIFT] key you can click on the items you want to select.
2. From the Arrange menu, select Group. The selected items are grouped into one item.
3. If you included a frame in the group, you will have to ungroup the items to activate the frame.

## To Ungroup Items

1. Select the grouped item.
2. From the Arrange menu, select Ungroup. The grouped items are separated.

## To Lock Items

When an item is locked, it cannot be moved, selected, or activated. Locking is useful for fixing the placement of an item on a page. For example, it is useful to lock down background items so you do not accidentally select them while working on foreground items.

1. Select the item or group you wish to lock.
2. From the Arrange menu, select Lock. The item is locked. If you attempt to move or resize the item, the cursor will change to a small lock icon.
3. To unlock a locked item, select the item and then select Unlock from the Arrange menu.

Copyright © 1999, Gobe Software, Inc
1 - Windows® and the Windows logo are registered trademarks of the Microsoft® Corporation.