Grouping screens

Group names and the {group} token

A group's name becomes part of what its members are called. Put "Riser 1" into a group called "Upstage" and it shows as "Upstage Riser 1" on the info box, in the exports and down the panel. Rename the group and every member follows.

The way that works is visible in the name field. Joining a group writes {group} into the object's name, and that stands in for whatever the group is called. So the field reads "{group} Riser 1" and the map reads "Upstage Riser 1".

It's yours to move. Put it anywhere in the name and it resolves there: "Front - {group} / 5" comes out as "Front - Upstage / 5". Delete it and the screen keeps its own name, still grouped, still laid out with the rest. That's the one to use for screens the crew already calls something.

Numbering stays inside the group, so "Riser 1" in Upstage and "Riser 1" in Downstage can both exist. If the number you arrive with is already taken in that group, it climbs to the next free one.

Laying a group out in a row or a column

One control on the group header, three states. A new group's screens move on their own: they share a name and sit in one block on the panel, but they're packed one at a time like any other screen. Click the control and they lay out in a row, left to right, with a new one landing at the end of the line. Click again and they stack top to bottom. Click once more and they move on their own again.

That's the default, because grouping two screens says they belong together, not that they belong in a row. It's also the setting to stay on for a front and bottom banner pair repeated five times across a show, where every pair belongs together but none of them belong side by side.

The direction also decides where a copy of the whole group ends up. A group that stacks is a tall block, and Optimize fills from the top left, so the copy takes the free space beside it rather than the space below. Two columns, from one setting. Room is what decides it, so on a narrow canvas the copy still drops below.

Where a group lands on the canvas

A screen joining a group that's set to a row or a column moves over to sit with the others, because that's what grouping them says. A pinned screen doesn't: the pin is you saying where it goes, and joining a group is no reason to overrule it.

Optimize works out the group's shape and then finds it a spot, and it does those in that order. The shape is the screens laid along the group's direction, in the order the cards are in, wrapping when the line runs past the canvas. It depends on nothing else, so a group is the same shape wherever it ends up.

Then the block gets a spot, filling from the top left, exactly like a single screen. A group is packed the way anything else is.

Because the shape is worked out fresh each time, a resize sorts itself out. Make one screen narrower and the next moves up to it; make it wider and the next steps aside. There's no gap to chase and nothing to tidy by hand.

Reordering the cards inside a group changes the order along the line, so it's also how you move a screen within the group without taking it off the line.

Pin a screen and it stays exactly where it is. In a group with a direction set it also leaves the shape, and the rest of the group lays out from where it sits. That's how you put a screen somewhere by hand: type its X and Y, or use the pin, and the others arrange themselves around it. Two screens placed by hand and one flowing is a perfectly ordinary state, and it's how you build an L.

The pin on the group header holds everything in it: nothing inside moves, and Optimize packs the rest of the canvas around it.

A group only occupies the screens in it, not the box around them. Leave a corner empty and something else can use it.

When the block has nowhere to go, nothing moves at all. The screens stay where they are and the warnings tell you what's overlapping or over the edge, rather than the group being shoved somewhere it doesn't belong.

In the Optimize menu, and anywhere else screens are counted, a pinned group counts as one thing however many screens are in it.

Duplicating a group

The copy button on the group header duplicates everything in it. You get a new group named off the old one ("Upstage" becomes "Upstage 2"), the same screens in the same shape, next to the original if there's room for it. Nothing else on the canvas moves. Screens you placed by hand keep their pins, so the copy really is a copy.

Members keep their own names. The group name is already part of what they're called, so "Upstage Riser 1" and "Upstage 2 Riser 1" are two different screens with nothing typed. Rename the copy to "Downstage" and every member follows.

The copy keeps the direction as well, which is what makes building one side first worth it: set stage left to stack, fill it, duplicate, rename to stage right.

Deleting a group

The bin on the group header deletes the group, not the screens. Everything in it drops back to ungrouped and stays exactly where it is on the canvas. An empty group is fine to leave sitting there, which is what you have for a moment anyway while you drag the first screen in.