Jan Nademlejnsky sends us a tip on using groups for faster, more precise object selections. He has created custom commands and buttons for the task, which he discusses here. He was inspired by another CAD Tip, "View Portions of Complex Models," which he expands on with this great tip.

"I use groups to group related objects or subassemblies together. I created a special toolbar (Jan's Group) with three buttons:

^C^C_group — to activate group dialog to Create New, Add, Remove Object
Pickstyle 0; — so each object is selectable on its own
Pickstyle 1; — all objects in that group are selected with one click.

The picture below illustrates the process of creating a new button:

"You have a gearbox assembly, for example. You create one group called Gears and another group called Box. All these gears may be on many different layers, so it is difficult to hide or show a complex assembly. Click button Pickstyle 1, click on any gear (all of the gears in the group are selected now), then hold down Shift and initiate Orbit as per the 'View Portions of Complex Models' tip."

Notes from Cadalyst Tip Patrol: This tip uses all sorts of tricks to get the job done. Jan created a custom set of commands and put them in a toolbar for easy use. Then he grouped his drawing objects with the Group command, thereby organizing the data in his model. He uses the groups as a selection set to isolate them to view them more clearly. Once the selection set is established, he uses another CAD Tip that tells us how to select and view objects quickly. Sometimes CAD tips use more than one or two commands, and are very creative, just like this one.