I have encountered a situation with groups where I cannot edit the properties of a selected group. Specifically,
select a group
select Edit Text and Graphic Properties from the Edit menu
select Reference designators in Scope
select Values in Scope
select Only include selected items in Filters
select Set to specified values in Actions
deselect Visible in Actions
click ok
The action doesn’t appear to change anything though the group is selected. My assumption is that when I select a group I have also selected the individual members of that group but this does not appear to be the case.
Is there a way to achieve this in 5.99? If I ungroup the items and then select them individually I can make the edit but that really limits a potential useful utility of grouping.
There may be other use, too, for “Enter Recursively” or something like that. I don’t know if that’s logically possible, I’m not very familiar with grouping.
This whole grouping thing is quite new. It is a feature only in KiCad-nightly V5.99.
For this recent thread:
I also found a way that did what OP wanted, but it feels like the functionality of editing and/or working with groups can be improved.
With groups you also have the problem that it can contain different sorts of items. For example, if I select a pad and then press e for edit, I get to edit Pad Properties:
However, if I select both a pad and a track and press e, then KiCad appears to get confused and it does not know which dialog to show.
I assume that the grouping is just a method for making the group, and it only affects the way things get selected, and it does not change the way that operations on a selection work.
From a UI perspective, why is it necessary to “Enter Group” in order to do an operation on the members of the group? Seems more logical to treat it like a selection?
Yes, I believe there may be a couple issues though.
First, if you do not select the “Only include selected items” filter to limit the action, then your action appears to affect other (unselected) components on the board as well.
Second, if some of the components are in a nested group, they are unaffected.
And it indeed does not work. It does work however if you omit the Only include selected items in Filters.
I guess that in combination with a group this dialog works on the whole group, and with the Only include selected items in Filters, there must be a separate selection inside the group for it to operate on, and therefore the necessity to enter the group and select things. (Oops. Read on)
But I have no idea how well tested or how well thought out this part of code with the grouping is.
[Edit]
Indeed. I can confirm this.
For me, the logical behavior of Pcbnew / Edit / Edit Text & Graphics Properties … with Filter / [v] Only include selected items and a group is selected, that it then would operate on all items in the group. And this is not the way it currently works.
