Group objects to maintain their relative arrangement and size when you use the Positioning tool to move and resize them. Lock front panel objects to prevent them from being moved, resized, or deleted.

You can set objects to be grouped and locked at the same time.

Grouping and locking objects affects how they appear when you select the objects. Grouping and locking objects also influences how, and whether, you can delete the objects.

Object Type Appearance When Selected Deletion Behavior
Grouped objects Group is highlighted with a yellow and black dotted line. Only the entire group can be deleted. Ungroup to delete an individual object.
Locked objects Objects are highlighted with a gray and black dotted line. Must unlock to delete.
Grouped and locked objects Group is highlighted with a gray and black dotted line. Must both ungroup and unlock to delete.

Tools other than the Positioning tool work normally with grouped or locked objects.

To group, ungroup, lock, or unlock front panel objects, complete the following steps.

  1. Select the objects with the Positioning tool by dragging an area around the objects or holding down Shift while clicking each object.
    You cannot use the Shift-click method to select objects that are locked.
  2. Click the Reorder button (Curved arrows depicting a circular flow.) and select Group, Ungroup, Lock, or Unlock from the pull-down menu.
    Note When you group overlapping or layered objects, the objects that you select to group move to the same layer that the frontmost object in the group occupies.
  3. To change the relative arrangement of objects within the group, select Ungroup, rearrange the objects, and then select Group.