in today's adobe illustrator tutorial learn exactly why the group selection
tool is an awesome and a powerful tool that you need to be using as well as
some tips and some handy functions that you probably won't hear elsewhere making
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yourself what is the big fuss about this group selection tool well firstly let's
locate where exactly it is you can find it by holding down your click over the
direct selection tool in the toolbar and you're going to notice so there is no
keyboard shortcut for this tool by default I personally think there should
be a keyboard shortcut because it's a really useful tool that I use very often
so we can actually go ahead and assign a keyboard shortcut to the group selection
tool to do that coming to edit and then keyboard
shortcuts you can find the group selection tool here and you simply type
in a keyboard shortcut that you want to be using and I don't use the line
segment tool pretty much any time in my workflow so I'm going to replace that
shortcut with the group selection one and when you ready just go ahead and
here okay and also you can give this key set file a name
so now we've actually assigned a keyboard shortcut to the group selection
tool and as you can see it does work on my keyboard so why is it so useful and
how can we use it in our workflow well firstly I've got three different
sections of circles here and I've gone ahead and group them all together and
then a group with three different sections in a group as well so when I go
to move one circle the entire group and the groups within that group move too we
can clearly see this by coming into the layers window and displayed is the main
group that everything is in and then the three subgroups this is the first
instance where the group selection tool comes in handy and I'm going to show you
other ways and other practical uses soon but let's go ahead and use the keyboard
shortcut for the group selection tool and if I click once then I can select
one object from any group if I then double click an object I will select
everything of that group but if I go ahead and triple click I can select
everything in the main group so it's one click for a single object two clicks for
the group and then three clicks for the entire group you can also hold down
shift and then click specific circles or objects that you want to click also with
the group selection tool you can actually click and drag as well which is
really handy so do remember to hold down shift to click specific objects and also
the click and drag will select everything in that selection
we can then make edits and move things around based on what we have selected
and obviously we couldn't do this normally if we're just using direct
selection tool or the selection tool when working in groups but one really
practical situation where the group selection tool comes in handy is when
we've been using clipping masks so as an example I've got my symbol here I'm
gonna select everything and then right click and then make a clipping mask
illustrators cut out the symbol using these various design objects but you
will notice the lines suggesting the shapes are still there but they're not
visible so by default if I press a for the direct selection tool I can just
select specific anchor points on the shape for this situation I prefer to use
the a group selection tool and as you can see if I click one area on the
design itself I can then click and drag to move the design around even after
having applied a clipping mask this is very very powerful and it helps say a
non-destructive workflow when working illustrator you can even click and
remove areas of the design after a clipping mask has been applied so
finally I'm going to demonstrate a really powerful keyboard shortcut
combination and that is when you've got the group selection tool in use you can
hold down the alt or the option key and this will select the direct selection
tool
and then when you release that key you have the group selection tool still in
use but also you can hold down the command or the control key and this will
activate the selection tool so you can use these three selection tools in
combination while having the group selection tool selected any use for
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your very own portfolio website so there was a rundown of the group selection
tool in Adobe Illustrator and I hope you did learn something today and you know
exactly why it is a useful tool to use in your workflow if you want to keep
learning and boosting your skills as a graphic designer
make sure to subscribe to my channel for weekly graphic design content and of
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channel have a great day and until next time design your future
today peace