Spaced-OoooO-Out ::

Grouping objects should be one of those things that is - well - easy to do! In Microsoft Word you Ctrl select each object, then right-click and select “Group”. Easy. In Visual Studio 2012, not so. You would have thought that, in Microsoft’s prime programming environment, these simple layout tasks would be easy, but thy’re not and it’s not documented anywhere. In my particular instance I was creating a SQL Server Reporting Services report where images in the template were moving depending on the number of rows in the output. The solution was to group the images together.

The grouping concept is sensible and well implemented, it’s just that working out how to do it is difficult! You actually have to insert a new rectangle object and then drag-and-drop the objects you want to group in to it. Once you’ve done this, the properties of your contained objects should look something similar to this where the “Parent” attribute under “Other” shows “Rectangle”. Now if you move the group, they all move. Job done!