Grouping

Grouping wraps the selection into a new adopting parent: a group (a logical, layout-free container) or a container (a frame). It is the canonical per-partition command — a cross-parent selection produces one wrapper per partition, never a single wrapper that re-parents across the tree. Ungroup is its inverse: dissolve one wrapper and promote its children.

The keys are in the keybindings sheet: Mod+G group, Mod+Alt+G group with container, Mod+Shift+G ungroup.

Wrap

group and group with container are the same operation over a different target kind. Given the selection's partition:

• Per partition, one wrapper. Each partition is wrapped into one new node of the chosen kind, adopting that partition's members. Members from different parents never merge into one wrapper — the operation does not re-parent across partitions.
• World position preserved. The wrapper is placed at the union bounds of its partition's members, and each member is re-anchored into the wrapper's frame so its rendered position does not move.
• Order preserved. Members enter the wrapper in their prior document sibling order, and the wrapper takes the z-position of the partition's frontmost member — the group lands where the selection was, not on top of everything.
• Selection retargets to the new wrapper(s).

The two kinds differ only in what the wrapper is: a group carries no layout and exists to move/organize its children as a unit; a container is a frame with its own bounds, clip, and layout capacity. Turning that container's layout on is auto-layout, which is grouping-into-container plus a guessed flex layout.

Ungroup

ungroup dissolves a single group (or boolean-operation node — see boolean) and promotes its children:

• Children re-parent to the wrapper's parent, re-anchored so their world position is unchanged.
• They take the wrapper's z-position, in their existing order — the dissolved group's slot is filled by its former children.
• It is the exact inverse of a single-partition wrap: wrap then ungroup returns to the starting tree and geometry.

Ungroup operates on one wrapper (the selection is that wrapper), not on a partition — dissolving is the removal of a parent, which has no per-partition fan-out. A container is not dissolved by ungroup; its frame is meaningful content, removed by deleting it and promoting its children as a distinct act.

Root, scene, and refusal

Scene/root-level members form the scene partition and wrap normally, unless the scene constrains its children to a single child, in which case the wrap is refused for that partition rather than violating the constraint (see selection-partition, PART-5).

Contracts

• GRP-1 Wrap per partition: group / group with container wraps each selection partition into one new parent of the chosen kind (group or container), adopting only that partition's members; a cross-parent selection yields one wrapper per partition and never re-parents across partitions.
• GRP-2 World position preserved: each wrapped member's rendered position is unchanged — the wrapper is placed at its partition's union bounds and members are re-anchored into the wrapper's frame.
• GRP-3 Order & depth preserved: members enter the wrapper in prior document sibling order, and the wrapper takes the z-position of its partition's frontmost member.
• GRP-4 Ungroup inverse: ungroup dissolves one group (or boolean) node, re-parenting its children to the wrapper's parent at the wrapper's z-position with world position preserved; wrap-then-ungroup restores the starting tree and geometry exactly.
• GRP-5 Selection retarget: after a wrap the selection is the new wrapper(s); after ungroup the selection is the promoted children.
• GRP-6 Refusal: a wrap that would violate a scene's single-child constraint is refused for that partition (PART-5); the rest of the command still applies to the partitions that can wrap.

Deferred, named: mixed-kind selections for ungroup (only groups and booleans dissolve; containers are content, removed by deletion), and the auto-layout variant of the container wrap, owned by auto-layout.