Selecting and moving layers

- Managing the stacking order of your layers is very important for the overall presentation of whatever it is you're working on. So in this movie I'm going to show you how to select and move multiple layers at a given time. This is actually pretty easy to do. All you have to do is know where the bracket keys are on your keyboard. Those are the square brackets right outside of the letter P on a Mac keyboard. And so what we're going to do here, let's say that we wanted to select this Status Bar at the top but also the Top Bar because both of these move sort of in unison. See, if I turn that off and then that off, see how they're both kind of connected, so I want to move both of them at the same time.

In order to select both of them, I just need one of them selected, then I can throw in shift, option or alt, and the left bracket key. The left bracket key with those modifiers held down allows you to select the object directly beneath the current object you have selected. In this case, I have a group selected, so it selects the next group underneath it. And I can continue selecting just by repeating that keyboard shortcut. I can also grab the topmost object by throwing in the right bracket key. So I can select everything right there and it makes it easy for me just to drag these back down and put them inside of that Artboard group.

Super easy, right? Now, what about individual layers? Well it works much the same way. Let's go ahead and move Time Management, let's see Time Management here. Say we needed to select it and the Invenstment and move those down in the stacking order. So let's go shift, option or alt, and the left bracket key, that selects both of them, then to move them back in the stacking order, you're going to hold down the command or control key and the left bracket to move them down. See how they're moving? Or the right bracket to move them back up. Makes it super easy for you to move things around without actually having to look at the Layers panel.

Once you get confident with these keyboard shortcuts, I guarantee you won't need the Layers panel out here to see what it's doing, you'll just be able to move things, group things, and select things without even worrying about it.