About Positioning Components
While inserting a component (part or a subassembly) into an assembly, you can position it at a desired location. You can also redefine the position of one or more components simultaneously at a later time. You can adjust the positions of one or more components by moving or rotating them using the dragger. As you move and position the components, you can choose to animate them. When you select all the components of a subassembly either using the CTRL key or box selection for moving and positioning, the entire subassembly, its components, and all their instances are moved. Moving a component to a desired location using the dragger is one of the easiest methods for positioning a component. In this case no constraints are created while positioning the component. Component placement is usually determined by the specified component and assembly references. Based on the references a constraint can be created. Constraints determine how and where the component relates to the assembly. You can define single or multiple constraints while positioning a component. If constraints conflict with one another, the placement status becomes invalid until you fix them. You can flip the direction, change the offset, change the constraint type, or delete a constraint after creating it.
Positioning Multiple Components
Remember the following points as you position multiple components:
• All the components are positioned together without any relative movement between one another.
• You can define constraints for multiple components in the same manner as you do for a single component.
• You can add one or more components for positioning even as the Position tool is active. The added component immediately gets the transformation that the other components are sharing.
• If you have selected 2 or more components for positioning, you cannot deselect any of them until they are positioned.
• You can move and reposition multiple components as one unit using the handles of the dragger. While dragging a linear handle, you can snap the components to a geometric reference and constrain them.
• If you add one or more components to a positioned multiple component set, any constraints that were applied earlier while positioning the components are cleared.