How do I move things?

Question

Very often when I want to move an icon, I want to move more than one. I can drag a box around several icons to select them. Usually, though, when I try to drag the selected icons, nothing happens. Sometimes it seems that you're trying to draw another selection box. On rare occasions, the icons actually move together.

It's as though we can't move multiple things at once, except that sometimes I can.

In general, mouse handling is horrible. Probably 80% or 90% of the time, other than adding an icon, mouse gestures do not do what I want and expect them to do. Most commonly, you're adding lines when I try to move an icon. At least you don't add a line when I try to move multiple icons; you generally don't do anything except un-select.

Answer 1

There is one important rule for moving nodes and/or bends in yEd: You can move selected elements only.

I.e. select all the nodes and bends you want to move, then place the mouse over one of the selected elements, press and hold the left mouse button, drag the mouse to the desired location, and finally release the left mouse button once again.
For labels it is slightly different in that you can only move one label (i.e. the one under the mouse cursor) at a time even if you have selected multiple labels.
(There is only one exception with regards to what happens when dragging a selected element: If you place the mouse over a column or row separator in a selected table node, dragging the mouse will resize the table's columns or rows.)

If you move the mouse over a node that is not selected, pressing the left mouse button and dragging the mouse to another location will always start a new edge (i.e. connection).