Grading Groups UI --> needs some improvement

A huge effort multiplier is Grading groups. Get these right and you can save hours on even a short.
So. They should be easier and the UI should give you better information about what group a clip is in.
Currently, you have to click on a group to see the link icon, But you still don't know what group its in. That's three levels deep in a hierarchical menu.

I want to look at the clips and immediately know how things are grouped, what hasn't been grouped, etc.
Finding a clip stuck in the wrong group is unreasonably burdensome for no good reason.

Telling me what group a clip is in is a million times more useful than displaying the clips codec. Generally, its the same for almost all clips in a timeline, anyway. But the group is a critical piece of information.

AND

the node graph should default to either:
the last "type" of node
OR
Group Pre if in a group

counting the almost invisible dots every time to make sure I'm in the right node set is "fraught with peril" (how many times have you had to undo and reconstruct a node tree???)

I write computer interfaces for my day job, and I'd never have let this assault on productivity get through.

So, I'm a relative newbie, probably 8 shorts and a feature colored in Davinci ("Promises" on Amazon Prime and YouTube Red).
oh.. And my Mackie control surface works with Fairlight !!!!!

+1
I'm a heavy user of groups and I agree the UI and ergonomics could be improved

+1
Ability to at least display current assigned group below clip would already be great.

I would also like the option to have the group displayed under the current clip, but not at the expense of the codec. I disagree here:

...

Telling me what group a clip is in is a million times more useful than displaying the clips codec. Generally, its the same for almost all clips in a timeline, anyway. But the group is a critical piece of information.

AND

the node graph should default to either:
the last "type" of node
OR
Group Pre if in a group

...

That may be true for your work, but I get plenty of projects that bring together clips with all sorts of codecs, and I find that information very helpful. More helpful by far than the group.

I also disagree that the node graph should default to group pre. Again, this varies with the individual and their typical workflow.

More options are good, but I don't want to lose options that work and that help my workflow.

I solve this problem by paying very, very close attention to which shots get slotted into which group. It's rare for me that I'll have (say) a kitchen scene where different shots within that scene use different Pre-Clip or Post-Clip corrections. Usually, they'd all just be getting a "Kitchen" group correction.

So to me this is a conscious choice that requires effort and careful work habits, not a user-interface problem per se. You can at least see the "link" icon in the lower right of the Clip Thumbnail icons. I could see (as one example) the link icon duplicated and placed at the top of the node window, and maybe the first X letters of the group name in the node window menu bar. It's never been a problem for me -- I figure it out within the context of the project. "Oh yeah, this is the ugly green alien scene -- we used the Ugly Green Alien group."

It's very rare for me to group different angles in a scene into the same group. Don't know what I'm doing wrong, but that doesn't yield results I can live with.
And since the characters are in different places emotionally, there often other differences available to help tell the story. While that probably overstates the issue, they will certainly have different backgrounds to deal with.
Initially going through the clips and grouping them is made much more difficult if I have to remember what group everything is in. Partly because I can't remember that stuff. Einstein said "Don't memorize anything you can look up" I just don't have enough brain cells left after remembering minutia.
Checking that each clip is in the right group becomes a tedious and painful process. I applaud anyone who can set their groups and never have to dig through the menu to find out which group a clip resides in.
Anyway, there should/could be an abbv for the codecs that would only need half the tile, leaving some room for group name. 8 characters could do it.