I was looking at the “Object and Links” panel under the “Object” button and noticed that when I added a group it also put a whole set of little squares. These squares look just like the “layers” buttons that an object can belong to, but didn’t seem to have any effect.
What are those buttons for? Something to do with rendering, compositing?
You’re right, they don’t seem to have any effect. The release notes about adding the group Object and Links panel don’t mention it and it hasn’t got any tooltip. My guess is that it’s a placeholder for a function that hasn’t been added yet. Anybody else want to chime in here? Now there’s two inquiring minds who want to know.