Move to hidden layer

[Greg]

It would be great if the contextual menu (right-click) allowed you to send an object to a hidden layer (can't do it now as it is greyed out). Often times when I am cleaning up an imported drawing, I turn off certain layers and would like to send objects from the visible to the hidden layer.

[jasonlocher]

Thats exactly why I put the Tornado Tool in my Blossom pallet.

[cjburns]

I would love to be able to ctrl-click a line or object and be able to send it to a hidden layer. I like to show only one layer at a time, cycle through the layers and make sure there are no stray objects. If I find a door on the dash layer I want to be able to send it to the door layer without turning on the layer visibility in the palette. So simple. so useful.

[Derek]

WildTools Tornado Tool is the ticket. You Option-click on the Tool and select the target (destination) layer from there. Then you just click on any visible object and it's moved to the layer.


More details here: http://www.seqair.com/WildTools/Tornado/Tornado.html

Derek

[cjburns]

The tornado tool does the job but having the ability to send an object to a hidden layer via the contextual menu would be far quicker (no dialog box selection needed).

[jasonlocher]

[cjburns]

Yes. I use the blossom tool all the time. It's great. My only point is that it would be faster if I could send objects to hidden layers using the contextual menu item.

To use the tornado tool:
keystroke-click to activate the blossom palette
option-click to select the tornado tool
click to activate layer list
click to select layer
click or return to exit dialog box
then click to select object to send

To use the CM:
select the item(s) to move
right-click to get the CM
select the layer to send to

I use the CM method all the time but often have to turn on a layer in order to send something to it (though this seems to still be faster than the tornado tool).

Minor point I know but we are all looking for speed.

[structics]

As far as I know the Tornado Tool won't send objects to a hidden layer. It won't let you select a hidden layer as a target in the tool's settings dialog. It's has the same issue as Greg describes with PowerCadd's "Move to Layer" contextual menu - hidden layers are grayed-out and cannot be selected.

Perhaps when using the contextual "Move to Layer" menu, ES could allow the user to hold down the option key which would un-gray all layers and make hidden layers selectable. As it stands, I'm not sure why the the hidden layers are shown in the contextual menu anyway. If you can't select them, why show them?

Mike

[Derek]

[structics]

Hi Derek,
Interesting. Looks like it works perfectly on your end. I tried it last night on a drawing I had open and it didn't work for me. I looked at it more closely and while it seems that almost all of the hidden layers are grayed-out, some aren't. It appears that if you use a bracket "(" or a slash "/" in the name of the layer and perhaps other non-standard alpha numeric characters, the tornado tool grays the layer out and deletes the first instance of the offending character. Command keys are added to the layer names with a slash as well. Looks like a bug. I'm attaching a screen shot of my results.
Mike

[Greg]

Wow that is spooky!

Just this morning I discovered the exact same problem when adding custom setups to the Wavy Line Tool. If I have a "(" or a "/" in the name of the custom setup, I cannot delete it, but worse, it adds command key shortcuts. Because I can't delete the setups, I cannot find a way to get rid of the command key shortcuts either!

This is a bug which really needs to be addressed.

[Alfred Scott]

I'm in Florida on vacation.

Derek Dubout does not mention that he is the originator of the idea to do all this in the Tornado tool.

These problems with the menus are all in WildTools. I'll try to make a mental note to look at this when I get back to my office on Feb. 4, but maybe one of you can send me an email about this so I don't forget. I thought I dealt with this stuff in setups, but apparently not.

Alfred