Layer management - wishes

Rhino Rhino for Windows
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  1. When Rhino 5 was still in beta there was a build that had layer folders. I argued on the NG at the time that I didn’t like folders, but now I wish I had them! The folder system in Photoshop is neat and easy to navigate at a glance and i find it much easier to use than the Rhino layers palette.
  2. I find the graphic display of the Rhino layer palette difficult. It takes more than a glance to see if a layer is in a sub-layer or not. Something about the spacing and the + symbol makes the whole thing a bit confusing. Again i think photoshop does a better job here.
  3. Merging layers, especially with blocks is getting impossible. Quite often I’ll put all layers in a 3D master layer, but if I import objects with the same layer names, I get new layers with the same name as existing layers, in different spots on my layer stack. If these layers contain blocks, it becomes a serious task to get all the objects onto one layer. It would be great if there was a MergeLayers command that would easily combine all objects (including blocks) within two identically named layers into one.

layers.jpg659×1158 94.5 KB

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I agree that the actual layer interface it is not very readable, perhaps something like this?:

layers interface.jpg402×1158 243 KB

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not bad!

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merging layers … missed here too

2 Likes
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I also would quite like to be able to merge layers, often we have multiple layers with the same name, which need to be merged, but when trying to drag the new layers to join up with the old ones, you get the icon.

Been a while since there was any activity in this post, perhaps there has come around a solution? And merging ALL layers with the same name is nót a solution, since the files do have more products with similar names.

merging please.jpg623×1360 96.4 KB

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Right now I’ve copied all objects in question to a new file, renamed the parent layer there, and then copied all objects back to the main scene.

Would be nice if dragging layers with same names or containing child(ren) with same names, would give you a question to “Merge layers with same name (like pasting objects) - or - Cancel”

1 Like
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I have an excellent production recommendation. In the layer window, what if
the layer you were currently on, and all of the sublayers below it, would
automatically be in a set place on the upper most spot. Then when you
scroll through the rest of the layers, your current layer (which is static at the top of the layer manager window) is possibly greyed out on the scrollable list?

Maybe a symbol within the layer manager could be used to show any highlighted objects current layers too, so you wouldn’t have to toggle object properties if you were doing something that would require you to reclick properties everytime you wish to view the object’s layer.

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Hi Andrew -

in Options > Files page, you can set how imported layers of the same name are handled- I don’t know if either setting what you want but fuss with it and see.

-Pascal

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"use existing layers with matching name"looks like a handy option…

it would be nice to retrospectively merge layers with matching names as well!

A