Locking the Layer Structure

Hi All,

I have A TON of layers for a project and they are organized in a very particular way and can not be modified. I need to lock them in that order, NOT locking the model but STOPPING the ability to move the layers them selves.
Any suggestions?

Cheers

Dan

2 Likes

Hi Dan - I do not have a suggestion, good or bad… I don’t think there is any way to do this - @dale - any ideas?

-Pascal

It would be really nice to have this. some times by accident one clicks on the collum and all the things screw up

1 Like

You can disable column sorting - just click the Tools button menu and uncheck Column Sort.

– Dale

4 Likes

I love this forum sooo bad

Yes! Thats has happened on MANY occasions, not just to me but to many co workers. I cant say either way, but I can see how this would be a difficult thing to put in place.

Thanks for the suggestion but that doesn’t stop the user from being able to change the Layer Structure of the model. What I’m looking for is a way to lock the Layer Structure as to FREEZE it so layers can not be moved to a different parent layer.

Hi @DanSummers,

Sorry, Rhino doesn’t have such a feature. The best I can suggest is to use the model as a reference file from a worksession.

– Dale

Would saving a layer state preserve the order that could be restored if they somehow got moved?

All,

In addition to locking the layer structure, how about locking the tab layout in the docked window also. I was trying to look at an objects properties and couldn’t as every time I clicked on the properties tab the layers tab would jump over. Little things like this drive me nuts.

1 Like

I will give that a try in a min, cheers. If that works isn’t that hassle to do just for a function that seems like it should be there?

what about adding index-numbers like
001_MyfirstLayer
002_TheSecondThing
003_VeryspecialAtPositionThree
…
which will sort correctly by name.
this can be done by scripting / programmatically using the Layers SortIndex + 1

https://developer.rhino3d.com/api/RhinoCommon/html/P_Rhino_DocObjects_Layer_SortIndex.htm

if you work with a larger team - you could also have a script, that compares the Layer-Structure against a template in some kind of preflight - routine
i do stuff like this for a customer, who uses automatic generation of machine-code, based on layer-strucutre…

good luck
best - tom

1 Like

Tom,
Thanks for the suggestion, but we already work within a layer naming structure which is a company standard and its hard to convince change. Still, I feel the problem should still be addressed with added functionality within Rhino so the layer structure can be locked.

1 Like

Dear Dan,
your answer stimulates some thinking:
you write about “add functionality” - but it is more individual / team-wide drawing-rules:
If you give some rules to your draftsmen “use the companies template” /“don t add layers” / “don t sort layers”, you ll get what you want. Many times i love the creativity of mapping a workflow to what is possible within the rhino-Toolset. Which piece of information is mapped to wich structure / name / group / layer / userText / color … in a document. And i love all those possibilities we are “allowed” to do with rhino / the interface.
But imagine the complexity of an interface, that includes options to set up limitations: - do not use Mesh-Data, do not use Control-Point-Weight, do not use object-Color Yellow, do not use curve degree 4, … and so on.

But there is some functionality missing:
@dale
it would be nice to have some kind of Layers.Sort( Comparison Delegate ) - Function in Rhinocommon. This would allow an easy Function “resort Layers against Dan-Summers-Company-Standard” - Or is there any option to sort the Display-Order of the Layer-Palette via Rhinocommon at the moment ? - haven t found it.