Layers

[lanternz]

Just a suggestion for turning layers on and off. Would it be clearer and faster if the layer switching were by something like radio buttons? Sometimes I find the two step action of clicking the drop down menu and selecting the option a bit cumbersome. I admit the panel would not look as nice but might be slightly easier to read at a glance - retinal glare recovery, low screen brightness levels during production periods etc mean it is sometimes hard to find the "On" from all the "Off" layers especially when there are multiple set layers. My current project has 12 scenic layers.

[admin]

Hold down the option key and click on the arrows for the popup and a layer will toggle between on and off. You need to use the popup to select the dim option.

On my Mac, you don't need to click twice, you can simply click, hold and then drag down to the desired setting.

[admin]

If you need to turn on/off several layers at once, it is worth using saved views. Views remember the visibility of layers. So, if you have 12 layers of scenery, you can easily save a view with the layers you need on for a particular scene and the rest off. Then, it is easy to switch to these layers either by using the popup in the toolbar or by right/control clicking on the drawing.

[lanternz]

Thanks - ahh, the magic of the option key!

[admin]

The latest version of LXBeams has an interface preference that makes the show/hide combo box in the layers table always act like a check box.

The behavior of the combo box is switched with the option key in both modes. In normal mode, as before, the toggling of layers instead of the popup menu is selected by clicking with the option key down. However, if the toggle mode preference is selected, the popup menu can still be accessed by pressing the the option key while clicking on the combo box arrows. Essentially the option key reverses the way the combo box behaves, either popping up a menu or simply toggling on/off depending on the new interface preference setting.