Option to disable classes in sheet layers

[Steve Murray]

Sometimes we have multiple viewport, annotations, notes and symbols in a sheet layer, and having them all visible all the time would be of great benefit to many practices I have been working with.

A kind of all the classes should be visible all the times, while the viewport respond to their own visibility settings.

So an option to remove the concept of classes from the sheet layer, so the elements there are always visible. A sort of WYSIWYG.

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by Steve Murray

[Elite Exhibits]

Editing a Design Layer, with Specific Class settings, then Looking at the Results on a Sheet Layer

 

     ...From the Design Layer - A Saved View takes one to a specific Sheet Layer with Classes set as desired (ie: all on)

 

Previous View then goes back to the Design Layer  - Classes are back to the original Specific setting

 

Publish the Saved View (Not just the Sheet Layer) Classes will be set as desired / expected

 

Agreed - Automation would be great 

 

Peter

Publish Export Settings.pdf

[Elite Exhibits]

On 11/13/2023 at 10:42 AM, Steve Murray said:

multiple viewport, annotations, notes and symbols in a sheet layer, and having them all visible all the time would be of great benefit

 

@Steve Murray 

Curious   ¿ What class are these in on the Sheet Layer ?

 

Peter

[bcd]

I'm not loving this wish as it's currently described. it seems to break the Organizational paradigm somewhat; a blunt tool for the task. But it does point to an significant enhancement that should benefit all use-cases.

 

Surely there are Sheet Layers where all Classes visible would be appropriate and others selective visibility is appropriate; in the same file. And what if you want all but one Class visible how do you set that for a single Sheet Layer?

With good file structure, important Key & TitleBlock etc. information should never be in jeopardy of being hidden.

 

Then, while the existing Saved View option seems like a solution, as it's currently implemented it's a bit of a diversion to create a Saved View and use it to access the Sheet Layer. In a similar vein moving from a Sheet Layer to a Design Layer often involves turning on /off Layers etc. to get ready to work, and again Saved Views seem to offer a solution.

 

Perhaps the focus of the request could be to improve Saved Views, so that they become the primary way of navigating the drawing. They could be created automatically when creating a Sheet Layer, with defaults to show all/visible Classes etc.. Likewise, Design Layers would have the option to have Saved Views automatically assigned.

Importantly the Saved Views UI would need to be updated significantly to elegantly and efficiently present the user with the available Saved Views which the user would generally use to access any Layers in the drawing during all stages of the work.

 

This would leaving the existing DL and SL organization otherwise untouched.

Edited November 18, 2023 by bcd

[zoomer]

Hmmh,

I was basically always happy with the Organization Palette in Visibility Mode.

You can select multiple of you properly named Viewports and check

and change your beautifully legible named Classes and Layers visibilities

very comfortable.

I do the same sometimes from Sheets by selecting multiple Viewports

or set them by Pipette Tool.

And with VW 2024 I may need to explore and get used to Viewport Styles .....

 

Saved Views were never my favorite Tool for Visibilities.

I use them mainly for 3D Exports only.

The problem for me always was that the Saved Views were outdated

so quick by additional Class/Layer creation while working and therefore

Saved View Visibilities got arbitrarily in large parts.

So they needed some regular care.

 

But yes, in most cases, all Viewports on a Sheetlayer may likely use

the same Class Visibilities though.

[Amanda McDermott]

On 11/16/2023 at 4:21 PM, Elite Exhibits said:

 

Still puzzled on this as Saved Views (as @Tom W. states) are already available and function as requested

 

Peter

The danger of saved views is that if you've created a new class after making the saved view, it might not show. Also, it's an extra thing to have to remember, so opportunity for human error. It would be better to have it automated.

[line-weight]

I use saved views all the time when in design layers - to do stuff like switch between building storeys, existing/proposed versions, and all sorts of other class or layer visibility setups. I don't think VW would be usable otherwise - the alternative would be manually changing multiple class visibility settings each time.

 

It's true that it's a pain that each time you make a new class, you may have to go into various saved views settings and change its behaviour. I generally try and minimise this problem by duplicating a class that has similar visibility behaviours, then editing this.

 

But unless I'm missing something there's not really a better option.

 

I've not yet tried using viewport styles - but have wondered if there could be something like "visibility sets" that would be one place to set a bunch of layer/class visibilities, which could be used by viewport styles and by saved views. There'd still be some caretaking to do, but just one place to do it in.

 

My saved view strategy takes advantage of the fact that you can control layer & class visibilities separately.

 

For example, I might have a saved views:

(A) that switches on only "1st floor" layer(s) but doesn't do anything to classes

(B) that switches on "ground", "1st floor" and "roof" layers(s) but doesn't do anything to classes

(C) that switches on classes that show all constructions elements, but doesn't do anything to layers

(D) that switches on only classes that show primary structural elements, but doesn't do anything to layers

 

So if I want to see only first floor structural elements I get there via saved views (A) then (D).

 

If I next want to see only structural elements but on all storeys I used saved view (B)

 

etc.

 

Took me a while to work out a system for myself, like this, and often wonder how others achieve the same end.

 

The art is in keeping the number of saved views to the minimum that you need to get what you want.

Edited November 20, 2023 by line-weight

[Boh]

12 hours ago, line-weight said:

I use saved views all the time when in design layers - to do stuff like switch between building storeys, existing/proposed versions, and all sorts of other class or layer visibility setups. I don't think VW would be usable otherwise - the alternative would be manually changing multiple class visibility settings each time.

Interesting that you rely so heavily on saved views, whereas we hardly use them. The difference is undoubtedly to do with the type of work we do and how we collaborate with others as well of course our preferred way of working.

 

We have probably dumbed it down so that others can easily jump on a file, and I guess we could make better use of saved views, but in general we find saved views another bit of file organisation that sucks up time. They do come into their own occasionally especially when you need to quickly jump from one custom 3d view to another view.

[Tom W.]

20 hours ago, line-weight said:

I've not yet tried using viewport styles - but have wondered if there could be something like "visibility sets" that would be one place to set a bunch of layer/class visibilities, which could be used by viewport styles and by saved views.

 

It would be an enormous step forward were there to be some kind of transferability between saved views on the design layer + viewport class/layer visibilities on sheet layers. Saved views are absolutely indispensable to me on the design layer + I spend a lot of time developing them as the project progresses (much use of the 'Redefine...' command) - which I'm very happy doing BTW because they are so useful - but it just seems such a waste once on my sheet layers arranging VPs to not have access to those carefully made settings. Be great if you could select a VP + just click a 'Take class + layer visibilities from Saved View' button... At the moment I feel like I'm doing the same work twice in two different places.

 

Also be great if Saved Views had a stacking order in the Nav Palette as at the moment I have to incorporate a number in the name in order to arrange them the way I want which is a pain. But I am completely diverging from the topic of this thread sorry...

[line-weight]

1 hour ago, Tom W. said:

 

It would be an enormous step forward were there to be some kind of transferability between saved views on the design layer + viewport class/layer visibilities on sheet layers. Saved views are absolutely indispensable to me on the design layer + I spend a lot of time developing them as the project progresses (much use of the 'Redefine...' command) - which I'm very happy doing BTW because they are so useful - but it just seems such a waste once on my sheet layers arranging VPs to not have access to those carefully made settings. Be great if you could select a VP + just click a 'Take class + layer visibilities from Saved View' button... At the moment I feel like I'm doing the same work twice in two different places.

 

Also be great if Saved Views had a stacking order in the Nav Palette as at the moment I have to incorporate a number in the name in order to arrange them the way I want which is a pain. But I am completely diverging from the topic of this thread sorry...

 

Have you seen this thread?

 

https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/76411-can-a-script-change-viewport-classlayer-visibilities/

 

There are some scripts kindly provided there, which I use in a particular project where I need to transfer very complex visibility settings between saved views and viewports. Saves a lot of time. Don't tend to use it in my "regular" projects but probably could.

 

[Tom W.]

1 minute ago, line-weight said:

 

Have you seen this thread?

 

https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/76411-can-a-script-change-viewport-classlayer-visibilities/

 

There are some scripts kindly provided there, which I use in a particular project where I need to transfer very complex visibility settings between saved views and viewports. Saves a lot of time. Don't tend to use it in my "regular" projects but probably could.

 

 

I have yes thank you but I decided it wasn't going to be useful. I can't remember why exactly because it's quite a long dense thread + I would need to read through it all again. But I definitely went through it all quite carefully some time back + decided to take it any further...

[line-weight]

10 hours ago, Boh said:

Interesting that you rely so heavily on saved views, whereas we hardly use them. The difference is undoubtedly to do with the type of work we do and how we collaborate with others as well of course our preferred way of working.

 

We have probably dumbed it down so that others can easily jump on a file, and I guess we could make better use of saved views, but in general we find saved views another bit of file organisation that sucks up time. They do come into their own occasionally especially when you need to quickly jump from one custom 3d view to another view.

I find it hard to picture how I'd do anything useful without them.

 

If you want to make a whole bunch of classes invisible for example, how do you do that? Do you go to the classes organisation palette and switch them all off manually each time?

[Boh]

6 hours ago, line-weight said:

If you want to make a whole bunch of classes invisible for example, how do you do that? Do you go to the classes organisation palette and switch them all off manually each time?

I may do that, we might have 500 or more classes in a file but with hierarchical display they collapse down to just 14 sets of classes and each of those sets have subsets, so still a few clicks but easy enough. Other techniques are to select the objects you want to work with and group them, thereby isolating them.
Or, once I have a particular view but I need to navigate to another one, I’ll do that with a second floating window so I don’t lose the custom view. 

There is of course the clip cube too.

These are kind of workarounds and I probably should set up saved views more often but I’d argue that it ends up being extra file management time.

[zoomer]

11 hours ago, Tom W. said:

- but it just seems such a waste once on my sheet layers arranging VPs to not have access to those carefully made settings. Be great if you could select a VP + just click a 'Take class + layer visibilities from Saved View' button... At the moment I feel like I'm doing the same work twice in two different places.

 

Also be great if Saved Views had a stacking order in the Nav Palette as at the moment I have to incorporate a number in the name in order to arrange them the way I want which is a pain.

 

 

I think all above makes much sense ....

[line-weight]

17 hours ago, Boh said:

I may do that, we might have 500 or more classes in a file but with hierarchical display they collapse down to just 14 sets of classes and each of those sets have subsets, so still a few clicks but easy enough.

If your classes are well set up like this, it ought also to make maintaining the saved views visibilities reasonably straightforward too.

 

A one-click route to seeing a particular set of visibilities via a saved view, instead of multiple clicks (along with the mental effort of making sure you're selecting the right things) for me completely outweighs the burden of maintaining the saved views.

 

However, I have the luxury of not having multiple people working on my drawings, just me, and I can see that this would make a difference.

 

I do often wonder how larger practices deal with this. Saved views are one of those things where the flexibility of how VW can work is either a strength or weakness depending on your use case. I'm sure most other applications would have the equivalent of saved views as built-in functionality -  but reliant on being much more rigid about how the user sets up their drawings.

[line-weight]

On 11/21/2023 at 8:41 AM, Tom W. said:

Also be great if Saved Views had a stacking order in the Nav Palette as at the moment I have to incorporate a number in the name in order to arrange them the way I want which is a pain. But I am completely diverging from the topic of this thread sorry...

 

My solution to this uses asterisks as well as numbers to keep the ones I use most nearest to the top...

 

 

(would be curious to see what other people's saved views lists look like as presumably we all come up with our own eccentric systems independently)

[Tom W.]

17 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 

My solution to this uses asterisks as well as numbers to keep the ones I use most nearest to the top...

 

 

(would be curious to see what other people's saved views lists look like as presumably we all come up with our own eccentric systems independently)

 

This is me:

 

 

Obviously changing the 'stacking order' is a pain because it involves renaming a whole series of views. Be so much better to just be able to drag them around. I'm sure this has been wished for somewhere.

 

[line-weight]

Would also be good if they could be made into expandable sections, like you can do with classes.

[livespace josha]

I requested something similar a few years back... Basically the ability to "lock" the visibility status of a layer or class globally. 

 

2 use cases:

- in my workflow, there isn't a situation where I want the "none" class to be hidden or gray. Ever!

- depending on the project, I'll do project revisions as layers. When I publish a new design, I can do this in 2 button clicks across the whole project. Same workflow for my v1/v2/v3 rev-cloud classes. 

 

 

 

[yasin2ray]

I recommend for now, use the second option that Pat Stanford said - Set all classes to be visible in all viewports through the Navigation palette. It's super easy!

Also, in case you ever need to create a new class, when you do that you have the option settings to have that class be "visible/invisible/gray" in saved views, viewports, and graphic legends.