VW wrongly tells me classes are invisible when in annotation space

[line-weight]

When I am working in annotations space, I'll often go to the class dropdown, to choose a class to draw something in, and that class will be marked there with a X to indicate that it's invisible. However, that class is set to be visible within the viewport. I think the "invisible" marking in the dropdown is left over from what applied before I entered the annotation space - that is, the class is set to invisible in the view I happen to have of the sheet layer, before editing the viewport's annotations.

 

When I'm working within the annotation space, surely the marks against the classes should reflect what applies to that viewport.

 

I do need to know if I am attempting to draw something in a class that's set to invisible for that viewport, because I then have to adjust the class visibility settings for that viewport.

 

Sometimes VW alerts me to this with a popup that asks me if I want it to turn on that class for that viewport. But I'm not sure it does this consistently. Sometimes I have to turn the class on manually.

[line-weight]

Ok, so the reverse of this seems to be true too.

 

I'm in the annotation space of a viewport, and the class dropdown suggests that a class is visible.

 

But I exit the viewport, check "classes" for that viewport and find that the class is not set to be visible.

 

I've just realised this in trying to work out something that's confused me for a while: when I press "section line instances" for a viewport, then choose to make an instance in a particular (other) viewport, then choose "activate", this takes me to the viewport where I've just created the new instance of the section line ... but there is no section line there and selected, as I expect it to be. It turns out this is because it's been created in a class that is set to invisible for that viewport. I have to exit the annotations space, and then turn that class on in the viewport's class visibilities, in order for the section line to appear.

[E|FA]

Should this be moved to the Wishlist section?

[Andy Broomell]

I don't think the Navigation Palette or Class Dropdown has ever reflected a Viewport's visualities while in Annotations space. Would be a good wishlist item though.

 

And I share the gripe about activating Section Line Instances. Often I will place an instance on a Design Layer then hit activate, but nothing is there. Why can't the Activate button make that class visible too? And take me to top/plan, zoomed in to the Section Line while we're at it!

[line-weight]

Looks like there are two potential wishlist items -

- class dropdown to reflect visibilities when in viewport annotion space

- "activate" button to turn on relevant class when being sent to the location of the instance.

Edited February 7, 2024 by line-weight

[Tom W.]

I have just figured something out that has bothered me for a while which I think is related to this thread. Frequently when I copy a VP to create a new one + want to get rid of the duplicated Data Tags inside the annotations VW won't let me use the Select Similar tool to select those Data Tags. I have realised that the reason for this is that although the class those tags are in is visible for the VP (obviously) it also needs to be visible for the Sheet Layer: so whilst I can see the tags in the VP + can select them with the Selection tool, if I want to select them with the Select Similar tool I need to make their class visible in the Navigation palette as well. Is this expected behaviour? I thought the class visibilities as set out in the Navigation palette had no bearing on objects inside a viewport's annotations - like @Andy Broomell says. 

[line-weight]

On 2/18/2024 at 3:05 PM, Tom W. said:

I have just figured something out that has bothered me for a while which I think is related to this thread. Frequently when I copy a VP to create a new one + want to get rid of the duplicated Data Tags inside the annotations VW won't let me use the Select Similar tool to select those Data Tags. I have realised that the reason for this is that although the class those tags are in is visible for the VP (obviously) it also needs to be visible for the Sheet Layer: so whilst I can see the tags in the VP + can select them with the Selection tool, if I want to select them with the Select Similar tool I need to make their class visible in the Navigation palette as well. Is this expected behaviour? I thought the class visibilities as set out in the Navigation palette had no bearing on objects inside a viewport's annotations - like @Andy Broomell says. 

 

Is this caused by something to do with the data tag objects, or something to do with the "select similar" function, do you think?

 

(I don't really use either so haven't noticed this myself)

 

 

[Tom W.]

6 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 

Is this caused by something to do with the data tag objects, or something to do with the "select similar" function, do you think?

 

(I don't really use either so haven't noticed this myself)

 

 

 

It's not to do with Data Tags. The same thing happens with any object which is placed inside a VP + which is in a class which is set to be invisible in the Navigation palette. And I don't think it's specific to the Select Similar Tool either as the same thing happens if you try to select the objects using Custom Selection: the objects are 'seen' in the Criteria dialog but aren't actually selected when you run the command.

 

Most of the objects I place in annotations are in None class which never gets turned off, or if they're in a different class I'm not needing to select them en masse like I regularly do with Data Tags (after duplicating a VP), so it's not something that affects me greatly, it was just a bit of a mystery why selecting the tags wasn't working + also I was surprised that the nav palette settings were affecting things inside a VP as I didn't think that was meant to happen. It's clearly not quite right if you can see the objects whilst the class is set to invisible in the nav palette + yet you can't select them...

[line-weight]

Yes, I see, the same happens for me.

 

Mention of the custom selection command has prompted me to try something that I've not tried before - to see if I can specify that objects of a certain type, within the annotation space of a particular viewport, can be selected. There's a criteria "location" which lets me choose a viewport. When I do this, the chosen objects appear to be "seen" (they are counted in the dialogue box), but as you describe, aren't actually selected when I run the command. And this seems to be the case even with the relevant class turned on in the sheet layer view (as well as in the viewport).

 

 

[Tom W.]

33 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 And this seems to be the case even with the relevant class turned on in the sheet layer view (as well as in the viewport).

 

It works for me as long as the class is turned on for the file. Are you sure you're telling the command to look inside of VP annotations?