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Veiwport color toggle


bsp

Question

How about giving an option to toggle viewport between b&w and color?

This would be great to be able to turn off drafting colors to show drawing in b&w and then mark up in a color (over the b&w) in either annotation layer or on sheet layer.

-bsp

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This is an excellent idea! While one can override classes (even all at a time) to b/w & no fill, a toggle would be much more user-friendly as comes to the said annotation mark-up.

In some of my templates, I have separate sheets for colour & b/w output, but the system falls apart when someone adds a class or layer. Yes, overrides can be transferred with the Eyedropper, but the problem is that the ears of the users in question are not exactly pointy.

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Chris,

I think bsp is looking for something different. A quick Vectorscript can be used to toggle from B&W to color (SetPref(9, NOT GetPref(9));), but I think bsp wants to turn combine a B&W view with color for markups to have them standout.

Robert Anderson provides a useful list of Boolean prefs here:

http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=7&Number=78069&Searchpage=7&Main=17284&Words=Black+and+White+only&topic=0&Search=true#Post78069

George

Edited by G_Hannigan
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to be able to turn off drafting colors to show drawing in b&w and then mark up in a color (over the b&w) in either annotation layer or on sheet layer.

-bsp

Workarounds:

As Petri says, override the classes in the viewport en masse to black line & no fill, then draw in color in the annotation layer (which is to scale, unlike the sheet layer). Downside: new classes appear in color

or

Duplicate the viewport. Set the bottom one to black and white only (as per my post above). Turn off all layers in the second viewport. Draw in colour in the annotations in the second one. Downside: two viewports on top of each other will be baffling to other users.

or

Duplicate the viewport. Set the bottom one to black and white only (as above). Draw in colour on a distinct design layer. Turn off all layers in the second viewport apart from the distinct 'color' layer. Downside: two viewports on top of each other will be baffling to other users.

Wishlist:

The new black and white only command for viewports should be split so that annotations can be toggled separately

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This arrived in VW2008, if I understand correctly what it is you want.

Go to Advanced Properties in the OIP for your viewport, select 'Black and White Only'

I thought I had already responded, but obviously not:

Dear me! It is there!

And now you tell me - just a day after I've issued a printed 40-page Tractatus Vector-Philosophicus.

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Or you can overwrite the layers in VW2008!

Nice new feature too - hadn't noticed that yet.

But, there's no black-and-white toggle in there, as far as I can see. How does it work if you don't normally use layer colors?

Love the layer stacking-order override though.

wishlist?: addition to layer viewport edit: black-and-white-only toggle (so that we can override by viewport OR by layer)

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Thanks DWorks. Had a look at this but I think this is a workaround...and not a pretty one really. You have to use Layer Colors as a general preference for the whole file (as far as I can see) and then structure your drawing around these colors instead of class settings.

I think the wishlist request still stands - make the viewport black-and-white-only toggle more selective so it can be set on each layer and on annotations layer separately.

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No, you don't have to use layer color for the whole file.

Select the Viewport. Click the Layers button in the OIP.

Select a Layer and click edit.

Click the Colors button and set the pen and fill to B/W.

Click OK twice to get back to the Viewport Layer Properties.

Click in the Column between the Layer Name and the Stacking Order. You should get a little color icon showing three stacked layers.

Click OK

Everything on the layer you selected should be in Black and White while other layers should still be in color.

Pat

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Pat, you're a genius. Well spotted. (oh and DWorks too....I re-read your post and this is what you were saying...I just needed Pat's detailed explanation to see it)

This seems to work really well and isn't just limited to black and white - it's allowing you to use layer color on a layer-by-layer basis. Very powerful.

No wishlist item required. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Oh...unless the question about annotations still stands...if you were overriding the whole viewport (in advanced properties) to black-and-white, you STILL might not want annotations to go black and white too. But this is probably low priority, as the layer-by-layer method is better anyway.

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I'm digging this topic back up - just because I remembered this complex discussion about layer/viewport colours, but had forgot the solution - and it deserves a wider audience..

To recap:

Common scenario: say I have a building plan, drawn in colour. I also want to use this plan as a Fire Plan, where the base plan now appears in black and white and only the Fire information in colour.

I could use a class for the fire info, and override classes in the viewport, but that's laborious and would involve duplicate hatches anyway to create mono versions of each hatch.

Better solution (thanks again Pat) I draw the Fire information on a separate design layer and use Viewport Layer Colours as follows:

When I produce my viewport, I can use a tiny little toggle that you may not even notice. Select the viewport and click on the Layers button - you can see a narrow column to the right of the Layer Names - it has no title and may well be completely blank OR it may have little coloured icons in it already. Clicking next to a layer name will toggle the coloured icon on/off for each layer. This icon controls LAYER COLOURS and allows you to override the colours of all objects on a layer. I now simply select EDIT>COLORS for each of the layers, and set my Base Plan layer to black and white, and my Fire Plan layer to red and white. Hey presto, you've done it.

The beauty of layer colours, as opposed to class colours, is that hatches don't need to be duplicated - the setting will simply turn you hatch base colour to white, and your hatch linework to black - nice and easy.

So what of the wishlist? PLEASE NNA make this column more obvious - it doesn't even have a title heading!! Also, why not have the icons greyed out instead of completely invisible, when not using layer colours.

Edited by Chris D
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