AutoCAD: Manage Layers with the LAYWALK command

Manage layers in a simpler way than using the Layer Manager
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Even from the colleagues that know less about a program you can learn something new. This happened today at work. I was asked some very simple questions about AutoCAD commands. Siting near my colleague to teach him how to do things, I realised he was using a command I didn't know and that is quite useful.

LAYWALK, is a command that allows us to handle Layers very nicely. It opens a dialog where we can see all the layers listed. The objects on the highlighted layers will be shown on the screen.



In case we have a lot of layers we can use the filter bar to only show the ones we want. Use * in front and/or after the text to include all layers with that text in it.


Selecting a layer or several layers and doing "Right Click --> Inspect" will show us some information about the layers and the amount of objects contained.


If there is any layer without any objects, we would be able to purge directly from here using the purge button. We have also the option to "resotre on exit" or not. If restore on exit is active, it means that when we close the LAYWALK window, the layer state will go back to how it was before running the command, if we uncheck this option, the layers will stay as we set them in the LAYWALK window. See a summary of fucntions below (click to enlarge).


Very useful command to manage layers and much faster (although with less functionalities) than the Layer Manager.


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AutoCAD: Delete a Layer that Contains Objects

Do you need to delete a layer but the purge command doesn't do it? No worries, there is an express tool for that.
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One more day of problem solving at work. Ryan asked me today if I knew how to delete a layer that the purge command doesn't delete. The solution is to use one of the Layer Express Tools. And of course I thought: let's write about it here during my lunch break! It is raining anyways.

LAYDEL is an Express Tools Command that allows us to delete a layer even if it contains objects. This is useful to delete layers we want to purge but because they might be included in some block definition we are not using anymore, the purge command can't delete them. Be careful though, since it will delete the layer and its contents. TO use it simply make sure that the layer you want to delete is not current, type LAYDEL and select an object on that layer (alternatively you can access this function through Format --> Layer Tools --> Layer Delete).

There is an alternative method to delete a layer but keep its objects. The LAYMRG Express Tool Command merges one layer into another and deletes the first one. It is very useful when trying to simplify the layer structure of a drawing but we want to keep all its graphical information. To use it, type LAYMRG (alternatively you can access this function through Format --> Layer Tools --> Layer Merge)select the layer to delete and merge, press ENTER, then select the target layer where you want the information to be merged to.

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Photoshop: Isolate a Layer

How do you Isolate a layer in photoshop?
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This is probably my shortest post, but I've been using Photoshop a lot lately and this is a very useful trick. When you want to isolate one layer, just press Alt and click on the little eye near the layer you want to isolate. Instead of hiding that layer, it will hide all the others. To turn all the layers back on do the same. One thing though, if you manually switch on one layer while having the layer isolated, then you will have to switch all the others on manually.

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AutoCAD: Layer Creation Script

Learn how to edit a script to re-create all you standard layers
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Having your standard layers is basic for easy printing and having everyone in the same office know which layers to use for each object. The creation of standard layers and plot tables can be long but it is important if you are trying to set your own standards for several projects.
Some layers are deleted when using commands like PURGE. To get them back there are several methods. One of them is to have a Script that creates all the layers again. This sample script will generate only 3 layers, but it is useful to see how this type of script works. To test the script, save it to your hard drive and type SCR in AutoCAD. Then Browse to the folder where you have saved it and select it. The syntax of the script is as follows:


What you see after ;;; signs is pure description. The script consists of 3 lines. It calls the -LAYER command (See that it uses the hyphen version of the LAYER command, so it does not call the Layer manager window). After each -LAYER there is MAKE to create a new Layer. Then each of the properties of that layer are set.
Following the syntax of this Script with the properties of your standard layers you can generate a script that will allow you to quickly recover all the layers that have been deleted. Here is the link to the Script again.

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AutoCAD: MAXSORT or How many objects to be listed

Show those missing layers in the layer Manager.Did you ever encounter that the "Layer Properties" toolbar doesn´t show all the layers you think it should? First thing you should do is to check if there is any filter applied to the layers. To do that go to Layer Manager (LA) and check on the left upper corner if any of the filters is applied.

If that desn't solve your issue, your problem might come from the MAXSORT system variable. This variable controls the maximum number of items to be shown in any list in AutoCAD, for example, in the layer list of the Layer Properties toolbar. Your problem might be that you have (together between your drawing and the XRefs) more than 1000 layers. The default MAXSORT value (in AutoCAD architecture 2009) is 1000, so having more than 1000 layers will turn into some layers not being shown.

The only thing you need to do is set MAXSORT System Variable to a higher number and you will be able to see all your layers listed in your Layer Properties Toolbar.

I am not sure if increasing this value will affect in any way the performance of the program, so please don't hesitate to leave a comment about it if you know something about this issue.

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AutoCAD System Variable: VISRETAIN

Control if you want your XREFs to retain the visual changes or not.
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Sometimes we change colors of the layers of an XREF for different reasons. Eventually we might want to get the layers to they original state. If we inserted the XRef on 0,0,0 coordinates and didn´t move it, scale it or clip it, we can just detach it and attach it again.
But in many circumstances we might have moved, clipped or scaled the xref, so we don't want to do that again. If we want to get the layers to they original color, we can use the command VISRETAIN. This system variable controls whether the changes made to XREFs are retained or are only temporal. If the variable is set to 1, the changes are kept, if we set it to 0, reloading the XREF will bring back the original colors.
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