"Let AutoCAD Mechanical manage object properties" Question

[petestrycharske]

All,

   I want to change layers of Standard ACAD Mechanical parts to customer layers that I create.  I have been trying to modify the layers in the "Standard Settings for ANSI" dialogue box, but am not having much success.  However, when I uncheck the "Let AutoCAD Mechanical manage object properties" checkbox, I can make all the layer changes that I desire.  The only drawback is that when I uncheck the checkbox I get a warning message saying:

"You have chosen to stop AutoCAD Mechanical from managing object properties for you.  Do you want to manage properties manually?"  Then below that: "Switching off automatic object property management will impact AutoCAD Mechanical's intelligence significantly."

After I accepted this, I was able to change the part to the layer that I wanted and the colors actually switched.  I tested the BOM and parts list and it still shows up.  What exactly is impacted by turning off this setting?

[michaelsu]

Hello,

AutoCAD Mechanical has automatic property management feature. Simply put that means if you use AutoCAD Mechancial commands, it will put the corresponding objects on the specified predefined Mechanical layers. For example, if you use AMPOWERDIM, the dimension will be put on AM_5 by default. You can click Settings dialog to see what categories and how they are configured and what layers they are on.

When you turn off that settings, that means you don't want AutoCAD Mechanical to put them on its predefined layers as configured. You need to manually assign layers for them. For example, when you use AMPARTREF command to place a part reference, it will be put on the current layer rather than AM_12. With the option off, the commands you are executing should still work without problems and only those layer properties need to be handled manually. 

[petestrycharske · Accepted solution]

Thanks, Michael, I'll experiment with that a little bit.  Another way I found to manage Mechanical layers was to use layer groups.  Information on how I used layer groups can be found on this post: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Mechanical/steel-shape-layers/m-p/3743284#M14979

Additionally, I wrote a blog post about it here:

http://www.mastergraphics.com/wordpress/2012/763/

Thanks for the help and have a great day!

Peace,

Pete