Custom symbol not changing colour when I change the layer

[STEVENAR]

Hi,

I am using a custom symbol in my drawings which consists of a box and a tag number in the centre. I have changed the layer of the tag no. which has changed colour to correspond wiht the new layer. However when I change the layer of the box it does not change colour. Any ideas why the box is not changing colour?

Thanks in advance.

Regards

[sniktun]

Hi Steve,

I am presuming you are doing this in symbol builder yes?

Just because you set your box to a certain layer does not necessarily mean that the colour will change. If you look in your properties box you can see under the general tab that color and layer are seperate. You can change the color of your box there.

Hopefully that helps

[drathak]

What snikton says is true, but there is something of an exception.  You can set the Color to be "ByLayer" and it will follow the layer color.  The same thing applies to Linetype and a couple of other properties.

Also, when making Electrical symbols it is reccomended that everything be placed on layer 0.  The reason is that when inserted, ACADE places various things on different layers based on the attributes.  TAG1 and TAG2 attributes for example, end up on layer TAGS or TAGFIXED depending on if the TAG is fixed or not.  Pin numbers on a symbol are placed on layer TERMS and so on.  Anything not on layer 0 will be left alone, but that may cause unexpected behaviour on down the line.  MAY.

[rhesusminus]

All geometry created on layer 0 in a symbol is automatically moved to layer SYMS when the symbol is inserted into a drawing. Try to change the color of the SYMS layer to see if the box changes color then.

[STEVENAR]

Hi,

Thanks for all the feedback.

I would rather my drawing layers were colour coded so that is it obvious if a layer in on instead of off and vice versa.

I tried changing the colour of the SYMS layer and it did not change the colour for the box. However it did change the colour of other items on that layer.

Any other suggestion guys?

Thanks & Regards

[rhesusminus]

If you could post the drawing here, or PM it, it would be so much easier than just trying to guess what it is.

[STEVENAR]

Here is my test drawing. I have inserted 5 blocks representing 5 pressure transmitters. I need each block on a different layer and ideally want the blocks colour coded. I have created layers 01-05 on the drawing.

Thanks.

[rhesusminus]

Hi.

I had a quick look.

When AcadE inserts a symbol, it moves the different attributes of the symbol to some specific layers (the TAG1/2 attributes are moved to the TAGS layer).

So, if you set these attributes to color ByLayer they WILL inherit the color of these layers.

But, what you can do, is as I've done in the attached file. In the block definition, o've set all attributes/line etc. to be color ByBlock. Now, the attributes and lines will have the same color as the inserted block, and not the color of the layer that the different parts of the symbol resides on.

Seems to work. So, change the block definition to make everything to be color ByBlock, then run the attsync command to apply this "fix" to all blocks that are already inserted.

[metal_pro2]

Or you could try checking off "Apply to entities on layer 0 only" in Drawing properties

From Acad Help

Apply to entities on layer "0" only:

As AutoCAD Electrical inserts a component, it moves the parts and pieces of the symbol to the category layers listed in this dialog box.
If you do not want an attribute or the graphics of a specific electrical symbol block to move to the defined AutoCAD Electrical layers,
create your symbol with the entities on some layer other than 0, and then select this switch.

[STEVENAR]

Thanks alot. Sounds good.

I cannot open the darwing for some reason.

How to I set the drawing to colour Byblock?

[rhesusminus]

• Open the block
• Open properties palette (CTRL + 1)
• Select all entities
• Change Color:
  

I've tried to resave the file to Acad 2010 format. See attached file.

[STEVENAR]

Thanks again.

I have put the tag numbers onto the Bylayer as I need to colour code the pressure transmitters by layer. The lines and attributes are all on the Byblock layer. However when I change the layer of a pressure transmitter block the Tag number doesnt seem to automatically change according to the colour of the layer. I need to change it manually. Does it not automatically change?

Regards

[rhesusminus]

The blocks that was already inserted when you made the change has to be updated.

You can do it with the attsync command.

But if it's an AcadE symbol, I'd really recommend that you run the swap/update block utility, and select Option B: Update block.

[STEVENAR]

Hi,

I have purged the drawing. I have updated the symbol in my library and re-inserted it into the drawing and finally used the swap/update block command and the tag number still doesnt change colour when I change the layer. I need to double click on the tag number attribute and change the layer of the tag number and the colour separately using the enhanced attribute editor on the properties tab. The Enhanced Attribute Editor always seems to show different layer info from what is shown on the General tab. I can get the box to change colour by layer but cannot get the tag number to change colour by layer.

Regards

[rhesusminus]

Could you post the drawing here? I'll take a look.