topic Re: Freeze same layers in a different drawing in Visual LISP, AutoLISP and General Customization Forum

Freeze same layers in a different drawing

esimp18 — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 15:30:57 GMT

Is there a way to copy the frozen / turned off layers from one drawing to another drawing?

For Instance:

Drawing 1 & drawing 2 both have the same layers: A,B,C,D,E,F,&G. Drawing 1 has layers A,C&G frozen. I want drawing 2 to also have those layers frozen. Is there a way to copy those 3 layers and turn them off in drawing 2.

My current solution to this is writing down or screenshotting all of the turned off layers and manualy freezing them one by one. This becomes a huge hassle when i have to do like 50+ layers.

One of the reasons that I have to do this is when i use xrefs. If i have to use "visretain" to update the layer colors, it turns on a lot of layers and i have to turn them back off.

Re: Freeze same layers in a different drawing

pendean — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 15:44:17 GMT

>>>...My current solution to this is writing down or screenshotting ...<<<
Have you explored the use of LAYERSTATE command that does what you seek (and can be exported/imported between separate DWG file) https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/ENU/AutoCAD-Core/files/GUID-F1453A4F-C184-40D9-9EE1-E1149812501A-htm.html#:~:text=Saves%2C%20restores%2C%20and%20manages%20sets,that%20are%20called%20layer%20states.&text=The%20Layer%20States%20Manager%20is,drawing%20as%20a%20layer%20state.

Re: Freeze same layers in a different drawing

johnyDFFXO — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 16:04:42 GMT

@esimp18 wrote:
....
One of the reasons that I have to do this is when i use xrefs. If i have to use "visretain" to update the layer colors, it turns on a lot of layers and i have to turn them back off.

If you have a new enough version of ACAD, say 2018+, explore this portion of the setting. That allows you to update just the selected properties of Xref layers.

Re: Freeze same layers in a different drawing

esimp18 — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 16:06:06 GMT

Thankyou (:
So i think this would work for my vis retain issue. Would the export feature work if the layers are slightly different between the two drawings (like if theres a couple extra layers in one of the drawings)?