new layer manager problems
hi, the reason I'm here is to complain about the new layer manager.
don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a layer manager that supports nested layers, and I always used plugins for that, so I got really excited with the new manager.
but I'm complaining about how poorly made it was, clearly no effort was put into it, I don't understand the reasons it was released like this.
but don't take me wrong, this isn't a rage thread, I want to point some (many) things that are bothering me, to see if there are any workarounds, solutions, if this is happening to everyone, because sure they look like bugs, or even if it's me who doesn't quite get that tool.
1.layers disappear when I open some scenes. doesn't happen to all of them, but some, like half of them. when I open the file, layer manager is empty, doesn't even have the default layer. I have to refresh it's window somehow, like switching to hierarchy view and back to layers.
2.right click doesn't do the trick. say you right click a layer to open it's context menu, and rename, delete, do whatever you want to that layer. it won't work, it will open the menu as if you right clicked an empty space in the manager. in order to do so, you have to left click a layer to select it, and then right click. you may say it's intentional, but it's not very intuitive, and really pointless, so probably a bug.
3.no keyboard shortcuts. simple as that, you can't copy, paste, even though I'm not sure why you would want to copy a layer, but still, delete won't work aswell, and that I caught myself trying to delete layer through the keyboard many times.
4.renaming the layer will rename every single item on it. well, this doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes, when I select a layer, it selects all objects it contains, and I couldn't unselect them, except by selecting another layer, and that would select it's own items aswell. sometimes it doesn't happen, maybe if you refresh, I don't know, but it gets annoying.
5.freezes. from time to time I'm managing layers, creating new ones, renaming, moving, etc, and max freezes. for like 15-30 seconds. there's no specific reason, but apparently it just freezes as you're using it.
6.after renaming a layer, clicking another layer will expand it. since I installed max 2015, I've been doing a lot of layer management, as you might guess. and this was frustrating as I was mass renaming layers in one scene, and right after I renamed a layer, I clicked another one to rename it aswell, and it instantly expanded a layer containing a hundred items or so, every time.
7.undo. one of the few keyboards shortcuts that works in the layer manager, but not quite. if you rename a layer, and then press undo, it won't go back to the name it was before, but it will undo another action. apparently undoing doesn't affect layer naming. it does affect object naming though, since you will end up physically renaming the object itself.
8.moving objects through layers. when you try dragging an object from one layer to another, a yellow straight arrow appears, and if you drag a little more, a blue curved upwards (or downwards sometimes) arrow will show up. you would guess the yellow arrow is to move that object directly to the layer you're pointing, and the up arrow would move the object one nest level up. but both blue arrows do exactly the same thing as the yellow, they move your selected object to the layer you're pointing. if you put an object on top of another one, arrows still appear, but releasing the button won't drop it into that object's layer, it will do nothing.
9.moving objects again. happens only sometimes also. when I select multiple objects, then I click on top of one of them and drag to move to a different layer, if I click on the first object I selected to drag, it will only move the first one, even though all of them are selected.
I could even point some ui bugs, like column arrangement, resizing, etc, but I'll just focus on those.