Get user string, check to see if any layers in drawing match user-input

[bhull1985]

Hello everyone, I am attempting to tackle a new project.

I'm writing a small routine to enable layer toggles based off of a few characters inputted by a user, such as:

Laymod "IFC" thaw

would be the user execution command, and within that I want this program to search for any matches within the list of returned layers in the drawing to what's in the double-quotes, in the example above, it would return any or all layers that have the string "IFC" within them.

I've been able to construct the layer list, and have set vars for the layers to be an argument of the subfunction required to toggle the layers.

What I need some assistance with is the string matching portion of this routine, that would search the table of layers and return any matches to the user input....if anyone would assist me in this i would be grateful.

Thanks and cheeeeeeers!

[mid-awe]

Just my two cents:

Instead of: (getkword "\nChoose layer control {Freeze/Thaw/On/oFF/Lock/Unlock/eXit}:")

Use: (getkword "\nChoose layer control [Freeze/Thaw/On/oFF/Lock/Unlock/eXit]:")
using brackets instead will provide a quick-n-easy menu from which to pick.

[Kent1Cooper]

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@mid-awe wrote:
....
Instead of: (getkword "\nChoose layer control {Freeze/Thaw/On/oFF/Lock/Unlock/eXit}:")

Use: (getkword "\nChoose layer control [Freeze/Thaw/On/oFF/Lock/Unlock/eXit]:")
using brackets instead will provide a quick-n-easy menu from which to pick.

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Cool!  I've got access to Acad2014 at times [right now], but most of the time only to 2004, which doesn't work that way, so that was news to me.

[mid-awe]

🙂 I have been fortunate to have had access to '08, I believe it was added then, don't quote me 😉

And by the way, you can also do - (getkword "\nChoose layer control [Freeze/Thaw/On/oFF/Lock/Unlock/eXit] (this is a comment that will display only after interaction): <On>")

I'm glad to share.

[bhull1985]

Ah yes, this was a function of initget/getkword that I was not aware of!

Upon selection of the layer control (in 2012) it gives a small popup box that we can actually use the up/down arrow keys to cycle through the available options for modifying layers.

Has anyone tried this program? It's fairly intuitive and is just meant to be useful in the places that the expresstools layer controls lack. Simply gives a list of the layers in the drawing just before asking for the layer control to be applied. I'm going to do some testing with long-string layer names such as those used in complex 3d piping models with nested xrefs and so on and so forth, some of the layer names might as well be BOM descriptions they hold so much info, so when the layertable pastes itself onto the screen for easy selection, this may have adverse effects by spamming the screen down. I'll have to see how it acts in larger drawings, but for me at least in testing small dwgs, it works fine.

Anyways, thanks for the help with this guys as always suggestions are appreciated and followed through on!