Eskimo's macro - Saved Layer Settings

I've written a macro that I call "Saved Layer Settings". I will refer to it here as "SLS". My plan is to describe it in a series of posts in this thread.

What does SLS do?

SLS reads and displays information about layers:

SLS shows a list of all page layers for the active page.
- For each of those page layers, SLS shows the settings (visibility, printability, editability) for that layer.
SLS shows a list of all master layers that are applicable to the active page. This includes all "all pages" layers, and also "odd pages" or "even pages" layers as appropriate depending on the odd/even status of the active page.
- For each of those master layers, SLS shows the general document-wide settings (visibility, printability, editability) for that layer.
- For each of those master layers, SLS also shows any page-based overrides (for visibility, printability, editability) that are in effect for that layer for the active page.
Layer settings are shown as follows:
- For visibility, "V" indicates visible; a dot in that column indicates not visible.
- For printability, "P" indicates printable; a dot in that column indicates not printable.
- For editability, "E" indicates editable; a dot in that column indicates not editable
From within SLS, one can change which page in the document is active. After such a change, the form is updated to reflect the new active page.
- Instead of a regular page, one can choose "Master Page". When that is chosen, the form shows all master layers in the document, including both "odd pages" and "even pages" layers.

Screenshot with Page 2 active:

The "E" markers in the Odd/Even column show that ML 5 and ML 6 are "even pages" layers.

Screenshot with Page 1 active:

The "O" markers in the Odd/Even column show that ML 3 and ML 4 are "odd pages" layers.
General document-wide settings for ML 1 are visible, printable, and editable, but there are page overrides in effect on this page to make that layer not visible, not printable, and not editable.
General document-wide settings have the Document Grid set to not visible, but a page override is in effect on this page to make it visible.

Screenshot with "Master Page" chosen:

More to come...

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hywelharris over 7 years ago

One of the things I often need to do is set layer options across pages. So, if I have a non-printing layer where I store reference data I need to be able to set printing OFF for all pages.

I think, though without trying it, I would need to create a setting that does that, but in order to create that I would need to activiate each page in turn and make the necessary changes. This will be time consuming for documents of over 20 pages. Is there an option in the Active Page dropdown for 'All Pages', 'All Odd Pages' or 'All Even Pages'? or can you only select one page at a time?

THis looks very interesting. Where would the SLS Sets data be stored? Within the document zip? or in a Users folder?. Persoanlly I prefer all my data to be in a location on my data drive, never in Users within the OS drive.
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hywelharris over 7 years ago

Oh and BTW, this is increasingly looking like a 'paid for' layer solution. I'd be prepared to pay for it.
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hywelharris over 7 years ago

One other option I'd like to see is the ability to set the 'Active' layer on each page. Macros like Page numbering place their output on the active layer, which is not always the one you'd like, and checking each and every page is a ball ache.....

Thanks
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David Milisock over 7 years ago

As an old timer I remember the days where the graphic application was a platform for third party plug-ins (and the application publisher fully supported the third party) and there was lots of neat stuff.

I'll tell you this Quark until later versions never produced an Adobe compliant postscript file and all Quark EPS and PS exportation was supported by 3rd party plug-ins. In fact every RIP manufacturer used to supply a Quark export plugin for their device.

I like industry and this commercial macro symbiosis WOULD BE A BIG DEAL for the users if done right, features tuned to the users needs, low cost, productivity and PROFITS!
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Eskimo over 7 years ago in reply to hywelharris

hywelharris said:
One of the things I often need to do is set layer options across pages. So, if I have a non-printing layer where I store reference data I need to be able to set printing OFF for all pages.

I think, though without trying it, I would need to create a setting that does that, but in order to create that I would need to activiate each page in turn and make the necessary changes. This will be time consuming for documents of over 20 pages. Is there an option in the Active Page dropdown for 'All Pages', 'All Odd Pages' or 'All Even Pages'? or can you only select one page at a time?

Aside from general document-wide settings for master layers, SLS does not do anything across pages. It is substantially an individual-page-oriented tool.

HOWEVER, it has become obvious to me through my work on this that some of the "guts" of SLS might be put to use for the sort of multi-page operations that you describe. My current plan is not to get into that until I think I have SLS wrapped up pretty well (and, I hope, have some other people trying it out).
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