Layer Freeze vs. Layer Off

[irneb]

I understand the whole thing about blocks and how OFF and Frozen affects the layers inside. I personally would never set up my layers like that whereas a layer INSIDE a block would need to be shown but the layer the block was on wouldn't. Seems wacky.

I don't think it's "Wacky" in the sense that you're suggesting. It's very powerful & can save a lot of extra work. E.g.:
With room tags - in order to get my scheduling working - I use data extraction. Now to have the room name & number show up in the schedule - they need to be "joined" inside a block as 2 attributes. Sometimes you don't want to see the number on plan but do want to see the name (or visa-versa) - happens a lot when other consultants use my drawing. So either you create a separate name & number - which makes for duplicate work, or you have the number attribute on a ROOM-NO layer, while the name attribute is on a ROOM-NAME layer. Then it's simply a matter of turning whichever layer OFF.

[Coolmo]

So either you create a separate name & number - which makes for duplicate work, or you have the number attribute on a ROOM-NO layer, while the name attribute is on a ROOM-NAME layer. Then it's simply a matter of turning whichever layer OFF.

That's what I'd do too but I would just freeze the layer I didn't want to see. Same outcome but I'd be sticking to my very simple rule of Freezing things I don't want to see and keeping ALL layers turned ON. What would be the advantage of turning the layers OFF inside the block instead of just freezing them? I personally don't work with attributes so is it an attribute thing? The only difference that I see in this block situation is if you have a block with 3 entitys on 3 different layers INSIDE the block and the block is inserted onto a 4th layer, when the 4th layer is turned OFF the 3 layers on the INSIDE of the block still show as opposed to if you froze the 4th layer, which would simply not show the 4th layer and also not show everything in the block. I'm really not trying to argue here. I just want to see if I'm missing something that could make me faster in my work.

How do you isolate layers and the better question is how do you turn them back on? Through layer manager? You can't use the "Layer Previous" button because any actual changes you do to the layers after they've been isolated gets lost when it "Restores" the previous layer state (and then doesn't put you back to pre-isolation state.) I really am curious.

[irneb]

That's what I'd do too but I would just freeze the layer I didn't want to see. Same outcome but I'd be sticking to my very simple rule of Freezing things I don't want to see and keeping ALL layers turned ON. What would be the advantage of turning the layers OFF inside the block instead of just freezing them? I personally don't work with attributes so is it an attribute thing? The only difference that I see in this block situation is if you have a block with 3 entitys on 3 different layers INSIDE the block and the block is inserted onto a 4th layer, when the 4th layer is turned OFF the 3 layers on the INSIDE of the block still show as opposed to if you froze the 4th layer, which would simply not show the 4th layer and also not show everything in the block. I'm really not trying to argue here. I just want to see if I'm missing something that could make me faster in my work.

I forgot to mention, instead of having a 3rd layer for inserting the block onto, I generally then just place it on the ROOM-NO layer. I could freeze the ROOM-NAME layer and have no difficulty, but doing so with the ROOM-NO will freeze all of it. If you always place the block on a different layer - which you never freeze - sure you can then stick to freezing only. And no it's not just for attributes, I've got a similar thing happening to my door-blocks, which have the actual door swing placed on layer 0, the lintel lines on LINTELS, etc. The block's inserted on layer DOORS. For RCP's I then turn DOORS off so I still see the lintel lines. If I froze DOORS, then the openings would look as if the wall stops there instead of having a line which shows that there's something going through below ceiling level.

How do you isolate layers and the better question is how do you turn them back on? Through layer manager? You can't use the "Layer Previous" button because any actual changes you do to the layers after they've been isolated gets lost when it "Restores" the previous layer state (and then doesn't put you back to pre-isolation state.) I really am curious.

You use LAYUNISO instead LAYERP. It does become a bit difficult to isolate layers inside blocks - I must admit. LAYFRZ and LAYOFF works great though.

[david.ward]

Can someone direct me to a discussion (or white paper?) on why one would freeze layers instead of turning them off. I understand the power of the freeze command in paper space with multiple viewports, but what is the difference when working in model space?

I have discovered a "glitch" in the ON/OFF function. If you have a multi leader that uses a block that has an entity (a circle in my case) on the zero layer within the block, and the multi layer is placed on a layer that is turned off, the entity will be invisible but will still plot unless the layer is frozen. The same block used in the multi leader but placed as a block by itself (on the same layer as the multi leader layer that is turned off), the entity will be invisible and NOT plot (as it is supposed to not plot)

Why does the entity forget what it is supposed to do when it is part of a multi leader?

I freeze it and it works fine but I would call that a glitch.

David