ssget selecting everything on a layer

[RobertB]

... If someone knows the VL-commands enough to change the CHPROP section to work faster with VL commands that would be great.

(vl-load-com)
;;;changes entities from layer whose color is 251 to specified layer
(defun c:ElecChngLayByColor	(/ acadobject activedocument LayerTable thelist clc klay_name i aObj)
;;;Creates a layer for entities to be moved to
  (command "-layer" "m" "background" "c" "6" "background" "") ;_ end command
  (setq acadobject (vlax-get-Acad-Object))
  (setq activedocument (vla-get-activedocument acadobject))
  (setq LayerTable (vla-get-layers activedocument))
  (vlax-for each LayerTable
    (setq klay_name (vla-get-name each))
    (setq clc (vla-get-color each))
;;;above is VL stuff I don't fully understand but it walks through
;;;layer table and gets the color assigned to each layer
;;;if the color is 251 then the "(cond" section runs
    (if (= clc 251)
      (cond ((setq ss1 (ssget "X" (list (cons 8 klay_name)))) 
             (repeat (setq i (sslength ss1))
              (setq aObj (vlax-EName->vla-Object (ssname ss1 (setq i (1- i)))))
              (vla-Put-Layer aObj "Background")
              (vla-Put-Color aObj acByLayer))))
    ) ;_ end if
  ) ;_ end of vlax-for
  (princ "That's All Folks!")
  (princ)
);defun

[3D Jack]

Thank you Robert that is definitely faster. However; with our user's and the drawings we are working with I may stay with CHPROP and here is why. My test drawing has 43,000+ entities in it on 500+ different layers. With the CHPROP running each time a layer is changed you see the color change to the screen so you know the program has not locked up. We are looking at 30 seconds plus for this to run. With past network problems we had unbelieveable lags that would take 30 seconds to draw a line. Everyone is so used to that and all the lockups they will think this is a lockup when it is actually still running. Your post is definitely the better of the two and I may just let the user's decide which they prefer. Much appreciated, Jack.

[RobertB]

You could add a spinner to let them know it is still working.

[3D Jack]

I thought about adding a spinner but I just did a time comparison and they were nearly the same, about 26 seconds to do everything. The savings isn't enough to justify the spinner and it is kind of cool to watch things all over the screen change their colors to the new bylayer color of the layer they are placed on. Thanks again to everyone for all the help and also hoping somebody can copy and modify to create some other program.

[irneb]

  (vlax-for each LayerTable
;; ........
    (if (= clc 251)
      (cond ((setq ss1 (ssget "X" (list (cons 8 klay_name)))) 
;; ........
   ) ;_ end if
  ) ;_ end of vlax-for

That could get dangerous ... you are only allowed 128 active selection sets. As per Robert & my posts in this thread. You'll need a (setq ss1 nil) and a (gc) just after the end of the repeat loop.

Otherwise if there's more than 128 layers, you could get an error. The gc should be called to force the release of the selection set from RAM ... otherwise Lisp waits for some idle time to release it (which may only happen once the code completes).

[RobertB]

That could get dangerous ... you are only allowed 128 active selection sets. As per Robert & my posts in this thread. You'll need a (setq ss1 nil) and a (gc) just after the end of the repeat loop.

Good point, and an ironic cross posting eh?

[irneb]

It never rains, but it pours doesn't it?