I would love to have an option that when I change a tool, my layer changes accordingly.
Imagine texts: I would be able to optionaly customize this in document setup, so that I would tell Layout which layer to insert texts by default. I would hit the text tool and the layer would change to the default text layer I had chosen.
This could be finetuned to extreme scenarios too: If I had two text layers and I happened to be typing texts, Layout would assume that the current Layer was the one to insert objects. If I had been working on Dimensions and would hit the text tool, Layout could display a floating box to allow me to choose which of the text layers I would want to work with. If I would ignore that and type, it would use the first on the list.
This way I would never happen to bump in the same recurrent issue, of drawing in the wrong layer.
Example: dimensions being created on the bottom viewport layer where I have 3 stacked viewports on top, that when I turn on, mask everything, dimensions included.
I totally agree. LO could stand to have a lot of attention! Since it acts very much like other graphics programs and since it is being used more and more as a 2D drafting program, please do what you can to make it work better for that purpose.
I think it would be very nice if I selected a layer and color and style settings adjusted to what were when I previously was on that layer. I could just immediately pick up where I left off.
You sort of do that. Layout remembers the last style you used for each tool, but it fails to help us organize layers.
It would be much better to be able to have preset styles by layer, as we have in CAD, but…
I’m using a Sketching tool called Concepts, for tablets, and it has an automatic layering feature. It’s quite cool when you’re in a session and you are using 3 tools, like fill, pen and pencil, and each time you pick one, it draws it in the correct layer. If you’re in automatic mode and pick a new tool, it even creates the new layer for you, called watercolor, or wire (which is a sort of a vector pen too).
I didn’t understand what was happening at first (I always jump into software and try to figure it out as I work) but once I did, it really made me speed up my workflow with it.
The ‘picker’ when hoovering and clicking over a scrapbook element could do just that, it already picks style settings, but currently, layer info is neglected.
The idea here would be to hit the dimension tool and Layout would change layers into the dimension layer.
Right now, what I have to do is hit the dimension tool and remember to change to the dimension layer before start using the tool, then type something in between, but remember to change that text to the text layer, then keep dimensioning.
If the option was there, I would just hit the dimension tool and dimension the project, hit the text and type something, then go back to dimension and Layout would fit every new object into the right layer.
Using the picker tool in between would be a bit better than having to find the right layer before working on it, but it would not be seamless.
Also, Layout remembers which styles I’ve used lastly in both my dimensions and texts, so I don’t need to use the picker. I only need to use the picker when I need a new style.
Imagine that I want to have red dimensions with the same style of some line work. I wouldn’t want the picker to pick on the linework’s layer, I want the picker to pick the style, but keep me in the same layer of the dimensions I’m working on.
So the solution would really be having the possibility to associate tools with their default layers in our document setup.
This way, we could have different default layer/tool associations for each different document template.