Outliner extended request

SketchUp Feature Requests
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Dear All,

There is one, at least for me, Urgent thing that I miss and need. Maybe other will do so.:innocent:

I would love to have a extra column inside the Outliner window with after each item the Layer where it belongs to.
It would be even more great if you can choose there, using a popup to select, another layer.
This is nice to get more control in general, but it is also a quick and easy repair tool, in case you have may group & layer levels and one :blush: is wrong. Its a crime to find the villain.

I did add a quick and dirty picture, to get the picture. :wink:

1500×773 310 KB

Thank you in advance.

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I have had this same idea, and thank you for creating a graphic to show it - that’s pretty much how I imagined it as well.

Also, I would love an eyeball icon by the “layer,” to hide everything with the same “layer.” That would essentially eliminate the need for a Layers Panel. There could be a Hiding Tag Manager, where people can quickly add or manage multiple names, and control color for the “color by layer” function, would have to be changed to “color by Hiding Attribute.” Perhaps “Visibility Manager” and “Color by Visibility Tag” would sound better, but “Hiding Tag” is more accurate. (Screening? Concealing? Cloaking?)

I was told that on an engineering level, there aren’t Layers anyway, Layers are just attributes of objects, like color or xyz position. This is why I tell my students to think of “Layers” as “Hiding Tags,” and to imagine, when associating an object with a Layer, that you are “tagging an item with a hiding attribute,” rather than “adding an object onto a layer.” There technically are no Layers in SketchUp, it’s just a word they used so that CAD people could find where their Layer names went.

Perhaps Outliner and “Layers” could be combined, and maybe called “Organizer?”
And then I would hope that we never, ever use the word “Layers” again in SketchUp, and retitle the hiding attribute as just that, a “hiding attribute” or “hiding tag”.

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A related feature request is to actually get rid of the “Color by Layer” feature, and add it on as an extension option. How many people (who draw on Layer 0) actually use “Color By Layer,” anyway? It doesn’t really work that well, after all, because an object can be influenced by SO many layers, through nesting.

And there’s really no need for those radio buttons to the left of Layers, also. Objects can be associated with a different Hiding Attribute (formerly known as “layers,” in this scenario) by selecting them all and then reassigning the “layer” directly. There doesn’t seem to be a purpose for the “Layer” radio buttons which can’t be accomplished fairly easily through other methods.

Without “Color by Layer” or the radio buttons, “Layers” would be free to just be themselves, and be hiding attribute fields sitting next to each item in Outliner.

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Colour by layer is actually a very useful feature. When using layers correctly it is a very quick way of seeing the various groups and components within your model. I always work without adding materials until such time as they are really needed, so a quick switch to colour by layer and I can see the structure of my model clearly.

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@Box Yeah, I guess so.

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He, thats a good idea for the use of the colors. Didn’t think about that.
I did start using it now for one minute, and Box, in a heart beat, you get 10pixels from me. Or points if you like. :wink: