[Bf-funboard] Layer Manager proposal/mock-up / 20plus

[Thorsten Wilms]

On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 03:35:54PM -0500, Paul Lunneberg wrote:
> Great idea!  Though I agree with William Reynish... A way should be devised to
> have more than 20 individual layers.  

Are more than 20 layers relay needed? I mean, are there people around here, 
who have used the maximum and felt the need for more?

If so, then I think there should be the known 20 layers only initialy. 
With the option to add more. The 20 buttons/shortcuts would be a like 
a scrollable cutout of all layers. There could be forward/backward 
buttons close to the 20 layer buttons, much like the controls 
for too many open tabs in browsers.

An other solution would be to have a table with all layers with a 
fast_access checkbox. Up to 20 checked layers would be associated 
with bottons/shortcuts. 

Both possibilties wouldn't impact current style of layer usage.
To not have imediate access to all layers shouldn't be much 
of a problem. You don't need so many layers all the time, and 
to keep oversight of just 20 layers will be hard enough, even 
with layers.


Other things:

The 20 buttons should indicate if the associated layer contains 
anything, propably by change of color.

Ever thought about layer thumbnails?

And maybe a thing for Blender 3 (4,5?) or so:
Thinking of Layers as groups. With easy selection of whole 
groups/layers for G/R/S opertaions. With inheritance 
of parameters (like a material assigned to the groups overwrites 
single objects material). Maybe somehow combined with parenting/
tracking. But you see, I have nothing concrete, it's more of a 
vision :-)


---
Thorsten