There's been a very in depth debate within the Forum recently about layers so I thought it would be helpful to get a straw poll of how members use/regard layers. I've left the poll public so members can see who's voting for what.
Printable View
There's been a very in depth debate within the Forum recently about layers so I thought it would be helpful to get a straw poll of how members use/regard layers. I've left the poll public so members can see who's voting for what.
I use layers when I consider them appropriate.
The sign shop that I worked at for a couple years never use layers.
They're considerable business has done without them for many years and they see no need to bother with them. (All of their software includes layer capabilty however)
I would say, requests for nested layers falls in the category "The layers gallery requires a complete overhaul".
Otherwise, there were no reason, why we don't get it within Xara Xtreme (there are requests for that since years...).
Remi
Hum, i see nested layers as an improvement rather than a complete overhaul. The actual layers structure works well for simple things. There´s nothing wrong with it. It only shows its limits when we deal with heavy projects. I see the nested layers as the next level for solving the problems on complex work.
For me a complete overhaul would be the layer gallery display all groups (nested layers), layers, grouped objetcs and individual objects along with a preview of them as some programs already do. This offers a lot of control, true, but adds a lot of clutter to the layers gallery too, and i´m unsure if all that "clutter" is really needed.
I´ve tried some of those programs and due to the huge number of items (objects) listed it´s as almost so hard to find the object we want as if there´s no object listing at all.
That´s why i voted "I use layers but feel there's some need for improvement."
I voted for "needs some improvement". By that I mean nested layers, object-level locking/visibility options, and thumbnails.
More control would be good, but I hope there would be the option to turn thumbnails and other information off if not needed. Thumbnail size options would also be nice to have.
I would prefer to get some new vector tools before this is attacked--specifically a mesh tool or diffusion curves.
When the layers are redone, I'd like to see a method added to click on an object in the drawing and turn off all layers other than the one the object is on. Another useful method would be to turn off the layer that object is on without having to look at the status line and manually find that layer. Even just having the layer become highlighted in the layers gallery would be a great help.
I think nested layers; layers which can be expanded to show groups and objects, and groups which can be expanded too, would be a great improvement.
With hundreds of objects, dividing them up between layers helps tremendously, but then tracking down a specific object can occasionally cause frustration. Xara have tried to address this, quite cleverly, with the names gallery. Unfortunately that is not intuitive to use and also requires some fore-thought and discipline in organising an image.
Perhaps some combination of the name and layers gallery, with an auto-naming option (naming each object after the layer it is on and its stacking order?), with tabs to move from layers to objects/groups, colours, bitmaps and fonts.
An option for auto-naming colours would be good too. I often split images up into layers like; flesh, head, body, car-body, gun, etc., so naming a colour after the layer and object would make it straight-forward (at least for me LOL!). Linking colours should be more intuitive too, why can't you drag the colour picker, bring up right click menu and simply choose; tint of this colour?
Sorry, I'm rambling...I vote that layers needs improving asap.
Layers could definetly use updating, particuliarily since we have multiple pages now.
If I could do anything close to what Nicolae does I'm sure iI would be using layers much more often.:D
http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...hlight=nicolae
take a look at how other graphic apps handle layers, nesting, grouping, thumbnails...
even the freebie Inkscape includes nesting.
xara is stuck in neutral on this matter and has been for a looonnnnnnnng time.
geo.
Hi
As someone who uses Xara for Vectors and photoshop for the rest I do use layers a lot in PShop. I do sometimes confuse myself switching between the two programs.
As an aside would be very handy if when I exported as a PSD Xara didn't flatten the image, but I suppose thats not possible.
Ian
Ian what version of Xara are you using? Exporting to psd maintains the layers using Xtreme Pro 4.0. Only the vector shapes are converted to png with alpha.
OK, I'm not done with this yet. I think a lot of the problems people come up against with layers are down to their workflow. They get into particular habits using other packages and want to continue to work in the same way in Xara, whether it is using the application to best advantage or not. With the toolset and functionality of Xara, I simply don't see a need for more complex layering than we have already. In Xara's heirarchy we have:
- Objects which can be selected and edited individually or with marquee selections
- Groups which allow many separate objects to be edited together and to have effects applied as though they were a single object
- Layers where we can turn things on and off or limit editability
Surely this combination of features has every situation covered? Yes, there are limitations but adding more complexity solves none of them. e.g. Sometimes its annoying that a group will bring all objects to the same "Z" level. so I'd like to see some effort into being able to create a group that allowed some non-group objects to be interleaved with objects within the group. The challenge there would be adding things like drop-shadows or group transparency but I see a lot more value in working on that than I do in nested layers. In fact I think groups are far more useful and powerful than layers and more effort in improving them would open up a lot more possibilities than adding to layers.
That said, I think the idea of combining some of the functionality of the Names Gallery and creating a heirarchical view of objects, groups and layers is an excellent one, a-la Combustion or After Effects.
In my drawings The original Photo or model is is on layer one, all the drawing is is done on Layer2.
Bones, could you please tell me how do you select in the attached .xar the black circle (or ANY other colored circle) with max 3 mouse clicks? Thanks.
BONES has not voted against layers, this much is clear in post #14
The issue is the validity of an more complex advanced layering system which he is questioning.
Clearly Xcellents example warrants the use of a layer but no more than already exists in Xtreme at the moment.
This poll should not be seen as a challenge or an argument - it's a preferrence vote.
Thanks Steve.
As stated at the outset this is a straw poll, a quick around the table (world) freeze frame of how members see the layers in XX at the present time. I've no objection to voters explaining their vote in more detail but having locked the "Layer Inadequacy" thread I don't wish to see this thread become a continuation of that locked thread. That thread was becoming very repetitious and was in danger of becoming very volatile.
Please vote. Please make your personal points. Please avoid debating other members opinions ... that's not the issue in this poll.
I don't wanna challenge anyone, i'm very keen to learn how other people, esp Bones would do such task. This is a very very simple example i posted which (to me) is a good reason to use layers. Maybe there are some mysterious shortcuts i missed for the last 14 years since Artworks?
I'm not saying you're challenging anybody. But this is a poll, NOT a debate about the poll results or issues raised within it.
People,
It seems like a very very strange discussion.
Layers have to be improved or completely re-designed for sure.
The poll's question are clear, but it hard to read (understand) correct final results... because I can answer some questions positively (there is a room for dual answering)... As I understand, the main question is to learn, is there any need (or how many people want) for layers to be more convenient to work with... No doubts, for simple drawings the current layers logic is pretty good enough, but doing a bit more complex design we starts talking about productivity and convenient... It's obvious, so there is nothing to even discuss.
Also, having more advanced layers logic would allow users who make "simple" design with no problem or slowing down Xtreme's speed, and also users with "complex" design would be happy to work in more convenient environment...
Click no. 1 - Open Name Gallery
Click no. 2 - Select colour "Black"
Click no. 3 - Press "Select"
There is more than one way to skin a cat. Sure, it was kind of cheating and I definitely wouldn't work that way because I don't like taking my attention from the drawing, nor do I like having galleries eating up screen-space. I would be far more comfortable simply moving the other circles out of the way, one at a time until I got to the black circle. The number of mouse clicks is less relevant to me than maintaining my focus on the drawing. Its why I tend to use those shortcuts that allow me to stay focussed, like changing tools and combining shapes, even though I am not normally a hot-key kind of guy.
Of course, if I gave that file back to you after moving the circles to their own layers, you would have to turn each layer off until the layer with the black circle was exposed, which would take you 5 clicks, even though you already know that it is the bottom circle.
On the subject of turning off layers to speed things up, I did some more testing last night. I moved 200-odd objects to a new layer, leaving only one simple object on the first [a rectangle], then I turned the new layer off and nudged the rectangle. It took about 3 seconds to move. I turned the other layer back on and nudged the rectangle again and it took pretty much the same amount of time to move. So putting things in layers and turning them on or off doesn't seem to affect redraw speed when moving objects.
However, and this is really interesting, one of my 200-odd objects was actually a group containing nearly 3000 separate objects that make up a "boilerplate" texture and when I ungrouped them, zoom definitely slowed down noticeably when both layers were visible.
I was doing it on my little laptop, which doesn't have QuadroFX graphics so I thought I might see the zoom redraw issue mentioned by others but it was equally smooth with one object or 250. So even a humble 128Mb GeForce seems OK on zooming up to a point.
These results tend to show that groups and layers both improve efficiency to similar extents and either can be used to speed up redraws. Interesting, huh?
... or maybe its not interesting at all. Go figure.
With Xara 4's rollover support requiring a layer for each popup image, I find myself with 10-20 layers that I'd very much like a thumbnail preview of as well as the ability to group.
Was this poll taken before or after Xara5 came out because if it was before I doubt we will ever see a nested layers in Xara. From my experience the folks at Xara never change UI functionalities once they have created them, they only add new stuff but never go back and rethink old stuff.
The Poll was created 23 August 2008, Xtreme 5 Pro with it's new advanced object gallery where everything in your document is presented in a heirarchical, expandable list, was released 4th June 2009.
I think this represents a rethink of layers since earlier versions?
Could nested layers be something we might see in Xtreme 6?
No one can tell until the release, I'm afraid.
Complete overhaul
As a Xara 'newb' and software developer my comments on Layers are thus...
I was expecting to be able to click on an object and then... right click - Move to layer name/number (whatever) . You can only seem to move objects infront or back based on the current position (what if there are 100 layers and you want to move from 99 to 49?)
I was expecting to be able to move layers around within the tree itself (to create nested layers)
I was expecting to be able to drag an object off the work area onto the layer 'gallery' to change its layer
I was expecting to see the number of objects on a particular layer
I was expecting to right-click an object and be able to find out what layer it is on
Now maybe, you can do all of these things.. like I said, I am new
Just some thoughts..
Great software though :D
Ha, ha! Well, if you expect it to be so, then when you'll develop your graphics program it will certainly work the way you expect it to! :D
Just kidding, ;)
Seriously though, the layers implementation in the object oriented graphics concept is of secondary importance. The complex layer structures are not essential unlike they are in the layer based graphics concept (e.g. Photoshop).
Actually any graphic design can be created in a single layer. Layers are just helpers in organising more convenient workflow. And we use them to some extent for the HTML and animation exports (the frames in animation are internally equivalents to layers, you can't have multiple layers in animations).
Of course, improvements of the layer implementation is a good thing as well as lots of other features we have on the wish list. So it just waits for it's time to be implemented. But how much time? No one can tell. :)
Now some answers:
You can do this in the Object Gallery in XtremePro5.Quote:
I was expecting to be able to click on an object and then... right click - Move to layer name/number (whatever) . You can only seem to move objects infront or back based on the current position (what if there are 100 layers and you want to move from 99 to 49?)
You can freely move them around in the gallery, though you can not nest them, so no trees.Quote:
I was expecting to be able to move layers around within the tree itself (to create nested layers)
Drag it within the object gallery.Quote:
I was expecting to be able to drag an object off the work area onto the layer 'gallery' to change its layer
Ctrl+A and look at the status bar.Quote:
I was expecting to see the number of objects on a particular layer
"Find" button in the Object Gallery.Quote:
I was expecting to right-click an object and be able to find out what layer it is on
I never use layers. I haven't taken the time to understand how they work. Sometime maybe.
Personaly I would rather see a overhaul of the brushes first. The object gallery in Xtreme 5 was already a good improvement in this area.
Thanks for the reply covoxer..
To answer/comment on your post
>>you'll develop your graphics program it will certainly work the way you expect it to
Well as someone who has written and sold a large 3D OpenGL graphics application to Autodesk (you may have heard of them), then yes, I have certain expectations and experience in the field of software development
>>You can do this in the Object Gallery in XtremePro5.
Hmmm yes but - clunky
1. Select desired layer in the Object Gallery
2. Select object
3. Press Move button
Lots of mouse movement across the screen and clicking (is there a quicker way?)
What about
1 RHM on Object - Move to current Layer (or have a dropdown for layer selection)
All done in-place on the object and not moving backwards and forwards to the Object Layer.
>>You can freely move them around in the gallery, though you can not nest them, so no trees.
Yes it's the nesting that I was expecting to see. This is a very usefull thing to have (certainly in CAD apps anyway) - maybe it's not an issue here
>>Drag it within the object gallery.
As above, not the same thing... you may have 100 objects on a layer and only want to move 1, so dragging the layer about in the Gallery achieves nothing
What I was saying was to pick up the Object then drag it over to the Object Gallery so that it is 'dropped' on the layer of choice. The object would return to its original position but would now be on the new layer .... This would avoid the 3 step move as above ....
>>Ctrl+A and look at the status bar.
Again, not the same thing ... How do I know at a glance haw many objects are on layer 100? ... Without switching on/off layers? A simple number against the layer in the Object Gallery or a RHM hover would be of use. For example, it would tell you which layers are in use
EDIT:- This is perhaps a 'non issue' because you get a display of the objects on the layer as you hover over it.. so you can see if it has no objects.
>>"Find" button in the Object Gallery.
Strange... I don't have a find button in my Object Gallery! .... However, clicking on the object gives the info in the status bar (which is better anyway)
So, at the end of the day, the above are really only minor things .... I am just VERY picky about the UI design because it's something I do for a living
I am sure there are far more important things for the Developers to spend time on and it's a fantastic piece of software
PS Great user group
You should really try Pro version. It shows not only layers but all the objects in the Object Gallery. You can drag them around the gallery changing their order or even layer they belong to. You can even set visibility and lock attributes for every object individually as well as for entire layers. ;)
Thanx
Looks like I should have gone for the Pro ...
TBH The difference looked like 'print stuff' to my untrained eye (CMYK export, the stuff that pro graphic designers need) ... I didn't spot the fact that there were UI changes too
That will teach me to be a cheapskate ;))
Thanks again
Julian
I use them frequently, they help keep things organized but I do think the layers gallery could stand some improvement.