Manual Layering/Grouping

Request changes or additions in functionality.

Moderator: Kyete

Post Reply
User avatar
Chronicle
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2019 3:48 pm

Manual Layering/Grouping

Post by Chronicle » Sat Jan 19, 2019 11:42 am

As an avid user of other visual editing software like Photoshop, the use of layers comes almost like second nature to me. In many of my edits in such programs (amateur graphic art and personal photo altering projects) I group layers together by ease of use and quick visibility. For this, I do acknowledge the auto-grouping feature of the layer tab.

Unless I just missed it (a very possible circumstance as I sometimes miss the obvious), I cant seem to find a disable function to the auto-grouping. For my purposes as a hopeful novelist, I use this software to make mock-up maps for personal reference while world-building/writing. For this, I often need to place roads through mountain ranges, have features like castles and walls layered onto the others features (as if built into the mountains), and the like.

Unfortunately, while the automatic grouping is on, I cannot move roads, which have their own layer group, to between the mountains. They always seem to be created behind the features, or towards the back (top) of the layer rack. The simple fix would be to switch the layer order and move the roads in front of the features, yet every time I try this, the system crashes. Even it it were to work, the road would simply render on top of the mountain range and not between the two mountains as I wish. I think this might be fixed if layers didn't auto group as vigorously. Features could be placed or regrouped according to placement on the canvas and/or required visibility, not by type of feature (features, text, water/landmasses, etc.)

If there are other fixes I am missing, tell me. If not, I would urge you to consider how a manual layering/grouping feature might be possible.

Unless it is just not possible because of the program and its engine. If so, the this may be disregarded. I wouldn't want anything to break. I do enjoy this software and the relative ease of use it provides. It is intuitive, however I feel a few more things might be more so if organization (layer orders, groups) could be personalized.
~ Chronicle
The Immortal Historian

User avatar
Kanchou
Site Admin
Posts: 1021
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2014 2:23 pm

Re: Manual Layering/Grouping

Post by Kanchou » Sat Jan 19, 2019 7:44 pm

Chronicle wrote:As an avid user of other visual editing software like Photoshop, the use of layers comes almost like second nature to me. In many of my edits in such programs (amateur graphic art and personal photo altering projects) I group layers together by ease of use and quick visibility. For this, I do acknowledge the auto-grouping feature of the layer tab.

Unless I just missed it (a very possible circumstance as I sometimes miss the obvious), I cant seem to find a disable function to the auto-grouping. For my purposes as a hopeful novelist, I use this software to make mock-up maps for personal reference while world-building/writing. For this, I often need to place roads through mountain ranges, have features like castles and walls layered onto the others features (as if built into the mountains), and the like.

Unfortunately, while the automatic grouping is on, I cannot move roads, which have their own layer group, to between the mountains. They always seem to be created behind the features, or towards the back (top) of the layer rack. The simple fix would be to switch the layer order and move the roads in front of the features, yet every time I try this, the system crashes. Even it it were to work, the road would simply render on top of the mountain range and not between the two mountains as I wish. I think this might be fixed if layers didn't auto group as vigorously. Features could be placed or regrouped according to placement on the canvas and/or required visibility, not by type of feature (features, text, water/landmasses, etc.)

If there are other fixes I am missing, tell me. If not, I would urge you to consider how a manual layering/grouping feature might be possible.

Unless it is just not possible because of the program and its engine. If so, the this may be disregarded. I wouldn't want anything to break. I do enjoy this software and the relative ease of use it provides. It is intuitive, however I feel a few more things might be more so if organization (layer orders, groups) could be personalized.
Thank you for the feedback!

You cannot do arbitrary order of items that aren't the same type right now, the order of item types is fixed.

What you are suggesting is something we have planned, but was lower priority than other changes that needed to be addressed. It's not an issue for the engine (it's our own, so we can make changes anyhow), but it's more of an UI implementation (easy vs more complicated). We may make that into an advanced mode.

By the way, dragging full groups shouldn't crash the program. We'll fix that with V0.9.6.

Thank you!

- Alejandro
Alejandro S. Canosa
Three Minds Software

Post Reply