Employing the Display Power of Layer States Video Lecture | An Ultimate Guide: BricsCAD:Interface and Customization - 3D & Animation

welcome to customizing bricscad my name
is Ralph Grabowski and it's my pleasure
to show you how to make bricks CAD work
the way you
one of the routes of the unknown
features in bricscad is called lair
States and it's a way of instantly
switching between display of different
groups of layers so for example here
you're now seeing all the layers in this
particular drawing that are by d f--
displayed I'm going to go over here to a
little tool bar I've created and I'm
going to switch to something I call
contours contours is a different layer
state it's the name of the layer state
and that's what this particular layer
state does is it freezes all the layers
that I didn't want and turns black all
the ones that I did one so here's the
contour ones and you can see some of
them are thawed and everything all the
almost all the other layers are frozen
and then these ones are black now watch
what happens when I go back into all
layers all the colors are there and
again so I going back into the layer
dialog box and you can see a lot of them
are turned on and these contour ones are
back to the original green and yellow
colors so in this video I'm going to
show you how to create layer States and
also how to create this nifty tool bar
which doesn't come with bricscad by
default
to set up lair States go into the
drawing Explorer and we click layers and
then go into layers States now initially
it's going to be empty just like this so
to create a new layer stage you click on
the new button the interface doesn't
particularly guide you on how to do it
so that's why it's good thing you're
watching this video it's always a good
idea to have one layer state that has
all the layers at their default settings
so I'm gonna make one called
all layers select it this is the button
you click for editing the layer States
and I'm just going to click this button
to say that they're all included ok so
that's not a big deal that's just
exactly what we've had before
now I'm gonna create another one and
this one I'm gonna call contours because
it's only going to show the layers that
have contours on them now you can see
they're in this area here now what I
need to do is remove the layers
I don't want displayed so the way I'm
going to do that I'm going to click the
first layer and then hold down the shift
key and click the last one we Rick
before the contours so there I've got a
group there and I remove them and you
can see they disappear then I repeat it
again for down here click the this one
right after contour scroll down to the
last one hold down the shift key click
and remove ok so then I click the OK key
and there we go there's our new one last
step is to apply or to restore these
layer stages click restore close the
drawing Explorer and now you can see
only the layers the contour layers are
displayed go back into layer States
switch to all layers click restore close
and now it's back to all layers
you are not restricted to simply turning
layers on and off or more specifically
freezing layers and following them you
can also change other properties so I'm
going to go back into layer States back
into contours back into edit I'm going
to change all the colors to block so I'm
going to hold down the shift key select
the first one select the last one click
on color choose black ok so there they
are very dark gray click OK and then
remember to always click restore close
and now the contours are all colored
black now I go back into all layers
apply close the colors are all back
again the contours are back to being
green naturally you can apply other
properties as well such as changing
whether they're locked or frozen change
the line types line weights transparency
plot style plotting etc etc etc so what
isn't handy is constantly having to go
into the layer States a section of the
drawing Explorer so the next part I'm
going to show you how to make that much
easier
to make it much easier to switch between
layer States it'd be great to have
something on your toolbar bricscad
doesn't have it by default so I'm going
to show you how to add that well tools
menu
customize and now I'm going to create a
new toolbar so I right-click bricscad
the pen tool bar I'm gonna call it layer
States okay there it is there right now
it's empty so I'm going to go search for
the layer States button and there it is
there so that lets me get in directly
into the drawing Explorer in the layer
States section the other thing I'm gonna
look for is down here may not be aware
of it's called controls and these are
actually the drop lists and one of them
thankfully is called layer state so I'm
going to drag that over to here and now
we have the layer States drop list the
layer States Putman actually I want the
button first in the toolbar so I'm going
to drag down the layer States so there I
have the layer States button and the
layer state drop list click OK then you
need to turn on that toolbar right-click
go to bricscad and scroll down and
there's our newly created layer States
toolbar it'll probably pop up somewhere
on the screen I'm gonna park it right
there so there is the button I'll click
it and it goes directly into layer
States part of the drawing Explorer if I
want to edit layer States but more
interesting enough here is this drop
list with the two layer States that we
created all layers and if I so choose
contours bingo right away we just have
two contours all in black go back click
all layers bingo we're back to all the
layers in their proper colors
the trust you enjoyed learning how to
make bricks can't work the way you work
for more on customizing bricscad check
out the e-book download the free trial
version of bricscad at wlwt's is calm
and check it out for yourself