Topic Title

Somebody in our firm discovered that in one of
his files the layer order had been changed from
that of our standards to one of alpha-numeric order.
My guess is that somebody accidentally (or
not!) hit the "name" header button in the layer
manager which would have sorted the layers by
name alpha-numerically, then hit "apply" and
saved out of the file. Our layers are grouped
in the 15-per-view side menu according to go-to-
views.

My question is: is there a way to get the correct
layer order back short of physically dragging each
layer (250 or so!) back to its correct place? We
thought about layer utility or cut/paste to a blank
default file, but a significant number of new layers
might have been added since the file was a fresh
default. Any ideas? TIA

Hello Steve:

Somebody in our firm discovered that in one of
his files the layer order had been changed from
that of our standards to one of alpha-numeric order.
My guess is that somebody accidentally (or
not!) hit the "name" header button in the layer
manager which would have sorted the layers by
name alpha-numerically, then hit "apply" and
saved out of the file. Our layers are grouped
in the 15-per-view side menu according to go-to-
views.

My question is: is there a way to get the correct
layer order back short of physically dragging each
layer (250 or so!) back to its correct place? We
thought about layer utility or cut/paste to a blank
default file, but a significant number of new layers
might have been added since the file was a fresh
default. Any ideas? TIA

Here's what I would do: open a GTV -- maybe the one that has the layers in it, that come first in the LM. Then open the LM, click on the On/Off heading -- which should "float" all of the layers that are on for that GTV to the top of the list, and then Save that layer order.

Open the next GTV, and then open the LM and "float" the on layers to the top, click on the first one, hold the Shift key and click on the last one that is on (so all the On layers are highlighted) -- and then first-button drag that group down below the first group in the list, and then Save the new Layer order.

Repeat for each GTV, and drag the On layers to their respective order in the LM list!

I think from the responses I received that there's no simple way to revert to a layer order before the LM goof. Neil's idea would be relatively simplified, but there are also layers within those 15 layer menu groups that are off. Oh, well, it might just mean cut/paste into a default file.

Beware using the LM sort functions!

One sure way to fix it is to do the following.

1. Find a backup copy of the drawing before the layer order change. (You do have backups right )

2. Open the current file that has the messed up layers, turn on all the layers. Copy all of the contents of the drawing to the clipboard. Close that drawing.

3. Now open the old version of the file from your backup or session files, turn on all the layers erase all of the old drawings contents, and then paste all of the data from the file with the messed up layer order into the old drawing. Make sure to use the Orig. Layers & Abs. Zero options This will force the data back into the layers in that order and there original location (incase other files and using this file as an xref.) Now save and replace the file with the messed up layer order.

4. Note. If there have been any layers renamed, added or changed between the two versions of the files, you will have old layer names added to the end of the list, but you can easily move that data and change a few layer names and positions around. Hope this helps.


(Edit: just saw you said you might have to cut and paste at the end of your posting. Doh! Oh well now maybe someone else can benifit from my not reading the whole posting.)