Moving layers.

[Paul Clegg]

I have been doing a series of "collages" with approximately 60-80 layers of small images.  As I bring another image in, naturally it is at the top of the stack and when I need it further down, sometimes at the bottom, I just click and drag the layer down and once the dragged layer is at the bottom of the visible layers, the existing layers start to scroll up automatically.  That is until today.  Now I can only move the top layer down to the bottom of the visible layers and place it there and then I have to manually scroll the active layer to the top and then scroll down again and so on until I get to the bottom or wherever I need the layer to be.

Help!

[Pšenda]

Screenshot, video?

[Paul Clegg]

Not sure that this is what you want but please let me know if not.

I do not know how to make a video of the problem...sorry.

[carl123]

Make sure Auto-Scroll is selected in the Hamburger menu on the Layers panel

 

[PaulEC]

Sometimes you might find it easier to use keyboard shortcuts, rather than dragging layers, (especially when moving a layer from top to bottom):

Move down - Ctrl+[ 

Move up - Ctrl+]

Move to bottom - Ctrl+Shift+[

Move to top - Ctrl+Shift+]

[Paul Clegg]

Thanks for your reply Carl,  yes Autoscroll is selected (and it was when I checked) and problem persists. Believe it or not I even resorted to closing Affinity and re-opening, daft I know but I was getting desperate.

[Paul Clegg]

Cheers Paul, will give that a go now.

[Paul Clegg]

OK Paul,  just tried your suggestion and it works...partly.  If I move a layer down using your method it's fine until it goes off the screen so to speak, but then the other layers don't move to let me see the position of the selected layer. And I'm fairly sure I should always be able to see the current position of the layer otherwise I'll never be able to position a layer accurately.

I can't help thinking that it is something to do with the layer stack not moving as it should.

the method you suggest works perfectly going from top to bottom except I still need to manually scroll to get to see the bottom layer.

[carl123]

1 hour ago, Paul Clegg said:

Thanks for your reply Carl,  yes Autoscroll is selected (and it was when I checked) and problem persists. Believe it or not I even resorted to closing Affinity and re-opening, daft I know but I was getting desperate.

Can you quickly check to see if this occurs in a new document, using simple shapes etc to create some layers, then see if you can scroll properly?

This problem has occurred for others in the past with no resolution at that time

 

 

[Pšenda]

Edit: try undock/redock Layers panel.

Edited June 7, 2022 by Pšenda

[Paul Clegg]

Hi Carl, thanks for that, I'll try a new document and see how I go.  I was able to add/remove layers and scroll as necessary with older, saved afphoto files until yesterday so something must have happened that I don't know about, but I will definitely make a new document as you suggest.  Thanks again.  Paul.

[Paul Clegg]

Hi Psenda, thanks for your information and advice, I will try to undock and redock the layers panel.

[Paul Clegg]

Undock-Redock layers panel unfortunately didn't work

 

also, a new document with multiple layers still had the same problem.

[R C-R]

9 hours ago, carl123 said:

Make sure Auto-Scroll is selected in the Hamburger menu on the Layers panel

AFAIK, that option just automatically makes a layer selected on the canvas, artboard, or page "come into view" (opening up a group if necessary to do that), but it has nothing to do with dragging layers up or down in the Layers panel. Described in the Layers panel help topic.

[Pšenda]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

AFAIK, that option just automatically makes a layer selected on the canvas, artboard, or page "come into view" (opening up a group if necessary to do that), but it has nothing to do with dragging layers up or down in the Layers panel. Described in the Layers panel help topic.

I think it's just an incorrect description in the Help that corresponds to the item in the preferences

Note that the item in the preferences remained checked, even though I uncheck the item in the Layers panel - these are not identical choices.

Uncheck the Auto-scroll options in the Layers panel has exactly the effect that the OP describes - the items in the Layers panel do not scroll automatically.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Pšenda said:

Uncheck the Auto-scroll options in the Layers panel has exactly the effect that the OP describes - the items in the Layers panel do not scroll automatically.

As I understand it, the OP is having problems dragging an item in the Layers panel down past where the last visible layer is because it won't scroll automatically past that layer.

On my Mac, I can do that whether or not Auto-scroll is enabled in either place that option appears. Perhaps it is different on Windows?

[thomaso]

Two alternatives / suggestions for your workflow:

• Instead moving a selected layer in the Layers Panel manually by dragging, you can use this buttons in the Toolbar: 

• To visually reduce the number of layers and thus to get a better overview in the Layers Panel you could group them partially, for instance either by their hierarchical order (back, middle, front) or by layout areas (top left, top right, etc.). Grouping makes more sense if the images are roughly arranged already (which would reduce the need to move layers between groups).

[Pšenda]

41 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Perhaps it is different on Windows?

Probably yes. As I write in the previous post, if the Auto-scroll option is enabled, the items in the Layers panel will automatically scroll, if it is not enabled, then no.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Pšenda said:

Probably yes. As I write in the previous post, if the Auto-scroll option is enabled, the items in the Layers panel will automatically scroll, if it is not enabled, then no.

Just to be totally clear about this, do you mean if the auto scroll option is not enabled, then in the Layers panel, you cannot drag a layer down past the last layer shown in the panel if there are more layers in the panel than are visible because the height of the panel is not large enough to show them all?

On Macs, it works with or without that option enabled, & it works like the help page says.

[Pšenda]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Just to be totally clear about this, do you mean if the auto scroll option is not enabled, then in the Layers panel, you cannot drag a layer down past the last layer shown in the panel if there are more layers in the panel than are visible because the height of the panel is not large enough to show them all?

On Macs, it works with or without that option enabled, & it works like the help page says.