Can slices control which layers are visible?

[MikeTO]

I'm new to slices in Designer. I've drawn a large map and I want to slices of it without including the place names not relevant to the current slice.

My Layers set up is essentially:
- Slice 1 - Names
- Slice 2 - Names
- Slice 3 - Names

Imagine a map of the United States. I want to export a slice that includes a couple of states with their city names visible. But although the slice will include parts of neighbouring states, I don't want their city names visible.

It seems that it's up to me to have to toggle layer visibility, export that single slice, toggle the layers again, export that single slice, etc. Is there no way to associate layer visibility with slices or am I missing something?

Thanks,

Mike

[v_kyr]

10 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

It seems that it's up to me to have to toggle layer visibility, export that single slice, toggle the layers again, export that single slice, etc. Is there no way to associate layer visibility with slices or am I missing something?

Not sure if I correctly understood what you are mean here visibility wise, or if you meant something else instead, but you usually can toggle on/off visibility on the usual layers panel and export persona slices layer panel independently of each other here.

See also related ...

• Layers panel (Export Persona)

 

[MikeTO]

In this example I want to export two slices, the red box and the blue box. I want the red slice to have just the red circles visible and the blue slice to have just the blue circles visible. I think I have to use the Layers panel (export persona) to turn off the visibility of the blue circles before exporting the red slice, and to turn them back on and turn off the red circles before exporting the blue slice. Is this correct?

I have 8 of these overlapping slices and I export them periodically. I'd like to be able to associate which layers should be visible with the slices so I could export them all in one go rather than turning on and off layers and exporting a single slice at a time.

Thanks

[Old Bruce]

It really depends on how complex the work is. You might be able to achieve it with groups for the dots but then you lose the borders. This is a situation where the simple example you show is perhaps too simple. The result made with groups is great for exporting all at one go. If you want the borders then it may be more difficult. I don't want to have to guess at what you actually need. We would both waste a lot of time.

[v_kyr]

34 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

In this example I want to export two slices, the red box and the blue box. I want the red slice to have just the red circles visible and the blue slice to have just the blue circles visible. I think I have to use the Layers panel (export persona) to turn off the visibility of the blue circles before exporting the red slice, and to turn them back on and turn off the red circles before exporting the blue slice. Is this correct?

Yes that's correct! - As the little Slices panel thumb icons show (slice1 & slice2) ...

 

34 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I have 8 of these overlapping slices and I export them periodically. I'd like to be able to associate which layers should be visible with the slices so I could export them all in one go rather than turning on and off layers and exporting a single slice at a time.

That's a difficult to setup part, as the export layers panel items visibility also do influence what the slice will contain (showup at all). - As can be seen in your above sketched example even grouping related items together (red circles vs blue circles) would need some on/off toggling here, as the items in the rects do overlap to some degree.

[MikeTO]

9 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Yes that's correct! - As the little Slices panel thumb icons show (slice1 & slice2) ...

That's a difficult to setup part, as the export layers panel items visibility also do influence what the slice will contain (showup at all). - As can be seen in your above sketched example even grouping related items together (red circles vs blue circles) would need some on/off toggling here, as the items in the rects do overlap to some degree.

Thanks. I think I understood it okay then, I have to toggle visibility of all the layers for each slice - my map is considerably more complex than the example I shared here, I have to toggle off various groups for each slice and there's no easy way to group them.

If we had scripting I could solve this...

[v_kyr]

7 hours ago, MikeTO said:

If we had scripting I could solve this...

Jip, with scripting it should be easy to keep dependent related objects (IDs) in some suitable data structure and then toggling all of those on/off on demand. - But actually without scripting it will be difficult to handle that for very complex (many related and possibly overlapping layer) drawings.

So dependent on the complexity and amount (count & size) of layers in your drawing, it might be handling wise overall easier to keep another named whole grouped and visibility adjusted copy/duplicate of your drawing in an ADe doc and then just pre-toggle on/of the needed one in the common layers panel. So that one is then taken into account for the export slicing purposes.

So like I did for these here in order to toggle on/off specific calendar localizations ...

• Desk Calendar DE/EN/GR for 2022
• Desk Calendar DE/EN/GR for 2023

... though in your case it would be then ...

• full map of the United States
• map of the United States with partly specific city names
• ...

... and you preactivate the right one (hiding the others) before switching over to export persona for further dealing with the slices then.

[MikeTO]

Thanks for the suggestion. I think this document is too complex for that approach. I'll just do it manually.

Cheers