Hide Layer(s), Protect against altering, such as painting on it?

[Ron P.]

While researching the controversial Lock Layer, I stumbled upon this. My thought process, perhaps there's a touch more protection when Locking a Layer if we Hide it. Wrong. 

With a Layer hidden, and yes if in the Layers Panel it's selected, it can be altered even though we can't see it on the canvas.

I understand this isn't a big deal if you only have a few layers. but if you have a lot of layers and might accidentally select the wrong one, well you can do some damage to your work.

Also, yes, we need to split our eyeballs, one on the canvas to see what we're doing, the other on the Layers stack or wherever. But who really works like that? When I work on composites, or just processing, developing images, I always focus on the canvas to see what affect to the image, my action is doing.

Is this being too picky? I don't think so. I like Serif's products, but I'm not a, well.... "fan boy", where I echo things that make no sense, and goes against logic.

 

 

[Ldina]

@Ron P. I agree. It's too easy to mess up a complex, involved design with a lot of layers.

It would be nice if Serif provided different "lock modes" to choose what we want to lock.....e.g., full lock (making it impossible to edit anything on a locked layer or group), lock the position of objects on a layer, and many other things I haven't thought of. I think someone created a thread on this subject not too long ago with some sensible suggestions, perhaps @smadell? Anyway, this needs attention, IMO.

[Ron P.]

15 minutes ago, Ldina said:

Anyway, this needs attention, IMO.

Yes, I agree. I don't think it will happen though. With all the logical reasons pointed out over the past years, and yet Serif sticks to it's By Design excuse. Some people when you show them facts, logical reasons, and they refuse to entertain them, appear to be narrow-minded.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Ron P. said:

I understand this isn't a big deal if you only have a few layers. but if you have a lot of layers and might accidentally select the wrong one, well you can do some damage to your work.

Isn't that true for just about anything you do if you think you are working a different layer than the one(s) actually selected? I do that more often than I would like but I can't see any way to prevent that other than by checking my work & the History panel & being as careful as I can about what I select.

[Ldina]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

I can't see any way to prevent that other than by checking my work & the History panel & being as careful as I can about what I select.

Very true, at least to a large extent. If we had the ability to lock groups (so nothing within that group could be changed), it would make it a lot easier to safeguard our designs. I use Groups a lot and they sometimes have dozens or hundreds of layers, so the ability to lock groups against modification would be relatively quick and would make sure nothing within that group was altered. So, if I have 8 or 10 groups, it would be fast and easy to safeguard them if Serif implemented this much-needed feature. Yes, we need to watch what we are doing, make sure we are on the right layer, and use Undo or the History panel when we goof up, but I think this feature would save a lot of time, frustration, and a lot of Undo's.

[R C-R]

53 minutes ago, Ldina said:

If we had the ability to lock groups (so nothing within that group could be changed), it would make it a lot easier to safeguard our designs.

Just curious but consider an unlocked parent group that itself has several child groups in it, some locked, others not. If you wanted to move the parent group to some new spot on the document or to scale the parent, would you want the locked children not to be affected, changing the relationship between them & the others?

[Ldina]

15 hours ago, R C-R said:

Just curious but consider an unlocked parent group that itself has several child groups in it, some locked, others not. If you wanted to move the parent group to some new spot on the document or to scale the parent, would you want the locked children not to be affected, changing the relationship between them & the others?

Yes, there are scenarios where it could be irritating if some layers within a group were fully locked, but I don't think that has to be a problem. An intelligent, well thought-out, flexible implementation could solve most of these 'issues'. It would also give designers a choice about what to protect or not, and what protections to use. They could add a 'Lock All layers", 'Unlock All layers', 'Lock Position', 'Lock Editing', etc. It would need to be studied and analyzed to include frequently used scenarios that designers are faced with. Having accidentally messed up many designs in the past, (I'm sure I'm not alone), I see this as a very desirable enhancement. It would give users some choice and flexibility. 

For example, let's say you have a landscape scene with trees, a log cabin, road, wagon, sky and other Groups (each Group containing dozens or even hundreds of layers). If I'm working in the Cabin Group, I could lock all the other Groups at their respective Group levels (leaving the individual layers in that group unlocked), so I don't change anything in those Groups while working on the cabin. That would make selection and editing much easier and faster and avoid many mistakes. If I want to scale or reposition anything, clicking 'Unlock All' with a single click would make rescaling or repositioning possible. This is just me imagining an implementation. The details would have to be carefully considered to make it clear, simple and intuitive to use (and see). It makes total sense to me.

[R C-R]

18 minutes ago, Ldina said:

They could add a 'Lock All layers", 'Unlock All layers', 'Lock Position', 'Lock Editing', etc.

Shouldn't there be pairs of lock/unlock functions so for example a user could just unlock position without unlocking any of the others?

This does not sound to me like something that could be made simple or intuitive to use, or for that matter not cause its own share of errors, but maybe that is just me.

[Ldina]

Just now, R C-R said:

Shouldn't there be pairs of lock/unlock functions so for example a user could just unlock position without unlocking any of the others?

Just throwing out ideas, in hopes that Serif will consider some improvement in their locking functionality. What and how is up to them (or not). I hope they do something because too many users suffer accidental, unintended erase and modifications. No doubt, you have as well! I've said all I have to say on this subject and hope they consider some such improvement.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Ldina said:

Just throwing out ideas, in hopes that Serif will consider some improvement in their locking functionality.

Perhaps consider doing that in the Feedback forum?

[Ldina]

Good idea. It's @Ron P.'s topic, so if he wishes to post it in the Feedback forum, I'll leave it up to him. I'm sure this subject has come up many times before. 🤔

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Ldina said:

It's @Ron P.'s topic, so if he wishes to post it in the Feedback forum, I'll leave it up to him.

What I meant was offering feedback about your ideas about the various lock modes, which seems considerably different from what @Ron P. said. I thought that was about how hidden layers should be protected from alterations but aren't, so more or less a bug or at least an odd design decision.