FourMadMen your addittions are Great!
thank you for your big effort!:o
“wouldn’t it be better to have Folders on the outliner instead?”
This would be my most wanted feature ever!
This is also the reason that i use C4d for big projects:no:
the outliner is getting unusable the more objects there are!
But FourmadMen this layer manager is a great helper!
Thanks.
And speaking of C4D… From it’s layer options some items open for consideration on a per layer basis:
Solo Mode - Current 2.49 uses a click modifier on the visibility control and was going to do something like that for 2.50. So question becomes is this worth adding a new icon for?
Modifiers On/Off - Modifiers on/off (setting to modifiers off will disable modifers for object mode, edit mode, and render)
Contraints On/Off - Constraints on/off
Which would look something like this…
Left to Right are: Layer Name, Options, Solo Mode, Visible in editor, Visible in render, Lock Layer, Constraints on/off, Modifiers on/off
Layout tweak: Each row now takes less space between them so less vertical space taken overall.
My first impression is that its trying to do too much now or the UI is too busy. The layer name is becoming narrow at the expense of showing a lot of options.
I was thinking you could maybe hide away the constraints and modifiers toggles in the drop down since these are more specialist/not often used options?? Maybe I am in a minority of 1 when I say that though.
Perhaps you should just make it and give it to people to try at this point so they can give you some feedback about its use in practice.
You can neaten up the code etc after the basic layout has been field tested.
HTH
looks awesome
cannot wait to try it.
The latest tweak looks great!
Hey this can even replace the outliner!
Not sure if I’d use the contstaints/modifiers on/off, but two thumbs up for the solo…
Getting better and better! 
FourMadMen - that looks very promising. If I may add some ideas/comments:
Firstly, thanks for the replies. Please keep them coming. User feedback has been one of the best ways to make this script more useful to everyone. Thanks again!
Modifiiers and Constaints on/off: Well, no need to add if not useful. I was spit-balling some ideas to generate feedback on what people thought.
The width of the panel can be increased to get more layer name size. However the icon options would be getting wider if these two new options are added. ** perhaps these are made optional **
Which leads to the question: Is there someway to define “setup” properties in a script and then Blender gives you the ability to modify them somewhere (like the add-on screen). I know you can go to custom properties to do it but then you would be seeing all custom properties for that object not just the “setup” ones and not just the properties that are associated with one particular script.
Layer Groups are coming just like in the one for 2.49 but this time they will get their own panel. Have not started that yet.
The script only leverages what exists in Blender now, so the snapping features would have to be present in Blender first.
I will be releasing this before it is feature complete. Probably will be able to do this in a couple weeks.
Another question: Can you mix standard menu items with menu items that show a check-box next to them?
And lastly on the donate front: The donate button on the script page takes you to PayPal.
>Can you mix standard menu items with menu items that show a check-box next to them?
There are a few examples of this presently in 2.5.
If you go to the UV Editing screen layout or the Render window and see View>Update Automatically or Image>Image Painting you find them. View>Scopes and Properties seem to have them too but arent working atm(?) HTH
btw have people noticed that the Scopes area doesnt popout unless you have dragged it out before? I think its a bug…
I figured out how to do the menu item with checkbox. Also conducted a little more spit balling. I still don’t know if the extra options are useful but if they are (or if others are added in the future) here is what I have come up with to deal with them:
Config options that set how the layer options are generated: In the UI Panel, In the layer options menu, or not at all
Here is the layer UI for the above settings (Constraints and Modifiers are not shown and the layer name is larger again – yay!)
And here is the options menu for those same settings (Constraints and Modifiers are here – although I’m considering moving those options to either just before or just after “Set Draw Type” but we’ll see)
So in theory if you just want to have layer names and the options menu show up (on the left or right of the name of course) you can do that. And then all the options would either be in the menu or not shown depending on how you had that setup.
I like the revised UI panel. It has a nice balance of available tools and space now.
I’m pleased you worked out how to do the menu toggles too - perhaps you could indent the Contstraints and Modifiers and whatever else people might want to differentiate under “Include actions >” or something - maybe it should be first in the list and then “Draw type >”. Sort of leads you into finer detail as you go down.
Probably someone can think of a better description for it than Include actions though…
I am not sure about what you are showing in your first illustration - is that intended to be in the Blender Preferences?
BTW great work so far 
This is looking really good!
I’m still not clear on what the “pulldown” is for next to the layer name…the one with the “4” in it on layer one.
Is that where the “layer options” menu in your last post is accessed from? I assumed that would be a right click on layer thing.
I presume that this works in conjunction with the 20 boxes in the 3dview header and that moving from items from layer to layer is still done with the “m” key? ( good thing in my book!)
What about having “add selected to active layer” ? (to move the currently selected objects to the active layer)
…or if that’s in a right click menu it could “know” which layer you clicked on and be “move selected objects to this layer” ?
Speaking of which, will there be a way to set the “active” layer from your panel?
And how will your panel indicate the"active" layer?
I guess you could make the name bolder or use italics or scale somehow?
…or maybe colour?
Finally, Lightwave had an interesting solution for “infinate” layers:
they added “banks”…
te UI woks similar to blender by only displaing te layer boxes at a time, but with the addition of the following widgets:
< bank# >
to move to the next or previous bank you use the arrows to either side of the bank number… whilst perhaps not as elegant as having the one list, it does have the advantage of working with the 3d header blocks and with the “move layer” tool within the current “bank”
Right now I’m calling it “Extended Options” but am open to a better name.
The first pictures is an options panel that will be part of the Layer Manager script itself. Not sure how it will be called but I would like to hook into the right click menu for that Panel if I can or perhaps a “User Preferences” icon in the panel (or both, we’ll see).
Would be nice if you could tag script defined properties as “setup parameters” and fill them in from some menu option (or less better from the add-on tab in preferences). May be something for this now but if there is I am unaware of it.
Yes, the menu with the “4” in it is the menu shown in the above post. Note that the “4” indicates the number of objects on that layer.
Yes, for the “Static 20 layers” version this script works in conjunction with the layer widget in the 3D view. And yes again for the “M” key.
In 2.49 I showed the active layer by making the row a darker color using BGL calls. Not sure of a 2.50 equivalent but 2.50 does have an icon for active layer so I’ll probably end up using that. Also in 2.49 the active layer was read only (in truth in 2.49 the active layer is defined as the lowest numbered visible layer), Not sure if it is writable in 2.50 as I have not gotten that far along yet.
There will also be moving option from with the Layer Manager interface. The way it is presented is changing from they I did it for 2.49 so have not yet addressed exactly how that will work either. But as always have an idea of how I want to do it.
If Blender ever adopts the “bank” idea I would of course try to integrate into the Layer Manager but I already know how I want to do N-layers I just decided not to start with that goat as I needed to learn the new API – which is still moving target. So the N-Layers project will not start until the API changes between builds starts to stabilize more than what we see now.
Thanks all for reading and commenting! Keep it coming.
wow… looks " wow " 
Ok sorry I understand the first illustration now.
My gut feeling is that it isnt necessary to go that far.
The UI is clear and concise and other stuff is tucked away in the drop-down and logically ordered.
I dont think people will need or be looking to have that degree of contol over the presentation.
THe L<->R mirror could be useful for non std windows though. A “Mirror panel draw” toggle at the bottom of the drop down?
You will be our in house expert on UI scripting after this exercise
Its coming along well.
Soon we try it. yay! :spin:
Thanks MmAaXx!
The above configuration will certainly be the default but I also think perhaps some people would configure it just to have names and options menu so I’m going to go ahead with what is outlined above.
Not sure about expert but this quick port of base functions is quickly turning into (the UI anyway) a little bit of everything isn’t it?
Interesting concept. Wondering what it would be like to have an “add” button so that you don’t have that many layers showing initially (…minimize scrolling as much as possible)
