Reordering layers

[Carlos N]

I would like the reorder the way the layers appear in the pulldown box
of the "format shape" toolbar. It appears that the layers appear in the
order they were created, rather than say alphabetical order. This makes
it a bit harder to find the right layer when assigning them to a new
shape. Is there a way to do this? Interestingly enough the layer props
window does order them alphabetically.

Thanks!
Carlos

 

[Chris Roth [MVP]]

Hi Carlos,

I can't think of a nice user-feature that would let you do this.

One idea would be to create the layers on a new page in the order you want,
then copy your drawing over.

Another idea would be to save the Visio file in xml format (.vdx), then edit
the layers using Notepad or Xml Notepad. You might be able to change their
indices somehow. Look under the tag VisioDocument > Pages > Page > PageSheet

Layer....

....OK, I just tried this, and it works as far as re-ordering the layers in
the drop-down, but it screws up your layer-assignments. Evidently Visio
shape are assigned to layers using the layer indices. So if you switch the
layer-indices, you need to switch the layer-assignment-indices in the shapes
too. I imagine a tool could be written to do this, if you've got the time
and interest.


--
Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP

Free Visio shapes:
http://www.visguy.com/category/shapes
Visio programming info:
http://www.visguy.com/category/programming/
Other Visio resources:
http://www.visguy.com/visio-links/