Reasons To Be Cheerful Part 9 (upgrading to 2008) Cropable Layer Links (Design Layer Viewports)

There have been many times when I’ve wanted to use a layer link that I could crop. VectorWorks 12 does not allow you to crop the layer link, so everything on the linked layers appears. I often have things that I wish I could hide, I could use classes to hide to things, but there must be an easier way.

In VectorWorks 2008 there is a much better way. instead of Layer Links you can use a design layer viewport. A design layer viewport works like a layer link. You place it on the design layer. You can move it or rotate it.

But you can do so much more… For example, with the advanced properties you can choose to turn the Black and white only on for this viewport. The rest of the design layer stays in colour, but the viewport is black and white.

As well as all these things that you can do with the design layer viewports there are other cool tricks….

When you create a layer link it’s not easy to unlink parts. You have to select the layer link that you don’t want and then delete it. Re-linking the layer that just deleted can be done, but if you have rotated and moved all the other layer links it can be hard to line them all up.

In this example I have turned two layers off in the design layer viewport. I can turn the layer on again very easily if I want to. No worries about alining the layer links…