Adobe Community: Organize layers in folders

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1. Scott Falkner,

Jul 9, 2010 6:20 PM in reply to Tiago Moita

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You can drag any layer into another layer, making it a “child” of that “parent” layer. This is close to folders for layers, except that a layer can contain both objects and child layers. This means expanding that layer in the Layers panel to view the child layers means also seeing all that layer’s object in the layers panel.

Fortunately you can turn that feature off by changing the Panel Options via the Layers panel’s flyout menu.

Unfortunately that activates a bug that prevents you from dragging an object into a child layer.

Ah, Illustrator. Will you ever not suck?

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2. Tiago Moita,

Jul 12, 2010 12:30 PM in reply to Scott Falkner

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Thanks, Scott!

That works like you say, but not perfectly. Probably that's why I thought this wasn't possible, because now I vaguley recall trying that last year or something.

What I don't like, when I say it doesn't work perfectly, is that when I lock all layers but the "parent layer", with ALT+click, Illustrator REALLY locks everything but the parent layer, meaning the child layers are also locked, which doesn't make any sense at all, because obviouslly, then everything is locked. This can be less of a nuisance for big groups of layers if used the control "unlock all", but you might be unlocking something else you don't want.

So after all, this topic ended being justified, I think :-)

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3. Tiago Moita,

Jul 12, 2010 12:56 PM in reply to Tiago Moita

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Further proof that this thing is flawed is that if I have a layer with some sublayers (to start using the official terminology) hidden, and then I drag the layer and later toggle the sublayers visibility on, they're still in the first place. The natural thing to happen would be for them to move inside the layer, as naturally, I intended them to be part of that group, in my case, as I stated previoulsy, a UI control.

Oh, and by the way, I can't drag an object into a child layer, independently of that option you mentioned.

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4. John Stanowski,

Jul 12, 2010 2:50 PM in reply to Tiago Moita

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Wow, I didn't know that invisible objects didn't move with the Parent Layer. That sucks.

At least it doesn't work that way with Groups. Then it would really suck.

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5. Tiago Moita,

Jul 13, 2010 8:10 AM in reply to Tiago Moita

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And maybe provide an option to substitute the "parent layer" thumbnail for a folder icon, to make it easier to identify the groups of layers created by the user?

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6. Tiago Moita,

Jul 19, 2010 4:17 AM in reply to Tiago Moita

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Still finding related things that piss me off! Why does Illustrator expand all the layers when I open a document, even though I had collapsed them all before saving it?

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7. benji201,

Sep 21, 2011 11:48 AM in reply to Tiago Moita

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Actually, that specifically is really pissing me off... I am trying to create a series of relatively complex templates and I go through all the effort of collapsing the layers only to find that when I open the file again 60% of the layers are open. It seems that main layers open, then sublayers, then the next sublayers but not any layers further than that. Why on earth I have no idea and if it is going to open layers and sublayers then why not all of them?

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8. chrisgieger,

Sep 26, 2012 6:35 AM in reply to benji201

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Has anyone found a solution to preventing the layer folders from opening everytime I open a document?

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Illustrator Feature Requests

Organize layers in folders

Jul 9, 2010 11:22 AM

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