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VP Layer Controls

A layer has to disappear from every plan sheet across the whole set - six drawings - or turn grey, go dashed or fade, and the Layer Properties Manager does it one viewport at a time. Tick the layers , tick the drawings and their layout tabs (or type a layout-name pattern), tick the viewport layer controls to change - VP freeze / thaw, VP color, linetype, lineweight, transparency, plot style, each set to a value or cleared - Preview the counts, Apply . Every row has its reverse, so a run can be undone across the same drawings. The per-viewport state is the one VP Layer Sync copies.

Command VDCVPLAYERCTRL · VDC Plans tab › Sheet Tools panel
A layer has to disappear from every plan sheet across the whole set - six drawings - or turn grey, go dashed or fade, and the Layer Properties Manager does it one viewport at a time. Tick the layers, tick the drawings and their layout tabs (or type a layout-name pattern), tick the viewport layer controls to change - VP freeze / thaw, VP color, linetype, lineweight, transparency, plot style, each set to a value or cleared - Preview the counts, Apply. Every row has its reverse, so a run can be undone across the same drawings. The per-viewport state is the one VP Layer Sync copies.
Layers x drawings x layout tabs (left) → VP-frozen in every viewport on those layouts, drawing by drawing (right) Layers [x] C-TOPO [x] C-TREE [ ] C-ROAD [x] V-SURV [ ] V-CNTR 3 ticked of 212, every drawing Drawings and layouts [x] This drawing - Sheets-1.dwg [x] C-1 [x] C-2 [x] C-3 [ ] Sheets-2.dwg [x] C-4 [x] C-5 [ ] U-1 [ ] U-2 [x] Sheets-3.dwg [x] C-6 [x] C-7 pattern C-* → Tick matching controls: freeze, color 8, transparency 60% Preview: 3 drawings, 7 layouts, 9 viewports, 8 change Apply Sheets-1.dwg (this drawing) 4 of 4 viewports: 3 layers frozen, colored, faded one transaction - one U undoes it Sheets-2.dwg 3 of 3 viewports: 2 layers changed (V-SURV not found) saved - backup Sheets-2.before-vplayerctrl-... beside it Sheets-3.dwg skipped - open by User @ PC-7 close it there and re-run
Ticked, and what Apply wrote   Drawings in scope   Unticked, or skipped (locked / read-only / unreadable)

What it does

  • Layers: the union of every drawing's layers, matched by name; a drawing that lacks one is listed in the summary, never failed.
  • Drawings: this one, Browse DWGs, a Folder, or a Sheet set (only the sheets' layouts ticked); each lists its layout tabs with checkboxes, and a pattern (C-1*, *GRAD*) ticks the matching tabs on every drawing.
  • Controls: one row per property - Freeze / Thaw; Color, Linetype, Lineweight, Transparency, Plot style set to a value or Clear override; several rows run together. Preview counts updates as you tick.

Safety

  • Only viewports that differ are written, property by property; a linetype or plot style a drawing cannot take is skipped there and listed; a run that changes nothing writes nothing (NOTHING CHANGED) and leaves no backups.
  • This drawing: one transaction, one U. Other drawings: lock check (open elsewhere = skipped, owner named; read-only = skipped), timestamped backup beside the file, side-loaded write, saved in the original DWG version.
  • Summary funnel (drawings, layouts, viewports examined and changed, layers not found, drawings skipped) + CSV under VDC Reports; settings under %APPDATA%\VDC\VpLayerCtrl\ (override VDC_VPLAYERCTRL_SETTINGS). Plain AutoCAD: ships in both bundles.

Dialog

DIALOG CLIP PENDING - VDCVPLAYERCTRL - capture the dialog to docs/dialogs/VDCVPLAYERCTRL.png and drop dialogPending from the manifest

When to use it

  • A survey or utility layer has to be off on every plan sheet across the set.
  • The existing-conditions layers should plot grey (color 8) and faded on every plan sheet but stay black on the demolition sheets.
  • A layer was turned off or recolored everywhere by mistake and has to come back (thaw, clear the override).
  • Grading sheets take one setting, utility sheets another: run once per family with a layout-name pattern.

How to run it

  1. Run VDCVPLAYERCTRL; tick the layers (the find box narrows the list).
  2. Add the drawings: Browse DWGs, a Folder, or a Sheet set; tick the layout tabs, or type a pattern and Tick matching.
  3. Tick the control rows to change: Freeze (or Thaw); Color, Linetype, Lineweight, Transparency, Plot style set to a value or Clear override.
  4. Read Preview counts, then Apply. Read the summary: one line per drawing, the layers not found, the values not available, the drawings skipped.

Options

  • Layout name pattern: * any run, ? one character, several patterns separated by commas; Tick matching applies it to every drawing.
  • Color: an ACI number 1 to 255, r,g,b, ByLayer or ByBlock, or Pick... for the AutoCAD color dialog.
  • Plot style: only drawings that use named plot styles (STB) have a VP plot style; a color-dependent drawing skips that row and says so.
  • Sheet set: adds the .dst's drawings with just the sheets' layouts ticked.
  • CSV: one row per viewport written with each layer's changes, plus the layers each drawing lacked, the values it could not take and the drawings skipped, under VDC Reports.

Watch out for

  • A drawing open on another seat is skipped and the owner named - close it there and re-run; a read-only file is skipped too.
  • A drawing open in this session but not active is written in that document and left UNSAVED there; other drawings are saved to disk (backup beside each).
  • Layers match by NAME; a linetype or plot style must exist in each drawing. What a drawing lacks is listed in the summary, never failed.
  • Nothing changes = nothing saved: a run that changes nothing writes nothing and leaves no backups.

Related: Viewport Layer Sync · Sheet Peek · Viewport QC