App UI change ZOrder Rendering

[watjep]

Is there a way to change the z order or draw/select order of your elements in the app UI? I am getting smaller engraves buried behind larger ones and it is impossible to select the smaller now other than moving the larger ones away.

[Jules]

Yeah, I was just experimenting with this the other day - change the order of your engraves in your layer stack in your drawing program. (Illustrator in my case.)

The GFUI reads from the bottom up - so when you have raster engraves in a file, the one on the bottom of the stack will show up at the top of the thumbnail column, then the next one up from the bottom comes second in the column, etc. Basically it reverses the order in the layer stack.

You can order them to show up the way you want them to.

[Slacker]

@Jules

The GFUI reads from the bottom up - so when you have raster engraves in a file, the one on the bottom of the stack will show up at the top of the thumbnail column, then the next one up from the bottom comes second in the column, etc. Basically it reverses the order in the layer stack.

This answers a question I was going to try / play with later on. So I want my smaller inside cuts 1st and my larger… last cut I want on the top layer.

[jbpa]

@Jules

so when you have raster engraves in a file, the one on the bottom of the stack will show up at the top of the thumbnail column

This is only true for raster engraves though, correct? Vector cuts, engraves or scores are ordered based on color.

[Jules]

Yeah, unfortunately that only applies for raster engraves. For vectors, color is the determining factor…black will go first, then blue, then green, red, orange, yellow - progressively getting lighter as you move down the thumbnail column. (hey, everyone likes a challenge, right?)

There is a set of Glowforge based colors that you can load into your software to make color selection a bit easier… @marmak3261 worked it out a while back:

Custom Inkscape, Illustrator, CorelDraw and Affinity Designer Color Palettes for ordering operations in GFUI

Continuing the discussion from Space Invaders or Mitral Valve Leaflets, you decide: I have always been curious about how the Glowforge defaults the order of operations. I have tested it in terms of position in the workspace and order of creation in the design. Nothings seemed to click right, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it was dermined by color. The Glowforge catalog designs always load in the same order, though you can drag and change them in the workspace, so I figured there must be so…

[watjep]

Actually what I was trying to describe was the selecting in the GF UI veiwport. Smaller bitmaps get masked away by larger bitmaps making them unselectable once they go underneath a larger one. See the quick video below.

[Jules]

Try selecting all of it, then hold down the SHIFT key and click on the bottom of the case picture to deselect it.

It might be that one that is completely surrounded by a closed vector is treated as a group. No way around that I’m afraid. Any movements and relative placements will need to be set up in Illustrator before you save the SVG.

[watjep]

Thanks did not try the Shift that helped some as long as there were only 2 layers. 3 layers and it removes the first layer but shift click again it adds it back. Looks like Shift both adds/subtracts from the selection set. Guess will have to wait for the next version of the UI. Was hoping there was at least some sort of cycle selection keyboard shortcut.

[jamesdhatch]

@watjep

Looks like Shift both adds/subtracts from the selection set.

Correct - it follows the Microsoft convention used in other Windows apps.

[vee]

Thanks for the help, everyone. I’ll make sure the team gets this feedback, and I’ll pass along the suggestion for a keyboard shortcut to toggle between selections.