I have long known Visio has a Layers feature, but I have never used it, nor seen anyone else use it. I had a little time on my hands, and a use case that could benefit layers, so I decided to invest 40 minutes in trying to master it. Yech--very clunky. (Disclaimer--I'm a salaryman, so at the mercy of the corporate upgrade cycle. This is Visio 2010. For all I know, it is better in a later version.)
Without thinking too long and hard about how it should work, instead of burying the Layers commands in a modal dialog, it would be much better if each Layer were a horizontal tab on your drawing. Standard CTRL-click functionality to display multiple layers at once.
Without thinking too long and hard about how it should work, instead of burying the Layers commands in a modal dialog, it would be much better if each Layer were a horizontal tab on your drawing. Standard CTRL-click functionality to display multiple layers at once.
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Maybe they should have just followed Photoshop's handling of layers (a list of layers on the lower right of the screen that you can select, move, delete, group, etc.). It works pretty well.
ReplyDeleteIt's been a while since I touched Photoshop, but that sounds like what I have in mind. In addition to usability, it provides discoverability--unlike Visio Layers. Visio's implementation is so rudimentary.
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