Layer folders in Ai or lock other artboard contents?

[nebo7]

Hiya,

Long time user of Illustrator, but something that would be useful is breaking up layers into folders. For example: If I am conceptualizing a website and I want to come up with a couple different versions/alterations of it, what I'd like to do is build one (on 2 or 3 layers - shell, art, notes, etc.) and then add all those layers to a folder, hide or lock the original and in the second folder, adjust the second version. This way I can collapse down to the 2 or 3 version folders, as opposed to 3 of 4 layers for this version, 3 or 4 for this other one, etc. Just tryign to make it simpler and more easily manageable. (hopefully that makes sense) I know that you can create multiple pages/artboards, but I noticed that when you do a select all, it selects all on ALL pages. If I were to use a separate artboard, is there a way to essentially lock everything on (say) Artboard 1 while I'm working on Artboard 2? Anyone know? Either this, or does anyone know of a way to do layer folders, or somethign similar in Ai?

Thanks!

Ben

[Om Nath Jha · Accepted solution]

Hi nebo,

The answer is no. You can't lock an artboard. A third option or workaround would be to create the big artboard, and a rectangle the size of the small artboard, then you can lock the rectangle and when you're done, convert it to an artboard.

Regards,

Om

[nebo7]

Aw bummer. Thanks! That's too bad. I feel like either (or both) of those suggestions would be valuable in future versions. Hopefully something will happen.

Does anyone else have any ideas on a workaround or a different way to do something similar? It's not completely incapacitating or anything, but would be nice to have something that seems a little less "clunky". I'd be curious to see how other designers do this (create multiple versions/variations) of something. Seems like it would be nice to have them grouped in a way that makes it easy to jump from one to another. Thoughts?

[Kurt Gold]

I think you may benefit from using Layer Visibility variables (see Variables palette).

This way you can operate the Layers palette by remote control to show or hide different layer compositions.

[rcraighead]

Or maybe utilize "Views" to save multiple Layer Visibility settings.

[Kurt Gold]

Using Custom Views is another option, but there are at least two drawbacks.

Custom Views have never supported sublayers. Variables have always supported them.

Browsing Custom Views is pretty cumbersome, although you can assign keyboard shortcuts to 10 Custom Views. Variables can be browsed with two buttons in the Variables palette. Moreover, you can assign shortcuts to the Next/Previous dataset command with a simple action.

[nebo7]

Hey all, I just found something else out that might be helpful in case anyone else has a similar issue. (Probably should have assumed and tried this before, but alas - didn't) But if you want to Select All on just the one page or artboard, hold down Alt (Option on Mac). So on PC - Ctrl+Alt+A to select all on currently selected artboard. Enjoy!