viewing only layers of current page

[beatrices55187455]

Hi, my indesign just changed so now I constantly see all layers of the document, regardless of the page I am on.  I am not sure what changed.  I just want to see the layers of the currernt page.  How can I do that?

I really don't want to see 100 layers at once when only 5 are applicable to what I am working on at that moment. Its too overwhelming for me.

Why did this change?

Thank you!

[Manan Joshi]

Layers are document wide and not page specific. So all the pages have all the document layers and this has been the same way for long, if i remember correctly. You see the state of layers for the current spread on the layer panel.

-Manan

[beatrices55187455]

So lets say you have a 30 page document and each page has 5 layers on it.  I have a list of 150 layers that I have to keep straight and remember/figure out which layer correlates with which page when I come back to it 2 months later to make some edits? I already rename layers, now I have to name them by page number as well?

Before today, my indesign program did not work like that.  I desperately need it to go back to how it was before.  I can't work like this. Its too many layers. I don't care about the layers on page 1 when I am working on page 10, I don't want to see them.

[Manan Joshi]

You are mistaken in your understanding. If the document has 5 layers then each page also has five layers. Open the layer panel and see for yourself, the layers would remain a constant five as you navigate across the document spread. Secondly you don't need to remember anything, first you can visually see what object is placed on which page, second each object on selection is highlighted with the border of color assigned to the layer, and third the selected object is also suitably marked on the layer panel(the small square on the right is filled on selection). To cut the confusion the layer panel shows the state of the layers for the currently active spread, i.e., even though the layers remain a constant across the document, the object shown in these layers would only correspond to the current spread.

-Manan

[rob day]

Also, there are Layers that you create and name that are contained by the document, and if you toggle open a document layer, the page items for the active page will be listed—page items are not the same as a document layer.

Here my document contains 4 layers that I have created via the Layer panel’s + button:

I have page 1 active, so if I toggle open the 4 layers I will see the page 1 page items listed. Page items can be named by double clicking them, which I’ve done with Red Rectangle. The other page items are listed by their default names:

If I navigate to page 4 there is only one page item listed. Page 5 has no page items, so my document layers are empty:

[beatrices55187455]

I understand what you are saying. And I see that your view looks like my view does now. But, before two days ago, if page 5 had no items, I would only see layer one in my layer panel. And if I added a second layer it would be layer two, and the color would correlate with layer two on other pages. 

Now, if I have 10 layers on page 1 and go to page 2 when I go to do a new layer, I get layer 11. 

So, here I am making a multi page interactive form. All of the named layers are only applicable to page one. 

When I then go to page 4, yes I can only view the layers that are on that page, but when I go to make a new layer, it creates layer 17 and puts it at the top of the list. 

its a lot to look at is all I am saying. On basic documents this won't be an issue. But on things like this, this was a shock. And I guess I am not sure why I have been using it for so long on such a regular basis -- the cc version -- and it was never like that. I immediately noticed the difference and spent way too long trying to fix it back. 

this was after finding out a few of my files suddenly became corrupt and I now have to recreate this. Maybe there was something wrong with my indesign program altogether? But I have had cc for several years. 

[rob day]

The items listed inside of Layer 1 are not layers, they are a list of page 4’s page items, which have been moved into Layer 1. The new Layer you created is empty and contains no page items. Layer 17 is a document layer, not a page item—you can think of it as an empty folder.

[beatrices55187455]

I get it and I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this with me. It's just different. It will take some time to get used to. The way I organize my layers will probably be different moving forward.  

The other thing I found is sometimes I will put my pages on one spread and when I do that it combines all the same layers. So when I am on page 3 I see all the page items from page 1 bc it's on the same spread. And all page items for layer 1 are combined. That is also different. 

[rob day]

There really is no difference, Layers have been document wide since version 1.0, and yes the list of page items showing when a layer is toggled open is all of the page items on the active spread which can be up to 10 pages.

This is from CS6:

[beatrices55187455]

I see what you are saying and I understand it and in working in this document now I have found new ways to navigate with the layers. 

I don't understand because I have been using CC for 5 years but I do know that several of my files became corrupted right as my layers view changed so my only explanation is there was a glitch in my program and it was just corrected. I heavily rely on layers to do my work and I am not a novice user. I can't explain it. It is so weird. 

so if I have 2 "layer 2s" on a document with conflicting names because I named that layer "a" on page 1 and "b" on page 2, would I still be able to open this document in indesign now? My thinking is no because that is a fundamental conflict. 

[rob day]

—Document layers can not have the same name, but you can give the page items in a layer the same name. Here I have renamed 2 rectangles, and a text frame "Layer 1".

[defaultsc3swvuxxbqp]

Massive and Ridiculous Ignorance