Topic: UPDATE CHANGE COLOR BYLAYER XREF

[vnanhvu]

 I have drawing a & b.. In drawing a, i set color Layer AA:1(red), set Layer BB:2(yellow). I xref  a into b. Something i change color bylayer Layer AA & BB ( ex.: color Layer AA: 3 ( green) and color Layer BB: 4 ( cyan ). But in drawing b color Layer AA & BB not change same Drawing a. Can you help me, how do update change color bylayer xref ( drawing b update from drawing a ) 

[ribarm]

You have to use "refedit" on xref a from drawing b, and while refedit is active to change color of Layer AA and color of Layer BB. When finished you'll have to save changes to xref a from drawing b ("refclose" -> "save")... Hope this helps, I don't have CAD on this netbook so I can't check this method, but based on my experience I suppose that will work...

M.R.

[vnanhvu]

   Hix. No success with your method 

[ribarm]

Yes, now I see that my method had sense only in my head... However, you can do the opposite; you can change Layer colors in drawing a, save it... After you open drawing b witch contains a as xref, you can set sysvar "VISRETAIN" to 0 save and reopen drawing b... Now colors from drawing a matches colors in drawing b, and if you then change them from b, again save, and again reopen b, changes are discarded and again colors from drawing a matches colors in drawing b... If you want to keep changes made during session b, you'll have to set "VISRETAIN" for drawing b to 1, save b, reopen b, and changes are preserved (colors a don't match colors b)...

M.R.

[Krushert]

You are right.  It is a real pain in the rear end.  I wish Autodesk would upgrade the visretain variable.

I update my layers by using Tim's Lisp routine that can be found here.    A Very Sweet Routine!

[ribarm]

Still, there is way to solve this...

Change visretain in both a and b dwg to 0. Open b dwg and change colors of layers; type "XREF", select a dwg, right click with your mouse and choose "BIND", as type of bind choose Insert - that way you preserve layer names; next do explode on block a, and then do purge block a. Then you save b as a (saveas -> a)... That's it. Close a dwg and open b dwg. Now it is the same colors you changed both in dwg a and dwg b, because of "visretain" set to 0...

Hope this helps, M.R.

Or after "BIND" -> "Insert" type choose from express tools -> blocks options -> convert block to xref (select block a and save it as a drawing) -> Strange, but this 2nd method don't work - it won't change colors to a dwg, and I thought it was better approach, for there are no messing with other objects dwg b may contain... 

Or after "BIND" -> "Insert" type, do explode block a, choose "WBLOCK" select previous objects, and for file choose a drawing... Close b drawing and pick discard changes; reopen b drawing... That's it... 

[Krushert]

Those are options that work but there are some additional fallout from messing with the visretain variable in the host drawing.  For example, any viewport layer settings that you have made to the xref will be lost.  They work but for our processes, we found them cumbersome.   Like I said, Visretain needs to be upgraded to the twenty-first century.

[vnanhvu]

 Thanks for all. I fix this problem with Krushert's links. Thank again  :kewl: