VISRETAIN follow-up
This is a follow-up of a previous thread, just to bring a problem with VISRETAIN to the attention of the programmers:Intellicad help file, System variables:VISRETAINTurns on and off the visibility of layers in external reference files. To turn this variable on or off, type VISRETAIN in the command bar, and then type 1 to turn on visibility of layers in external reference files or 0 to turn it off. You can also choose Tools > IntelliCAD Explorer and from the Elements list, select Layers for the drawing you want to modify. Then choose View > Xref Layer Visibility.Type: IntegerSaved: In the .DWG fileRange: 0,1Default: 1AutoCAD help file, system variables section:VISRETAINControls the visibility, color, linetype, lineweight, and plot styles (ifPSTYLEPOLICY is set to 0) of xref-dependent layers; specifies whether nested xref path changes are saved.0 The layer table, as stored in the reference drawing (xref) takes precedence. Changes made to xref-dependent layers in the current drawing are valid in the current session only and are not saved with the drawing. When the current drawing is reopened, the layer table is reloaded from the reference drawing and the current drawing reflects those settings. The layer settings affected are On, Off, Freeze, Thaw, Color, Ltype, LWeight (...). This setting also specifies that changes made to the paths of nested xrefs are for the current session only and are not saved with the drawing.1 Xref-dependent layer changes made in the current drawing take precedence. Layer settings are saved with the current drawing's layer table and persist from session to session. Nested xref path changes are saved with the current drawing and persist from session to session. These descriptions are NOT of the same thing. Visretain works ok in Intellicad (the Autocad way), but this is undocumented. It has some added functionality which I believe does not belong there (toggling on/off the display of xref layers in the layer explorer). Turning off VISRETAIN changes completely the way an xref behaves in a drawing, but the user is only told he turns off the display of layers in the explorer. Sorry for this lengthy post, hope you get my point anyway.