On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Chris Hawkins wrote:

> It was more a programming, theoretical question, that is, why would there
> not be an option for the layers remaining there after merging, if you
> wanted, for instance to alter a layer later that you merged...instead of
> going through steps to duplicate, save as in a new file, etc.  I personally
> find it just fine, but wondered what others thought about it as a
> programmed option in the program...wouldn't it be helpful at times, or not?

I think what he is asking is why there isn't a way to do this:

1) create a layer, named "vase"
2) create a layer, named "flower1"
3) create a layer, named "flower2"
4) continue creating flowers, and merging/copying them into different
   assortments to come up with 20 different flower arrangment layers.
5) merge each flower arrangement with a copy of the vase and save each
   layer in a separate file..
6) Whoops... customer wants a blue vase with purple highlights instead of
   a red vase with green highlights..
7) Simply make the changes to the "vase" layer, and have all other layers
   that have been 'merged' with that layer automatically update.

I think it is a good idea that would be a very useful feature.. but
"merge" wouldn't be a good term.. perhaps "include" would be more
appropriate.. there could even be "include" transformations, that take an
existing layer, and transform it through rotations, scaling, etc, so as to
automatically update any number of layers that have any number of source
layers, and only have to change those source layers.  I think if Adobe
implemented such a feature, many of us would probably find it a "how did I
ever manage without this?"  :)

Perhaps someone should contact Adobe with the idea? :)

Pat

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