Cannot delete some layers in R14

Hi,

I received a file with about 280 layers and just need a few of them.
I cannot delete most of the layers. Thanks for any help.

What I did :
1)made all layers visibles, excepted those I wanted to keep
2)selected all elements in them
3)exploded elements, and repeated this many times
4)deleted all elements I could
5)closed the DWG, reopened it, purged it and saved the purged file.

After all those operations, I still cannot delete some layers.

The DWG requires some .shx file at opening. What is this reference file ?
What should I do ?

Thanks in advance.
Julien

 

Does the drawing have floating viewports in Paper Space? If so, any layers
that are frozen in any viewports (as with the VPLAYER command) will be
"referenced," and therefore not purgeable. To change this situation, you'll
need to thaw all empty layers in all viewports, then PURGE again.

The missing .shx file may be one that was used by the drawing's creator for
either text or shapes, and may be referenced by one or more complex linetype
definitions. You should ask whoever sent you the file to also supply the
missing .shx file.
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Paul, I was wondering if WBLOCK > entire drawing, would take only the layers
containing entities and leave the "unused" ones behind.

 

No. WBLOCKing the entire drawing saves paper space as well as model space,
and retains the frozen/thawed properties of layers in PS viewports.
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You lose the Pspace stuff when you WBLOCK
a file with pspace stuff in it. You have to make two wblocks to recreate
the original file in such a case.

Pete's method will quickly rid him of those pesky layers.

 

No, you do not. Try it.

WBLOCKing the *entire drawing* creates a duplicate drawing file, both PS and
MS. You lose objects in the "other" space *only* if you select specific
objects in Model Space or Paper Space to WBLOCK. As I said, try it.
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I did. Opened a new file.
Inserted a file which has Pspace and modelspace entities,
and only the modelspace appears. Even tried inserting
the file INTO paperspace. Only the modelspace appears.
It has always been this way in my experience, and
I only tried it because you said it was otherwise.

What version are you talking about? R14 here.

 

Michael,

The key word is "all". In 2004 you have options in the Wblock popup for
Block, Entire drawing, or Objects. If Objects is selected you get
only the space that you select objects in, but if you select "Entire
drawing" you get everything. There's also '*' for "whole drawing" in
the command line version of the Wblock command.

Martin

 

Thanks Martin.
So it's true since 2004.

 

I didn't say you could *INSERT* both MS and PS entities, but you *can*
WBLOCK both to a new file. Big difference.
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No, it's true since R14 and before. Before the WBLOCK dialog version was
introduced (2000 or 2000i) all you had to do was to respond with an asterisk
(*) when prompted for the Block Name. This forced an "entire drawing"
WBLOCK. The dialog only makes the process a bit more intuitive.

Again, we're talking about *creating* a WBLOCKed file, not *inserting* one.
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Well, you right again. From the Help:

In the Create Drawing File dialog box, enter the name of the output file in
the File Name box.

Block name: Enter the name of an existing block, enter =, enter *, or press
ENTER

Entering the name of an existing block writes that block to a file. You
cannot enter the name of an external reference (xref) or one of its
dependent blocks.
Entering an equal sign (=) specifies that the existing block and the output
file have the same name. If no block of that name exists in the drawing,
AutoCAD redisplays the Block Name prompt.
Entering an asterisk (*) writes the entire drawing to the new output file,
except for unreferenced symbols. AutoCAD writes model space objects to model
space and paper space objects to paper space.

 

When you launch the command line version of the WBLOCK command, the first
thing that happens is that you're prompted for a file name. If, after
entering a file name, you enter = at the Block Name: prompt, AutoCAD
searches the drawing for a block having the same name as the file you just
specified. If it finds one, it writes it to that file; if no block with that
name exists, then it redisplays the Block Name: prompt; you can then enter
either a valid block name, or * to write out the entire current drawing.
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Not as a self-referential one, I hope.
I've always wondered what that second prompt
for a block name was for.....

 

I think it's just designed to prevent you from having to type the same
sequence of characters (name of block you want to save) twice. You just have
to know to enter the block name when prompted for the File Name, then just =
when prompted for the Block Name. It won't be self-referential, since the
block is saved as an ordinary .dwg file containing the *objects* making up
the block, and not the block itself. The block *definition* remains in the
original open drawing, and is not carried over to the WBLOCKed file in this
case.
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