The layer containment hierarchy¶

Layers, based on the DKLayer semi-abstract base class, are organised into hierarchical groups. DKLayer is an object that provides support for drawing content on demand, and possibly providing some basic mouse event handling. In DrawKit, everything you see in a drawing is drawn in a layer, including any grid or guides. Layers have a front-to-back (Z) ordering that you can change at will. This means that whether a grid is placed in front of or behind other content is your simple choice - just put the layers in the order you require.

Layers are hierarchical. They can be, but are not required to be, organised into related groups. DKLayerGroup is a DKLayer subclass that can contain any number of other layers. Layers that are grouped together can be hidden or shown as a group for example. However, even grouped layers share the root drawing’s overall size. DKLayerGroup provides methods for (undoably) changing the order of the layers that it immediately contains. DKDrawing is itself a subclass of DKLayerGroup, because it is at the root of the layer containment hierarchy.

Principal properties of DKLayer include whether it is visible or not, locked (locked layers cannot have their content edited), whether the layer is included in printed output, its name and some properties that affect the appearance of selected objects in that layer. In some respects layers can be though of a little like views - they draw stuff when requested and mouse events are directed to them.