Plugin 03 · Essentials
Quick Layer
A borderless popup that opens at your cursor. Type a few letters, watch the ranked matches filter live, hit Enter. That layer is now current. With objects already selected it reassigns them too, and every row carries the layer state controls you would otherwise open the Layer Properties Manager for.
1 command · Layer panel · AutoCAD 2025+ · perpetual licence
Overview
What it does
- Fuzzy search, ranked as you type; no scrolling a layer dialog
- Objects selected? Picking a layer reassigns them too, like LAYCUR
- On/off, freeze, lock, plot and colour on every row, one layer or a batch
- Scope the list to all layers, only those in use, or xref layers
Run every command from the Layer panel on the shared MD Plugins ribbon tab, from the right-click menu, or by typing it, with AutoCAD's own autocomplete icons.
In detail
How it earns its place.
Quick-open for layer names
Ranking rewards consecutive runs, word-boundary starts and shorter names, so “elpnl” finds ELEC-PANEL-01 without you typing it out. In a drawing with hundreds of discipline-prefixed layers this replaces the scroll entirely.
Selection-aware, without a mode switch
The command reads the pick-first selection when it opens. Those objects’ layers get pinned in their own section at the top, and committing a layer can reassign the selection to it: ask each time, always, or never.
Layer housekeeping without leaving the popup
Toggle on/off, freeze, lock and plot, or recolour, straight from a row. Shift-select a filtered run and one click applies to all of them, in a single transaction. The popup is modeless, so none of it closes the window.
Quick Layer
A direct download is not published yet. The plugin remains available on the Autodesk App Store.
$99 CAD one-time: perpetual licence, one machine, works offline.
See pricingInstalling
Install it in a minute
- 01
Close AutoCAD, run the installer
Its files are locked while AutoCAD is open, so close it first.
- 02
Trust the publisher, once
On first launch AutoCAD names MD Automation and asks whether to load it. Tick “Always trust applications from MD Automation”: every MD plugin loads silently afterwards.
- 03
Start the trial
Run
MDLICENSEMANAGER, open the Plugins tab, click Start trial. 15 days, no account, no payment.
AutoCAD 2025+ (64-bit Windows). Also on the Autodesk App Store: same build, published here the day it ships. All downloads.
The rest of the toolkit
