Locking is useful for preventing accidental changes to a layer, or to protect advertisement layers against modifications of editorial designers.

A locked layer displays a icon in the Lock column of the Layers palette. Objects on locked layers cannot be edited directly; however, if objects on locked layers have attributes that can be edited indirectly, they will change. For example, if you edit a permanent color, objects on locked layers using that color will reflect the change.

To lock or unlock one layer at a time, in the Layers palette, double-click the field in the Lock column to show (lock) or hide (unlock) the icon for a layer. If the Layers palette is not displayed, on the Window menu, point to Palettes, and then click Layers.

Note: you can lock layers only if your lock level is greater than 0.

It is not possible to lock or unlock more layers at a time.

The locking is based on a lock level, assigned to your workgroup or to yourself in the EdAdmin4.

You can lock layers on the Editions tab on creation, to prevent users to check them out automatically. You may want to do this to protect advertisement layers. When a layer is locked, an user needs to unlock it, before editing it. To unlock a layer, a user should have a lock level at least equal as a user who locked a layer.

Before locking layers, consider that there are two approaches, a "strict" one, and a "released" one:

•Strict approach: Lock advertisement layers with a lock level, high enough to prevent editorial users to check them out, but reachable for advertisement users. To provide this, the editorial users have a lower lock level than the advertisement users.

•Released approach: Lock advertisement layers with a lock level of editorial users. It is assumed that the editorial users will normally not unlock the advertisement layers, but in case of necessity, they can do it. In this case, the editorial users may have the same lock level as the advertisement users.

Important

You can set which lock level to use to lock layers. You can set your lock level or any lower lock level.

Notes

•For a successful unlocking, following conditions are required: you have a lock level equal or greater than the level which is locking layer right now, and the page layer is not locked. If your lock level is too low, the warning message is displayed, explaining you that you cannot unlock such layer, as your permissions are insufficient. If you believe that you should be allowed to unlock such layer, contact your System Administrator. If you are an administrator, then use the EdAdmin4, to put your lock level to the appropriate value. Please note that the value 0 is the lowest and it prevents user to lock layers, and 254 is the highest.

•Alternatively, you may want to lock/unlock the current layer by a shortcut key. For such purpose, assign the LayerLockToggle system script to a suitable shortcut.