How to determine True visibility of Layer in a map?

RyanKelley

Before I start trying to write a bunch of code... has anyone figured out how to really determine whether a layer is visible or not in a map? For example, visible (checked) layers within a group layer that is not visible (unchecked) are not truly visible in an MXD. 

for lyr in lyrList:      return lyr.visible 

Is there any way to determine a relationship between a layer and it's parent group it resides in? 

The point of this is so we can give a report to the cartography dept and the report will tell them which layers were used, that were truly visible, not just "checked."  They make their maps from a list of data sources and layer files, not necessarily the MXD. 

Thanks,
Ryan

JeffreyBarrette

Hello Ryan,

What a great question and something I never considered until just now.  I think the only way to test this is to use the Layer.longName property.  I hacked together some code below.

I have a function called "IsLayerReallyVisible".  I split the longName into a list (of each layer name in the group layer path) and then test each individual layer name.  If I find a False, I immediately return that value and exit the function.

import arcpy  def IsLayerReallyVisible(mxd, layer):   lyrNameList = layer.longName.split("\\")   for lyrName in lyrNameList:     lyr = arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd, lyrName)[0]     if not lyr.visible:       return False   return True   mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("current") lyr = arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd, "US_States")[0] print IsLayerReallyVisible(mxd, lyr)

I'd like to learn more about your workflows and if you think it would be necessary to add an enhancement to the API to make this a little more straight forward - or is the code above good enough.

Jeff