Diederik van Lierop wrote:

...

Create all the layers you need with the Layer menu or the layer palette (SHIFT+CTRL+L), then select all the objects you want on one particular layer and go to the Layer menu: Layer > Move selection to layer above/below (SHIFT+PgeUp/PgDown) until you reach the correct layer for this selection.

JiHO

http://jo.irisson.free.fr/

This is how I've been doing it, but it's cumbersome if you have a large number of layers. Why don't we add a third option "Move to layer ... ", which opens a sub-menu with "Layer one", "Layer two", "Layer three". This is much faster, as we can choose the desired layer directly. I think I've seen something like this in another application (AutoCAD maybe?).

Choosing from the menu is slow, of course, but using the keystrokes one is quite fast. esp. when you move something from the topmost layer to the lowest layer, you either press n times Shift+PgDn or select "move to layer", scroll down the list and click to apply. OTOH Freehand had something like "Move Selection to current layer", which would also be of use here...