I read here that new features should be discussed in this "Beyond" sub-forum. (I didn't see a way to search this sub. If this has already been discussed, maybe someone could merge this post into that.).

I would like to organize guides (lines) like I can layers (or into layers). The current all-or-nothing display of guides can become too busy/noisy. It would be nice if they could be related by some metadata (depth of design, or the feature being designed within the drawing), just like layers. It would be nice if such a guideline group could contain sub-groups (like layers).

When I googled about this, I saw quite a few other people asking how to do this. They were typically told to draw real lines on layers (then they could enable/hide those more-manual "guides"). I've been doing that. But, it's not as elegant as real guide lines. 

1. I have to pick a line thickness that may be too thick when I'm zoomed in (and/or too thin when I'm zoomed out).

2. I have to define x/y position coordinates that are offset from the line. The 0.010-thick line's edge starts at 0.375. The center of the line is 0.370 (or 0.380 if I'm positioning the line outside the drawing size using negative numbers).

The built-in "guides" system takes care of both those topics. (The guide's thickness adjusts with zoom. And, it centers on the point you want the line.). It's surprisingly tedious to make many pseudo-guide lines, creating a catalog of measurements that aren't the real measurements I'm working with.

I'm making a drawing for silkscreen printing which will be freely shared as an "Instructable." I'd like to orient people to the drawing using guides. But, all-or-nothing would cause people to stop looking. The layer-grouped pseudo-guides (real drawn lines) makes orientation much more coherent. They can look at this layer, that layer. Drill deeper into details or topics. But, then they have to comprehend how those coordinates aren't the real coordinates (they're offsets). That's something they shouldn't have to be warned about (or oriented to as a "by the way, if you're wondering why...").

It would just be so clean/elegant if real guide lines could be affiliated with layers (and subject to a layer's visibility and nesting). They could be used better for what they're intended for (instead of making drawn lines do something they weren't intended for).

If there are features I've overlooked that would make drawn lines work more like built-in guides, I'd like to hear about that. I've wondered if there's a way to specify a drawn line's x/y positions relative to the center of the line (the line's thickness)? Or, to display a drawn line thicker/thinner depending upon zoom level (less thick when zoomed in, more thick zoomed out)? I'd love to make this workaround work better. But, it just seems like built-in guides are screaming for containers like layers.

[1] BTW, I opened issue #7913 on GitLab before reading the page saying new issues should be discussed here first. I'm opening this thread to fulfill that advice. (I can delete the issue if what ensues here would have caused me not to open it.). I think it has a "Affects me too" feature that people could add their vote for(?). Maybe some visibility of that might help it get more priority?

FWIW:

• The bounding boxes of objects can be set to geometric (Preferences>Tools), so straight lines (pseudo-guides) could have the stroke width ignored.
• View>Display Mode can make hairlines visible at all zoom levels, or overlay outlines.

It's not much, but maybe can be useful.

As someone who has recently started using guides, I can agree! Making some guides different colors helps me distinguish guides from each other, but I too would like to be able to group guides, so that I have the option of turning off some, not necessarily all, guides when I want.

After drawing my psuedo guides (real lines as guides, grouped into layers so they can be viewed more easily), I realized another useful way to make guides more relatable: give them different lengths. See the attached screenshot for an example.

I think this would fit into the official Guides. Currently, when defining a guide there is an X & Y value. For a horizontal guide, the X value specifies where a small "x" handle(?) appears on the line. If the line started there, only a length value would be needed? Maybe it could be a checkbox to treat X as a start postion? (checking that would enable the length field?).

That would be very elegant/useful compared to an infinite line. It guides the eye to inherent structure. Colors do that too. (And then, if guides could be grouped like layers, selectively shown/hidden, I think guides would be very powerful for documenting a drawing.).

Would that be worth adding to my Gitlab feature request? (or open a new one?). [EDIT: I added this as a comment to the original feature request for grouping guides into layers.]

I'd add it to the request. It may evolve into a set of improvements addressed in a hackfest or other project.

@cartoonygothica, if you like these ideas, feel free to add your comments of support at the feature request: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/-/issues/7913

Maybe this: https://inkscape.org/forums/extensions/extension-some-tools-for-handlingsaving-guidelines-and-correcting-pathsstrokes/