Yeah, the layer object is the best way I know how to do it. You could do it Phizzy's way, which will work, or the way I do it, which is slightly more complex, but more effective & flexable.
Set the Alterable Value (doesnt matter which one) of the object, to the Y position of that same object. Do this for all the objects you want to have layered.
Then you can either have the layer object always sort the object based on the Alterable Value, Desending.
There is a way to do it without the layer object, but it would have to do with alot of repeating the same events for all the objects & so on & it can get very messy, I'd just stuck with the layer object.
You cant use extentions on the trial? Umm, never knew that... I guess its because I never really tried the trial out, I just used it the first few days & then forgot about it, then when Clickteam had there Halloween sell, I got MMF for 50% thanks to my TGF Pro discount & thats why I have it.
I thought you could also, but apperently you cant. That or Borvoc, your doing something wrong.
FYI: You cant just put the extentions in the main folder like you could with TGF, you have to add it into the Extentions folder, & if I'm not mistaken, the Runtime Folder also (I dont know if you need to or not, I just seem to remember having some problems when I didnt).