Michael's Corner

Memorable May - May 2008

One of the reasons I enjoy writing this column each month is that I get to learn about features that I had always wanted to look into but never had the time. The Layer Translator has been around for several versions and is something that those of you receiving drawings from outside sources may appreciate. My customers have - once again - come up with questions that brought me to the two legacy variables as well the variable to enable AutoCAD to remember the folders from which you open drawings. And, of course, there's another tool palette button idea for you, too.

I hope these insights bump your productivity a bit today so you can have a few more minutes with your family or favorite activity.

Customizing and Discovering - April 2008

As you know, I'm passionate about palettes (professionally speaking), so I have finally gotten around to covering how to add another block as a visibility parameter on a dynamic block (which imminently ends up on a tool palette). I'm also keeping the ball rolling with yet another custom button on the tool palette; this one you can call "Wall Maker" or "Duct Worker" or whatever suits your particular application.

The discoveries I wanted to pass along are those related to layer filters and PDF files. I read an article in an eNewsletter that I subscribe to through Cadalyst which spoke about the Filters command that can be used to keep or delete layer filters you may encounter in a drawing you receive. Then one of my students was asking about bringing a PDF into AutoCAD, and when you think about it, it's nothing more than inserting it as an OLE object. Both of those I thought were pretty slick and I hope you agree.

I hope these insights bump your productivity a bit today so you can have a few more minutes with your family or favorite activity.

Just Call 'Em "Tenured" - March 2008

Fields are relatively new to AutoCAD, but this month I also cover three other commands that have some tenure in AutoCAD. From a dusty bin on your tool bench, the Global Attribute Edit routine can be really useful when working with attributed blocks. And once upon a time, when dialog boxes were in their infancy, just about every procedure was command line-driven… and occasionally they creep back into our daily grind and need to be put back in their place. Cmddia and Filedia, specifically. And finally, one of my favorites, the powerfully functional utility of tiling the drawings so you can copy objects from one drawing to another in a snap.

I hope these insights bump your productivity a bit today so you can have a few more minutes with your family or favorite activity.

It's all about Shortcuts - February 2008

First, I want to thank Lee Ambrosius for stepping up to the plate for the month of January where he took our understanding of customizing up a notch and gave us some pretty cool insights into writing AutoLISP and Scripts routines. He humbly failed to mention that he is the co-author of the "AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies" book, and you can read a few chapter excerpts on his website, www.hyperpics.com.

Sometimes when I'm training, I tell my customers that my goal is to help them go home sooner than they would have if they didn't know the shortcuts I'm there to share with them. I'm just there to help them learn how to shave moments off their daily routine. Like your waiter shaving a pile of parmesan onto your pasta, I'm there to pile up the shortcuts.

This month has what I would consider to be three shortcuts along with an opening article on a practical application for the Wipeout object.

Now go out there and make somebody's day by being the most gracious and devoted AutoCAD user on the planet!

Great Mysteries of AutoCAD - January 2008

Congrats to Michael and his achievement of writing this column for the past 5 years. After 5 years and 60 articles later, he has decided it was time to take a break. So while Michael is enjoying his time off and being away from his computer (I know time off for me equals more time with mine), I was asked to step in for this month (no small task I must say). So on with the show…

Customization or programming are often two of the great mysteries of AutoCAD; many people do not know about it or they want to learn to do it, but decide it is not for them before they even try it so it is often left to what seems like a select or "elite" group of users. Being able to change the way you work in AutoCAD is one of the benefits to using AutoCAD; not only can you decide where or how you might access a command, but you can create your own commands. This month, I am going to pop open AutoCAD's hood and take a look around and you might just be surprised how easy some of the things can be when it comes to customization and programming AutoCAD.

In the main article I am going to look at using AutoLISP to batch automate the draw order of single line and multiline text in all the drawings located in a specified folder and then in Power Tool I am going to talk about a utility called ScriptPro which allows you to run a script file on a set of drawings in a slightly different way to batch process drawings. I then round off this issue with creating simple custom commands with AutoLISP to run commands with options which cannot be done with command aliases alone and how to create a basic script file that can be run on a drawing or as part of ScriptPro.

Five of 25... and No End In Sight - December 2007

A quarter century is a long time to be in the CAD training profession, but it's been a fantastic ride and for 1/5th of that time I've totally enjoyed bringing AutoCAD insights to you from Michael's Corner. And here's what you'll find this month…

With all the Windows-compliant procedures, I just think the hyperlink is a wonderful feature to help keep track of other documents. This month there's a curve in associating a hyperlink with a block on a palette that I thought you should be aware of. The customized palette button this month is one that incorporates a few other features that I have covered in these pages having to do with the UCS, so I think you'll really appreciate the boost you get when you add it to a button or two. The Viewports dialog box brings some interesting to the table, especially when you're doing 3D-views in a layout tab. For the Basics this month I wanted to bring your attention to some "system management" issues you may be able to handle on your own having to do with the backup and autosave files.

Also, I just want you to know that I will be taking a break in January and will be back in February with a new collection of insights for 2008 (the year, not necessarily the version).

AutoCAD Back Roads - November 2007

It seems like this month's collection consists of items you don't find on the main AutoCAD road of life… but may find a bit useful. The Odd Spot and the Basics address two areas that catch even veteran users by surprise. The inadvertent invocation of the Cleanscreen command and how to enable two very important Pick- variables that may have mysteriously became disabled.

In my series on customizing buttons, this month I cover how to make a button so you can just click an existing object and turn it into a Revcloud. Pretty fun! Then in the opening article, I cover how to protect a drawing with a Password. Not something you encounter every day, but something that has come up in my training sessions on more than one occasion.

Customizations & Conveniences - October 2007

Customizing AutoCAD is not really that difficult. I'm not talking about anything fancy like Lisp routines or VBA, just using the features that are available to tweak a few more RPM's out of this thing. For example, if you want to populate all the title blocks on the various layout tabs with the project name automatically, how would you do that? Take a look at the opening article. Then in the Power Tool I propose a method to get the same arc length(s) for a revision cloud every time on any drawing life throws at you - and on the proper layer, even if the layer isn't in that drawing. Not rocket science, just eliminating the aggravation we encounter every now and then.

Then I wanted to follow-up an article from a couple years ago on cycling through stacked objects. Autodesk decided to make it a bit like rubbing your belly and patting your head; you'll see what I mean if you look over the Odd Spot. And then I have been remiss in not letting you all know how to lock the viewport display so you don't obliterate the plot scale when you roll your wheel mouse in a viewport.

Now go out there and share what you've learned just so you can brighten up somebody else's day. You'll be their hero.

Learning Curves - September 2007

In my copious "free time" I promised myself to look into material mapping. Well, push came to shove and I needed to get on the learning curve and figure this out, so that's what's front and center this month. My friend Lee Ambrosius [www.hyperpics.com] has authored the "AutoCAD 2008 3D Modeling Workbook for Dummies", just in case any of you want to take what you see here and continue your own learning curve.

The remaining articles are things I had in my "To Cover" list and in my recent training sessions, customers have bumped into some things that I needed to clarify… so hopefully the coverage on Copy with Basepoint, Otrack, and a really cool trick to run 3D Orbit will bring joy to some faces. Which is the point of this whole exercise.

Annotation & Customization - August 2007

AutoCAD 2008 really is a nice piece of work. They made some nice refinements in the Mtext routine and gave us the ability to add columns, then gave us some flexibility with the Dashboard so we can customize it with our own commands. In the Power Tool I pass along an answer to one of the emails I received about adding some color to an area of a floorplan, then while I was working on the title blocks for one of my customers, I came across a feature in the Block Attribute Manager (Battman) that I wanted to remind you about.

Version conversion note: I don't usually do product promotions in these pages, but I think it's important to get the word out about Autodesk's TrueConvert product. With so many versions out there at this point, this utility is a "must have" for all offices.