ok...so this is my absolute favorite of all the new features in AutoCAD 2009! (hey...it was written by an Express Tool programmer so you know it's going to be fabulous!)
The AutoCAD 2009 Action Recorder
Imagine being able to quickly and easily record your drawing steps for repeat use! We all have tedious tasks we do throughout our design day – now you can record it once and play it as many times as you want later. You can even include such features as pausing for user input, selecting objects, etc.
To get started...you will simply hit the Record button on the Action Recorder Panel to start recording your steps.
The Action recorder records actions from the command line, toolbars, ribbon panels, pulldown menus, the Properties window, the Layer Properties Manager and the Tool Palette.
After you are finished with your task, simply hit the Stop Button. You will be prompted for a Macro Name and your macro will appear in a box in text format for you to view. A file with an extension of .actm will be saved to the directory indicated in Options.
Now you are ready to try your macro by hitting “Play”.
Some tips for your action macros:
· Right click on any action line of your macro to request user input
(for example, you want them to decide the radius of a circle)
· Right click on any action line of your macro to insert a comment to help lead your user
· Right click to edit input such as points, numbers and text strings
Note: Macros don’t understand dialog boxes except for the Layer Manager and Properties. All other commands with dialog boxes will need to be run at the command line (put a dash (-) in front of the command). For example: -HATCH. The Macro can get you into a dialog box but the user will need to input any information and exit manually.
You're going to love being able to quickly save those tedius steps you do over and over (and over) to a macro so all you have to do is snap a button and the work is magically done for you! Hoorah!
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