Lynn Allen's Blog

A New Year Tip on Layers

Well I see that many of you are relaxing this week as my blog visits have slowed down dramatically!  Have you made any New Year resolutions yet?  How many of you out there are good at keeping them?  Every year I vow to travel a little less (never happens), to work out more (which works until I start traveling again), to be more organized (my expense reports are nearly 6 months over due)...and the list goes on and on.  But I'll make my resolutions again - and I'll believe in them again.

Hip Tip on Copying objects to another layer:

Sometimes we find ourselves wanting to copy an object to another layer.  So what do we do?  We make a copy of the object - and then change it to the desired layer.  That takes too long (I hate extra steps!) - try using the COPYTOLAYER Express Tool.  This cool command cuts out the middle man...cuts right to the chase.  This command is so cool you can copy to layers that don't even exist yet (it allows you to create a new layer on the spot).  Let's take a look.

After selecting the object(s) you want to copy you'll run into the following dialog box listing out all of your existing layers.

 

You have three options for selecting layers.

1.  You can select the intended layer to copy to.
2.  You can select "Pick<" and select an object that's on the intended layer
3.  You can key in the name of a new layer to create and copy to.

After selecting the target layer and exiting the dialog you can hit an extra enter to copy the new object in the same location or to move it to another location.

     3 objects copied and placed on layer "Const".
     Base point or <return> to finish:
     Specify second point or <use first point as displacement>:

And here's a fabulous added tip:  You can use COPYTOLAYER to simulate having the same objects look different in different viewports.  Simply copy them to a different layer, freeze the other layer in the viewport and make the desired changes (color, linetype, etc) to the new objects.

A Fabulous Architectural Tip

Happy Holidays to you all...even though Autodesk is officially off for the annual week of rest I thought I'd drop by my blog and wish you all a great one.  I'd also like to introduce you to an amazing website for you architectural types who are trying to decide between AutoCAD, Architectural Desktop and Revit Building.  And frankly this site is so much fun you'll enjoy the visit regardless of the industry you are in (you'll have to check it out to understand that).

So go visit Diana on autodesk.com.  I had a blast conversing with her (and you will to). 

And now on to the official Alex Christmas picture of the year.  You blog readers might remember that Alex has cancer so it was a bittersweet Christmas knowing she won't be joining us for the next one - but you'll see she was having a great time nevertheless! 

Here she decided to knock the top two boxes off the top of the stack (perhaps there were dog biscuits in them!).

And here's a picture of my family at Christmas dinner (which I spent all day cooking...).  This was after opening our Christmas Crackers and donning our crowns (tradition means we have to wear them all through dinner).  From left to right...Ashley (daughter), her boyfriend Eddie (nice bracelet!), Joshua (son), my Mom and Yours Truly.  The picture was taken by our cat (just kidding Craig).

From my family to yours - Happy Holidays...it's time to start writing your New Year resolutions...(I can think of plenty I need to make).

A Holiday Hip Tip on Tool Palettes

Hip Tip for putting varying widths of polylines on the tool palettes:

I recently ran into a situation where someone wanted to have different polyline widths as tools on their tool palettes.  As logic would have it, they dragged the various width polylines right onto the tool palette assuming the pline width value would go with it...but when they went to insert the polylines, they all defaulted back to a width of "0"...what's up with that?  And furthermore - how do they accomplish their goal?

So here are the steps:

1.  Drag a polyline onto the palette.
2.  Right click on the tool - go to Properties
3.  Turn "Use Flyout" to "no" as seen below
4.  This makes the Command string section available for customizing.  Note my code below  - simply replace the numbers in my code with the width values you need.

^C^C_pline;\w;24;24;

There you go!  Now I have to get back to wrapping some presents...

Season's Greetings!

Happy Holidays to you all...Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year (and any other holiday I might have left out).  Autodesk is officially closed for the annual week of rest from tomorrow until January 2...but I promise I won't forget you (and will still blog...)

If you have a great picture of your pet dressed up for the holidays - be sure to send it to me and I'll try to post it...

Doesn't Alex look happy?  Ho-Ho-Ho

A Holiday Hip Tip on AutoCAD Viewports

I finished most of my Christmas shopping so I can breathe a sigh of relief.  Everything is in the mail or ordered online...phew!  This is going to be one of the best holiday seasons yet - I can just tell!

Holiday Hip tip for Cycling through Viewports:

I've received several emails about this in the past two weeks so I think it's time to revisit a great AuotCAD Tip.  Sometimes we have a viewport embedded within another viewport...how do we get inside of it?  The magical combination of Control+R will make it easy for you to cycle through all of your viewports until you get to the correct one.  This used to be Control+V but we all know that due to Windows that's now assigned to Paste...

So there's another Holiday Hip Tip....Happy Holidays to you!

Another Hip tip to Globally Edit Attribute Text

Alas I am in mourning over the defeat of the Colts yesterday.  So close to an undefeated season and yet so far...oh the pain of it all!  So there will be no picture of my dog Alex lying on Peyton's jersey this week...

Last week I mentioned that the FIND command allows you to globally search for and replace attribute text.  One of my blog readers, John Frank, mentioned another option for doing this with the Express Tool - GATTE.  Previously, this Express Tool could be found in the menus, but now it is only available via the command line (which officially makes it top secret!).  This awesome Express Tool (which I had forgotten about) allows you to globally make changes to your attribute values, saving loads of time.

Command:  GATTE
Select block or attribute[Block name]: select objects or enter B to enter a block name
Known tag names for block: MANF
Select attribute or type attribute name: select an attribute or enter the attribute tag name
Number of inserts in drawing = 8
Process all of them? [Yes/No] <Yes>: If no, select the block inserts to process

Essentially this is great if you need to change a great deal of attribute text from one value to another - see example below - changing all the A's to B's.

 

And finally,  Robert Duffy, an AU attendee send a great shot of him and his daughter at the MGM party at Autodesk University.  It was such a sweet shot I thought I'd include it.

New Manufacturing Community Site (and a little King Kong!)

Our blog sites were down yesterday so I missed the chance to post (so sorry).  Thursday night I managed to see King Kong on it's opening night - great movie (but oh so long!).  Better make sure you have a comfortable seat because you're going to be in it for awhile...typical Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) style - he must get paid relative to the length of the movie.  King Kong was quite scary in the middle (worthy of a few jumps) and I must admit I cried at the ending (though I tried to hide it from my date).  Just once can't King Kong get away?  Must we always shoot him down from the Empire State Building?  I think once every 4 remakes he should be allowed to escape.  Check out the Autodesk website for a glimpse of the movie (Autodesk products were used for many of the special effects). 

For all of you Manufacturing folks, be sure to visit the new Autodesk Manufacturing Community site.  Here you'll hear straight from the Autodesk product managers who focus on the software you use everyday.  You'll also find various tips and tricks from experienced users along with local events you might want to attend.  It's still in Beta, so you'll be one of the first to give it a try!  Be sure to send in some feedback if you visit...

Have a fabulous weekend!

A Hip Tip on Snapping to Hatches

I've received many pictures since I've arrived home from Autodesk University.  Here's one that was taken at the Swan hotel with a few fellow AU attendees...Matt Sawhill, Joe Schmitz and my extra close buddy, AE extraordinaire - Mike Jolicoeur. 

As you can tell we were having a great time!  Now on to your Hip Tip...

Setting to tell your object snaps to ignore hatch patterns:

Doesn't it drive you crazy when your osnaps keep grabbing your hatch patterns instead of the desired geometry?  Let's face it - how often do you really need to snap to a hatch pattern (never?).  The OPTIONS command (Drafting tab) allows you to tell AutoCAD to ignore your hatch patterns when you're using an object snap as seen below.

 

It's that simple!  Are you ready for the Holidays yet?

A Quickie Hip Tip on Cycling Through Drawings

Running late today...so here are two mini Hip Tips.

Speedy means of moving from one Open drawing to another:

I am much too lazy to move my cursor up to the Window pull down menu to move from one open drawing to another.  I always use Control+Tab to cycle through all of my open drawings.

And if you have AutoCAD 2005 or higher, set the system variable TASKBAR to 1 and your open drawings will display along the taskbar at the bottom of your screen...another super speedy means of moving from one open drawing to another.

I'm off to take a class today!  Have a fabulous Tuesday please...

AutoCAD Tip for Finding Files

The Colts are still hanging in there - unbelievable!  13-0!  Glad to see that the number "13" wasn't bad luck for them (like it was for poor AutoCAD many years ago).  In honor of the Colt's win I think I might have to display my dog Alex's picture again...many thanks to all of you who sent me emails today regarding the game (don't you think it was a little too close at the end?).

So here's another Holiday Hip Tip...

Controlling the File Selection Folder Default:

Before AutoCAD 2000, we controlled the default file folder by setting up various shortcut startup Icons on our desktop.  Using startup switches we assigned a specific file folder based on our various drawing projects.  For more info on the powerful world of startup switches visit my article at the following Cadalyst magazine link.   

You can still use startup switches to control the default file folder by setting the cool system variable REMEMBERFOLDERS to 0.  By default, REMEMBERFOLDERS is set to 1, which means it defaults to My Documents to start.    Whenever a file is opened or saved to a specific folder, that folder becomes the future default (hence it "remembers the folders").

Die-hard AutoCAD power users love using Startup Switches.  Consequently they get a little cranky when the file dialog boxes ignore their settings...so REMEMBERFOLDERS is key here.

Here is the promised picture of my beloved dog Alex on Peyton Manning's jersey (yet again). Go Colts!