SubscribeI just returned from a long weekend to Carmel, California. I must admit it was extra nice driving to our little vacation rather than hopping on yet another plane - a real treat! And I even left my laptop behind! (say it isn't so!). As luck would have it our hotel was right next door to the Earthbound Farm of tainted spinach fame...needless to say all Spinach Salads were stricken from the menus of the local restaurants.
My good friend and industry icon Robert Green is hosting his annual CAD Manager's Survey. This popular and extremely informational survey provides a wealth of information on all things CAD Management - so if you are a full or part time CAD Manager be sure to log on and fill out the survey. We all benefit from the results (you might just find out you should be getting paid more money!), and this is strictly professional with no ulterior motive. You should be able to cruise through the questions in 10 to 15 minutes tops...
AutoCAD Hip Tip on Workspaces:
Workspaces - introduced with AutoCAD 2006 - can really help you be more productive (when set up properly). A Workspace is basically a snapshot of your UI - which toolbars are displayed on the screen and where, are you using the new Dashboard, which palettes are docked, etc. Don't you find that you use different toolbars for paperspace then you do in model space? Most of us work with the same old UI day in and day out because it's not worth the hassle to change things around (and this setup is typically pretty overcrowded). Now you can streamline your UI for the way you prefer working at different times. For example, you might have a workspace for 3D, one for paper space, and a different one for model space.
Creating a Workspace is simple...you set up your UI as you like and from the Workspace toolbar select Save Current As...
Give it a name and you now have your first workspace assigned! Since they are easy to get to from your workspace toolbar you can easily flip between them whenever needed. You'll notice that I have a workspace that I use when I'm doing presentations which adjusts to a lower resolution of 1024 X 768 (for projectors). I also have a Workspace I use for PaperSpace that has my annotation toolbars, and my viewport scale factor toolbar, etc. (let's face it - you wouldn't care about the Viewport toolbar while in model space - right?).
So stop cluttering up your UI with all those gzillions of toolbars and palettes - switch them up by using Workspaces!