AU Overview 2007

AU in one word, OVERWHELMING!! The training was excellent, networking great, walking tiring. I was able to attend most of the classes I wanted to go to. I registered late & many of the classes were full by the first week. I sat through many CAD Manager classes. The classes were taught by Robert Green. If you get a chance to attend one of his classes, thru AU or AUGI CAD Camp, I suggest you get down there. I'll post more when I get home.

Later,

Erik

AU Day 3

Well, I have survived another day at AU!! I have learned much on this trip so far. Things like when you are up $20.00 at the craps table it's time to call it a day. This knowledge came to me after I lost it plus the original $20.00 I bet. Seriously, The training here is really good. Yesterday I attended 3 classes, Today I have 5. I learned a little more about the CUI & I'll share those things when I get a little more time. I'm off to my next class. Talk with you later.

Erik

Feed the hungry

I ran across this this morning on snopes.com, it's a word game that has real life consequences. For every word you get right they donate 10 grains of rice. It's gets a little challenging as the levels progress but I think you all can handle it.

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Later,

Erik

Going to AU??

It's a little close to go time for AU this year. I just found out that I will be there. I'm looking forward to meeting fellow bloggers there & other CAD monkeys like myself. If you're going to be there drop me a line & I'll try to see you there.

Later,

Erik

ZOOMFACTOR

I recently had to re-setup my AutoCAD. Today after a few weeks of using my scroll wheel to zoom I realized that I had to scroll an awful lot to zoom just a little way. I forgot to set my ZOOMFACTOR. Default is 60 I like mine in the lower 90's. What do you like to set it at?

Erik

What's your OSMODE?

Mine, 111.

Everyone has their own preferences for which running osnaps they like to have. Once you have yours set to your liking, type in OSMODE. Enter new value for OSMODE : will be your prompt. Write down or memorize that number in the brackets, that is your OSMODE. Now anytime you want to reset your running osnaps to your liking you can by entering your number.

Later,

Erik

Been a couple days

It's been a few days since I posted anything, I had some computer problems to fix. Anyway, I added a search bar up top of my blog. This search will take you directly to the AutoCAD LT Discussion forum. It's not real pretty but it works. I find many of my LT questions have already been asked & have good & quick responses.

Later,

Erik

CADing && Coding

I've had this blog as a link for a little while but wanted to spotlight it on my blog.
Here's a guy who seems to know his stuff when it comes to customizing AutoCAD LT.
Check it out.

http://cadingandcoding.blogspot.com/

Welcome to Mohamed Haris & his blog.

Erik

Plot Tip

I just created a button for printing. It's a 1 button for all your plots kind of thing. Everything in the plot command is the same except for the plot scale. My first thought was to prompt the user to enter the scale like 1=48 type of thing. But, then I had an idea. Use DIESEL. Where it would prompt for the scale in the MACRO I added..

$M=$(/,1,$(getvar,dimscale));

this will enter the ratio of plotted units to drawing units. No prompting, no hassel.

Thanks,

Erik

AUGI Forum

Keep a lookout on AUGI Forum for good information. I recently found this viewport creation tool for LT users.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=66878

Thank you to Shinyhead for the tip.

Set current layer by selecting object

**EDIT**
It was brought to my attention that I missed something right in front of my eyes. AutoCAD LT 2007already has a button to do this, it's on the LAYER toolbar. But, for those of you with LT versions below 2000 this is a good alternative.
**EDIT**

More DIESEL. I spent a couple days looking & trying to figure out how to set the current layer to an object I picked. Of course with lisp this is fairly simple, but I think I came up with a good alternative for Us LT users.

^C^C_ai_molc;\setenv;CL;$m=$(getvar,clayer);-layer;set;"$m=$(getenv,CL)";;

Also by changing the code a little you can use it to freeze, turn off, lock or unlock a layer.

I hope this is helpful,

Erik

Toggle TILEMODE with DIESEL

Here's a quick way to toggle TILEMODE with a DIESEL expression. You can program this as a button.

'setvar;tilemode;$M=$(!=,$(getvar,tilemode),1)

Also once you make this a toolbar button you can assign a keyboard shortcut to access it.

Erik

Be sure to check the comments

I'm getting good feed back on the comments. Some of the visitors have added their own tips there.


Thanks for stopping in,

Erik

Align Command

Here's a way to get LT to mimic the align command. Create a toolbar button & use this as a macro..
^C^C_select \_move _p ;\\_rotate _p ;@ _r @ \\

Thanks to...

Dean Saadallah
Add-on products for LT
http://www.pendean.com/lt

for the tip.

Erik

Fellow LT Blogger

Thanks to Shaan Hurley I've been introduced to a fellow LT blogger. http://katescadtips.blogspot.com/

Everyone stop by & say hello.

Cheers,

Erik

Status bar

I used to have a little lisp that when added to the acad.lsp file, would display drawing information on the status bar. With out the use of lisp I can do the same thing, I just have to go about it differently. I created a startup script & added the following... (watch for word wrap)

MODEMACRO Date =$(edtime,$(getvar,date),mon/dd/yyyy) | Dimscale =$(getvar,dimscale) | LTscale =$(getvar,ltscale) | Dimstyle =$(getvar,dimstyle)

I then added "/b startup.scr" to the target line in my AutoCAD icon. Now every time I start AutoCAD it will run this script & my status bar will have the information I like.

Have a good weekend,

Erik

DIESEL "IF" Statement

While looking for LT info I ran across this help.

$M=$(if,$(=,$(getvar,tilemode),1),TRUE,FALSE)

The portion in orange is the test (IF "tilemode" equals 1). If the test is true it does the first statement, if the test is false it does the second statement. Each statement is separated by a comma.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=58338

Thanks for the tip Ty.

Custom keyboard commands

**EDIT**

I learned something new, the SHIFT key overrides the default radius. So when prompted to pick lines to fillet hold the SHIFT key down to fillet with a zero radius. This will keep your radius stored & will not over write it.

**EDIT**

I used to use FF to execute a lisp routine that would fillet with a radius of zero. You can create a toolbar, menu or tool palette object to do this but what about the keyboard. Here's a tip.

In the CUI drag the command fillet up to the keyboard shortcuts part of the CUI tree.

Once added you can adjust the macro to set the fillet radius to zero & specify a keyboard shortcut to execute the command, I use SHIFT + F to execute it.

Default Layer for Tool Palettes

If you right click on a tool palette object you can select properties
& set the default layer for that object.
This way you can keep your CAD standards in tact & increase productivity.

Use DIESEL

While trying to figure out different ways to do things I used to do with lisp, I found this out.
Use DIESEL in your commands. Tool palette, menus or toolbars it will work in all. I created this one to automatically set text height per dimscale.

^C^CTEXTSIZE;$M=$(*,$(getvar,dimscale),0.125);_dtext

I hope this will help,

Introductions

Hello all,
my name is Erik Deyo & I recently took on the duty of CAD Manager at a small engineering firm. Working at a small business has its good & bad points, smaller budgets mean smaller resources. We currently use AutoCAD 2007 LT & I plan on sharing pieces of information with all of you as I discover them. I look forward to sharing with everyone.