secrets of architectural desktop 2005 revealed...secrets of autodesk® architectural desktop 2005...

November 30 – December 3, 2004 ¸�/DV�9HJDV��1HYDGD

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� Secrets of Autodesk® Architectural Desktop 2005 Revealed Reid M. Addis – Granary Associates

BD21-2 Join in for an informative session covering a variety of hidden tips and tricks for both Architectural Desktop 2005 as well as AutoCAD® 2005 users.

About the Speaker: Reid, formerly of Addis Computer Consultants, is currently responsible for supporting 45 users of Autodesk® Architectural Desktop and Autodesk VIZ® at Granary Associates in Philadelphia. Previously, Reid managed a CAD consulting firm for architects and engineers for 13 years.

Reid can be reached via email: [email protected]

Secrets of Autodesk® Architectural Desktop 2005 Revealed!

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Okay, here we go!

Secret # 1: W hy oh w hy didn’t I take the Blue pill?

While there is no “Easter Egg” in Architectural Desktop, there is in AutoCAD 2005. Open the Layer Manager dialog box. While holding down both the CTRL and SHI FT keys, click on the I nvert f ilter check box.

Welcome to the Real World!

Secret # 2: Changing the Draw ing and AutoCAD Status bars

You say you don’t need surface hatching? Never use lineweight? Turn them both off! On the r ight hand side of the ADT Drawing Window Status Bar is a down arrow. Click on it and choose what or what not to display. The same applies to the AutoCAD Status Bar. Click on the down arrow at the r ight and check or uncheck what you don’t want to see (boy, would I like to elim inate Ortho so my users will learn how to use Polar ; )

Secret # 3: Adding back pulldow n m enus

Miss your pulldown menus? Me too! Add some of them back from the W indow pulldown menu. You can add back Design, Document , CAD Manager, and 3D Solids. How about Draw and Modify? No problem. Download and install the free Migrat ion Tools from Autodesk’s web site. Lit t le ment ioned is the fact that ADT 2005 actually ships with the ACAD.MNU file! I nstall the Menu Porter software and open the program. Select for the Source menu the acad.m nu f ile in your local Docum ents and Set t ings ADT2005\ Support folder. Pick the adt .m nu f ile as the target file. ( I t loads the adt .mns file, for some reason.) I n the left Source column pick the menu you need (you know you want Draw and Modify, r ight?) . I n the r ight Target colmn, pick the word Menu at the top, then use the “ r ight arrow” tool in the m iddle at the top to put the Source pulldown into the Target menu. Right click on the new item on the r ight to move it up, down, or to delete it . Next t ime to reopen ADT 2005, guess what? No more hunt ing for those commands like Hatch, Boundary, or Divide!


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Secret # 4: Easy Purges

You want to do a purge, but you only want to purge all the Blocks in you drawing, not everything else. So you have to highlight all the items in the Blocks sect ion, then go to the bot tom of the box, pick Purge, then in the Confirm Purge dialog box ( if you have that checked) pick Yes to All. That ’s a lot of work! Try this. Pick the t it le of what you want to purge, for example Blocks. Then, r ight click. Pick Purge to just purge blocks, then Yes to All. Voila! All the blocks are gone but nothing else.

Secret# 5: Create Tool Palet te of Draw ing Blocks

Want a Tool palet te created using all the blocks in a part icular drawing file? Open Design Center (Ct r l+ 2) , then pick the Folders or Open Drawings tab and find the drawing you want . Right click on the drawing name and select Create Tool Palet te.

Secret # 6: Copying Display Sets and Configurat ions betw een Draw ings

Open Display Manger, r ight click on the Configurat ions folder, and pick I mport / Export…. I n the I mport / Export Dialog box, Open the file containing the Sets or Configurat ions you want , hight light them on the r ight , then pick the Import but ton. Export works in reverse.

You can also “cheat” and use the Release 2 DisplayConfigDefineR2 command.

Secret # 7: Select Sim ilar

Need to select all the walls, doors, or Mtext in your drawing. Easy! Select the object type you need, r ight click, then use Select Sim ilar from the pop-up menu.

Secret # 8: New Hatching Variables

Want to always use non-associat ive hatching, always send Hatch to Back, or hatch an object even if there is a small gap ( just as a polyline where you drew the last point on the first point , instead of using Close? Three variables cont rol these: hpassoc, hpdraw order, and hpgaptol. Set hpassoc to 0, hpdraworder to 1, and hpgaptol to a small number in a start up rout ine, such as the acaddoc.lsp f ile. The command lines will look like (setvar "hpassoc" 0) and (setvar "hpdraworder" 1) .


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Secret # 9: Colored Backgrounds for Mtext + Quick Closing the Mtext Editor

Type in some Mtext , then highlight it all, and r ight click. Pick Background Mask… I n the dialog box, turn on Use background m ask and choose the color you want . To close the editor, hold down the SHI FT key and press the Enter key.

By the way, if you are wondering where all of the line spacing variables went for Mtext , check out the Propert ies palet te.

Secret # 10: Text toFront com m and

Need all of your Text , Dimensions, or both brought to the front of the display order? No problem. Type in this command, and follow the command line prompt :

Command: text tofront

Bring to front [ Text / Dimensions/ Both] < Both> :

5 object (s) brought to front .

Secret # 11: Quick Move or Copy

To quickly, though not accurately, m ove or copy on object , first select it . To move it , put your cursor over anything except a grip, hold down your left but ton, then drag. Do the same for copy, except hold down the CTRL key.

Secret # 12: Copy is now m ult iple by default

I f you don’t want more than one copy, hit enter after the first one.

Secret # 13: Midpoint object snap

Two new key- ins that do the same thing: m 2 p or m tp . Both allow you to select any to osnap points. They find the m iddle between them.

Secret # 14: Palet te Rollup

I f you use Autohide for the Tool Palet te and other boxes, somet imes the delay seems long. You can adjust this by finding the FixedProfile .aw s f ile in the C: \ Docum ents and Set t ings\ < user nam e> \ Applicat ion Data\ Autodesk\ ADT 2005\ enu\ Support \ Profiles folder. Open this file in NotePad with ADT2004 closed and look for the < Palet teRollupDelay> and < Palet teRolloutDelay> at the top of the file. These values are in m illiseconds. Adjust them accordingly.


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Secret # 15: Text Size in Mtext editor

Ever have t rouble seeing the text in the Mtext Dialog box? Try this: Hold down the CTRL key, then use your scroll wheel. Up zooms in, while down zooms out . Oh, this works as well in I nternet Explorer and many other applicat ions!

Secret # 16: Cleanups through Xrefs

Walls can now clean up through Xrefs, but you need to give them a lit t le “push” to do so. This is cont rolled in the “Cleanup Group” set t ing. From the Design pulldown-> Walls-> Cleanup Group Definit ions find the cleanup group used by styles in both the host and xrefed drawing, and r ight click on it in the r ight pane, select ing edit . Select the Design Rules tab and toggle on “Allow Wall Cleanup between host and xref drawings.”

Secret # 17: Use CreateHLR before using Napkin

To get a great Napkin Sketch, first set up your 3D view, then from the Document pulldown, pick “Hidden Line Project ion”. I nsert the block in Plan view. Switch to plan view and now use “Napkin Sketch” just below the “Hidden Line Project ion” opt ion.

Secret # 18: Constraining and Rotat ing Tags

When place an ADT Tag, there are several command line prompts. Two of those are Constrain and Rotat ion. You can choose where or not to “at tach” a tag to an object with the Const rain opt ion. Normally a tag is not const rained, so if you move a door, the tag doesn’t move with it . Using this opt ion keeps the tag with the object . For Rotat ion to work, first const rain the tag, then use the Rotat ion opt ion, and use the default < Centered> for the locat ion. The tag will now rotate to the angle of the object .

Secret # 19: Placing a Door opt ions

There are some new ways to place a door: CYcle measure to, REference, and Auto. Entering cy while placing a door allows you to switch between the hinge, center, and lock side of the door. Auto toggles between allowing you to freeing place a door, and using the preset const raint distance. REference point on allows to pick a point , then type in a specific distance for the door locat ion.


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Secret # 20: Add Selected

Tool palet tes are great for preset t ing styles. For example, you may preset a wall height , or a door size. What happens if need to adjust these in the drawing? You will probably have only one New Single Door style, but may need different sizes. I f you preset the size to establish standards, you’d have to change each door after placing it .

I nstead, simply r ight click on the object , and choose Add Selected from the pop-up menu. This is a fast and easy way to “copy” that objects propert ies when placing a sim ilar type object .

Secret # 21: W here are m y pulldow n m enu ALT+ Let ter shortcuts

Those of use who are “keyboarders” know that ALT+ F opens the Files pulldown menu. What opens the Form at pulldown? I f you are using Windows XP, these are turned off by default . There are two solut ions. The temporary solut ion is to hold down the ALT key. Suddenly, all of the shortcut menu let ters are underlined! They stay underlined temporarily if you let go of the Alt key. I f you want them back permanent ly, r ight click on the Windows desktop, and choose Propert ies from the menu. On the Appearance tab, pick the Effects… but ton, then uncheck the Hide underlined let ters for keyboard navigat ion unt il I press the Alt key.

What I want to know is what joker comes up with these ideas to hide things from us in the first place?

Secret # 22: Structural Mem bers m ade easy!

Need a 36”x36” Concrete Column and it ’s not in the Member’s catalog, and you don’t know how to edit the Aecs_ CONCCC_ I .xm l f ile? No problem mon! From the Form at pulldown, choose Structural Member Style Wizard. On screen 1 of 3 choose the type of member you are creat ing. On screen two enter the sizes. On screen 3, give it a unique name. I t will now be available in the Propert ies palet te Style drop down menu.


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Secret # 23: To I nfinity and Beyond!

Ok, I have NO idea why anyone would need to know or use this, but is you want to draw a line from here to infinity, pick a point then enter “0,0,1e99” for the second point .

Secret # 24: Adding Curved Segm ents to AEC Polgons

I f you have a hatch pat tern without a boundary, you can select it in ADT2005, r ight click, and pick Generate Boundary . ADT creates an AEC Polygon instead of a polyline. So how to get a curve? Hover your cursor over an “Edge Grip” (m iddle of a side) . A pop-up menu appears indicat ing that you can hit the CTRL key to toggle between Offset , Add Vertex, and Convert to ARC after picking the grip point .

Secret # 25: HATCHSETORI GI N – Set t ing the Hatch Origin w ithout using SNAPBASE

Ok, by now most of know if we type in SNAPBASE, and pick a point , then Hatchedit a pat tern by double clicking on it , then picking okay, the pat tern will pass through this point . Can you do it without changing snapbase? Yes! I n ADT2005, pick a Hatch pat tern, r ight click, and pick Set Origin from the pop-up menu. The command line version is hatchsetorigin. There is no help available for this command, so I can’t tell you anything more about it !

Secret # 26: Changing Nested Block Ent ity Propert ies to “Byblock”

One of ADT’s programmers, Jim Awe, explained on the Newsgroup on May 5, 2004, that he got so t ired of having to fix the layers of nested objects in blocks, he created a special command to do that . Guess what? They included it on the r ight click menu for blocks. Select a block and r ight click. I n the pop-up menu, select Set Nested Objects to ByBlock . Afterwards, you may use refedit to adjust certain ent it ies, such as hatch pat terns, to a different layer.

Secret # 27: Generate a ll those layers from your Layer Key Style

You are t rying to set up a master .dws f ile with all your office standard layers to use in the Layer Translator rout ine. However, there is no “Create Layer” but ton in the Layer Key Style dialog box. Thanks to a rout ine from David Koch, now you can do this quite easily. Simply save the code below to a lisp f ile, load and run it . Presto! All your layers in your layer key style are now in your drawing!

( defun C:LG ( / llyrkeys)

( arx load "AecLMgrLisp4 5 .arx")

( setq llyrkeys ( aeclayerkeylist ) )

( m apcar ’aecgeneratelayerkey llyrkeys)

)


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Secret # 28: I nstant access to Detail Com ponent Manager

No keyboard shortcuts for this one. However, if you r ight click on any Detail tool, there is an opt ion to open the Detail Component Manager in the pop-up menu!

Secret # 29: Stop the Mtext box from changing size

There is a new variable, MTEXTFI XED. Set it to 1 and you will get a constant size for the edit box.

Secret # 30: Underlined Text in Tags

Want your room names to be underlined when using a Tag that at taches a property set definit ion? Create a property set definit ion using % % U for the prefix. Now when you fill in the name, it is automat ically underlined.

Secret # 31: AECConstruct ionLine ( Enhanced Xline)

Those of you not using Xlines or Rays should begin to look at how they can help you with creat ing temporary lines for geomet ry locat ion.

Anyway, ADT goes one bet ter with the AECConst ruct ionLine command. I t is “disguised” as the Const ruct ion Line tool in the Shape toolbar. The xline comm and creates an infinite length line with several sub opt ions such as:

Com m and: x line

Specify a point or [ Hor/ Ver/ Ang/ Bisect / Offset ] :

The AECConstruct ionLine command combines the “angle” and “offset ” features of the xline command. You begin by “hovering” over some geometry in your drawing, such as a wall. The command determ ines the angle of that geomet ry, then allows you to drag the xline parallel to it :

Com m and: _ AecConstruct ionLine

Select linew ork under cursor or ENTER to select points: Specify offset :

I t ’s actually a lot of fun! Also, if in your Layer Key Style you have an XLI NE key, you can cont rol the layer for xlines.

Secret # 32: UCSORTHO

Ever not ice how the ucsicon rotates to match the X/ Y coordinate system of your view. I f you don’t want this to happen, set this variable to 0 .


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Secret # 33: AecAlignUcsToFace

Want to align your UCS to the face of an object , such as a Mass Element , Mass Group, or Wall? Run the command from the UCS toolbar. Hover your cursor over the object ’s face, and follow the prompts:

Com m and: _ AecAlignUcsToFace

Select a face to a lign UCS:

Select UCS origin on the selected face: end of

Rotate UCS < 0 .0 0 > :

By the way, don’t forget some of the super cool new features for Mass Groups using the Edit I n Place opt ion!

Secret # 34: DOCS folder on ADT Disk 1

There are some great PDF’s (oops! Shouldn’t they be DWF’s in this release : ) in this folder. There are some great tutorials available.

Secret # 35: W HOHAS

Can’t open your drawing because someone else has it open? Type in WHOHAS at the command line and navigate to the file. You’ll f ind the culprit soon enough!

Secret # 36: The / ld start sw itch

The Desktop shortcut for Architectural Desktop 2005 includes a new / LD switch. The / LD switch was implemented to facilitate side-by-side support of mult iple releases of Architectural Desktop by automat ing the loading of ARX and DBX files associated with the release of ADT being launched. Using this switch may produce a delay when init ially launching ADT, but since all required ARX and DBX files are now loaded, you will not experience further delays during the use of this applicat ion.

That ’s it for this year!

secrets of architectural desktop 2005 revealed...secrets of autodesk® architectural desktop 2005...

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