Workaround - AutoCAD 2009 - Find/Replace - no Zoom!

In a previous post, AutoCAD 2009 - Find and Replace, I spoke about the changes in AutoCAD 2009's Find and replace command. It now automatically zooms to the text you find, but when you quit the command you are returned to where you were when you started the command. That means you can no longer use the find command to find text!

One of CAD-a-Blog's great and highly intelligent readers came up with a work around. Use the find command and zoom to the text. Close the command. then execute a Zoom PREVIOUS!!! Fantastic! It works, I tried it. It also works in 2008.

Just start the find command, find your text, zoom to it (it does this automatically now). Then close the command. Then start the zoom command, then type in P for previous and there you go, at your text!

Great tip, great workaround! Keep them coming.

Happy CADing!

Quick Tip – Slow Printing

If you are using AutoCAD 2008 or even AutoCAD 2009, you might have noticed the printing seems to move a little bit slower. Here is a quick tip on speeding up your printing.

AutoCAD 2008 introduced to us BACKGROUND PROCESSING for plotting. The theory behind it is that it will free up your computer while printing so that you can continue to work. It sounds good. I like it when I am publishing something or batch plotting through the sheet set manager.

BUT (there’s always a but in there somewhere), when I need to print single sheets, I don’t like it so much. What often happens to me is that I have two to three drawing files open and I want to print them. They might be from different drawing sets or whatever. The point is that I can only print them from the DWG files, one at a time. The background processing printing won’t let me print the second file until the first one is finished. So what’s the big deal?

The problem is that when you print behind the scenes, it takes longer. It takes longer because the computer is processing the printing, and processing your work. So I tried it. I switched it off and WOW!! The old printing speed returned. I have kept it off and my printing is much faster.

I usually don’t encourage people to turn off new features, because I want all of us to give them a chance. But this one works better for me when it is off. Perhaps the speed is not an issue (and even for me it isn’t always an issue) for you, and that’s ok too.

To turn it off, open up the OPTIONS (type in OP at the command line). Go to the PLOT AND PUBLISH tab. Near the left center area there is the option to toggle on/off Background Plotting. You have the ability to turn off Plotting and/or Publishing. I left the publishing on but turned the plotting off. Set it to fit your needs.

Happy CADDING.

Review - CADsmart

CAD-a-Blog is about teaching CAD skills, especially AutoCAD skills. With that in mind, I try to keep my eyes open for products or services that can help users (and me too!) better themselves. I feel that I have found such a product.

Consider this scenario; imagine that you need to hire a new CAD user for your company. How do you know if that user can in fact use CAD? How do you know the extent of his or her skills?

Also consider this; how can you measure the CAD skills of your current users?

Well I have come across a product that comes from the United Kingdom. It is from CADsmart.
CADsmart is a company that provides testing software that measures general AutoCAD (and Microstation) skills in users. It has the ability to measure CAD drafting skills, not programming, not customizations, but CAD skills. In a nutshell, the user takes a series of drafting based assessments, each one covering a specific topic. The results are compared to a benchmark that has been developed by CADsmart from thousands of users that have taken the same or similar assessments. The user is scored individually and in comparison to other users. For example, one segments score could state that you scored an 80%. That means that you were 80% correct. Now compare that score to the benchmark and you will have a means to measure your abilities relative to the thousands of users that have already taken the assessment. This software gives you a score for the user and tells you if it is a good score or not.

CADsmart’s benchmark is meant to represent the average user. If you score above that, then you should be a good CAD user. If you score below the benchmark, then there might be some areas for training. The assessments are scored separately on overall accuracy and time taken. These two measurements can be compared to the benchmark or to other employees in your company.

CADsmart’s assessments cover specific topics. Each one consists of a series of steps that the user must complete. It doesn’t matter how the user gets the work done, or how long it takes, only that the end results are what they need to be. This is one of the main reasons that I like this software because every user will work in a slightly different way and what matters is the final drawing, not so much as how it was drawn. I said that time doesn’t matter, well it doesn’t affect the accuracy score, but it is measured and compared to the benchmark. So keep it in mind that you need to be both accurate and quick, just like in real life!

Each category has its own benchmark that you can compare your score with. This is very useful because it provides a means of determining where your specific problems are. This feature is great for managers too because it enables them to find specific problem areas in their users so that they can concentrate their training programs exactly where they are needed. Time and resources are not wasted training the wrong people in the wrong skill sets.

CADsmart is not perfect. It is not cost productive for a single user to buy the software and use it on themselves, though this can be done. It works best in a group environment. You also have to have AutoCAD software on your machine in order to run it. One other thing that I understand, but didn’t like too much, is that while taking the test, I can’t pause it in case my attention is needed elsewhere (That happened to me while I was taking the test. I got a low score in the dimension portion because of it-maybe I’m just bitter!) Playing devil’s advocate, if I could pause the assessment, then I could stop it, figure out the task, then start again. That’s cheating, so I understand the reason behind it, but I want it anyway!!

That’s the gist of it. I don’t want to overload you with information, so I am going to write about CADsmart in smaller bite size parts like this. Check out their website, read about them, and let me know what you think. Later I’m going to get more into the workings of it, what it has to offer managers in terms of assessment tools, charts, and recommendations. CADsmart will test the user, show the assessment data, and provide recommendations on what areas to train the specific users in. It is a very helpful tool in my opinion.

Happy CADDING!

100th Post

Yay CAD-a-Blog. we have hit a milestone here at CAD-a-Blog. This is our 100th post! Ok, it's not that big of a deal really, but hey, I'm having fun. I wanted to take this time to remind you, or if you are not aware, to inform you of some great ways to know when a new post is added to CAD-a-Blog.

There is the obvious way, just show up to the site. But lets face it, you'd rather that I came to you right? If you have e-mail then you can sign up for the free E-mail notification. When a new post is made you will get an e-mail letting you know. Click the link and you are there.

If you use an RSS reader, then again, when a new post is here, your reader will be notified. Click the link and you are here. I've posted about these things before.

Here are the links you need to use to sign up for either notification method. I will never pass out or sell your information, I promise. Right now there are over 100 people signed up for these notifications, and more are joining every week. So sign up, you know you want to.

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I also want to take the time to talk about some ideas that I have for CAD-a-Blog. If you have any ideas in mind, please let me know. Use the Skribit panel on the right to vote for the ideas you like. Or use it to post some of your own ideas. OR, e-mail me at benton.brian@gmail.com.

I am looking at setting up a discussion board. I haven't worked out all of the details yet, but I'm looking into it. I am also looking at setting up a Wiki. It would be similar to Wikipedia, but it would be CAD-a-Wiki. One other item that I want to add is video. I had a link to one of Lynn Allen's videos from her Cadalyst website. It seemed to work, what do you think?

I am also looking to expand the content topics to include GIS. I am getting more and more into that realm and feel it can have a place here at CAD-a-Blog. That one is a while away yet, but keep your eyes open.

I currently have links across the top of the site that take you to specific tag topics. They are:

• Home
• Articles
• AutoCAD 2009
• Impression
• Store

I think that most of these topics are obvious as to what they cover. Home takes you back to the main CAD-a-Blog page. Articles takes you to posts that I have made about articles that I have written outside of CAD-a-Blog. The Store link is to the CAD-a-Blog store. There you can buy CAD related items, like t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc. I plan on adding more items soon. If you have a great idea for a CAD T-Shirt, or polo, or mug, let me know, I might be able to set it up in the store.

I am looking to add some topics, maybe remove the Articles link, add more content to those topics specifically. I have started some blogs with the title and tag QUICK TIPS. they are short tips about AutoCAD. They don't go deep in detail, but simply say, "Hey, here's a great command (or idea) that you might want to know about, try it out." Look for those in the near future. Once I get this video thing going I will probably make that one of the links too. Oh, and when AutoCAD 2010 comes out, there will definitely be a link for it! Other topic ideas I have are POD Casts (I might not do this if I can get the videos to work out right), WORKAROUNDS, BUGS, and News items. I have lots of ideas, just not enough time to do them. If I quit my day job . . . . (my wife would kill me!!)

One more item, I am planning on getting my own URL for CAD-a-Blog within the next few months. That will make CAD-a-Blog more searchable, more legitimate, etc. When that day comes I will let you know. It might not be until the end of the year, I don't know yet.

Well, that's that for my 100th post in CAD-a-Blog. I hope you all enjoy the site and that you can glean some type of valuable information from it, because that is it's purpose. Keep coming and I'll keep posting!!

Happy CADDING.

Multileader Styles

AutoCAD 2008 gave us Multileaders. I have previously posted on them here and spoke about their general use, multi leadered leaders. Now lets take a look and see how to set up a Multileader style.

Let’s start by creating a new Multileader Style. A Multileader style works just like any other style in AutoCAD. In fact, it has many of the same settings as the dimension styles do. Open up the Multileader style manager. Click the NEW button on the right. It starts you off by copying one of your current styles from the drawing file.

There is a default style called STANDARD. I recommend that you create your own default style that is called anything else except standard. This is true for all styles, if you can help it. The reason is that everyone using AutoCAD has a style called standard because it comes that way. If anyone copies your Multileader (or text, or dimension, or etc.) from your file and places it in theirs, it will take on the style attributes called standard that are in their file. Their STANDARD style might not be set the same way yours is! But if you give it a unique name, it is less likely to take on the wrong attributes.

I will call this one ml-001. No reason, only that it isn’t standard. When you give your new Multileader style a name, you have the option of making it annotative or not (meaning that it will be scaled by the annotative scaling feature.) Don’t worry, you can change this later if you wish.

The style Manager has three different tabs; Leader Format, Leader Structure, and Content.

Leader

This is where you set the type, color, linetype, arrowhead, and break size.Most of these items are pretty easy to understand, so I won’t go over every setting option. But here are what I feel are the most important:

• Type:Straight, spline or none.The straight setting creates a “straight” lined leader.The spline creates a curved lined leader.
• Color, Linetype, Linewight: use these to set the color, linetype, and lineweight for the leader.
• Arrowhead Symbol/Size: This works just like the dimension style setting for arrowhead. Choose one or choose a to use a block you created. That is what your arrowhead will be and what size it will be.
• Leader Break Size: Controls the settings used when adding a dimension break to a multileader.

Leader Structure

This tab is where you can set the constraints, structure and scale of the multileader:

• Constraints-Maximum Leader Points: Specifies a maximum number of points for the leader line.
• First Segment Angle: Specifies the angle of the first point in the leader line.
• Second Segment Angle: Specifies the angle of the second point in the multileader landing line.
• Landing Settings: Controls the landing settings of the multileader.
• Automatically Include Landing: Attaches a horizontal landing line to the multileader content.
• Set Landing Distance: Determines the fixed distance for the multileader landing line.
• Scale: Controls the scaling of the multileader.
• Annotative: Specifies that the multileader is annotative.

When the multileader is not annotative, the following options are available.

• Scale Multileaders to Layout: Determines a scaling factor for the multileader based on the scaling in the model space and paper space viewports.
• Specify Scale: Specifies the scale for the multileader.

Content

This tab contains the controls for the content of the multileader style.

• Multileader type: You can choose from Mtext, Block, or None.

Here are the options associated with the Mtext type Multileader:

• Default text: this text will be inserted in to the leader by default. You can always change it.
• Text Angle: Always right reading, As Inserted, or Keep Horizontal.
• Style, Color, Height: set the text style, color and height.
• Always Left Justify: well, check this box and your multileader text will always be left justified.
• Frame Text: Check this box and your text will have a frame around it.
• Leader Conection – Left Attachement: if your text is on the left, then this setting tells AutoCAD where to place the landing, center, top, bottom, etc.
• Leader Connection-Right Attachement: same as above, but when on the right.
• Landing Gap: the gap between the landing and the text.

Here are the options if BLOCK is set for the multileader type:

• Source Block: choose form several premade blocks, or create your own.
• Attachment: sets how the block will be attached to the leader.
• Color: set the color

Most of these settings are obvious and are easily figured out. Some might be a little tricky. Just set these the way you want them and save the style.

Happy CADDING.