LT Unlimited

Customize Ribbon Panel Dialog Box Launcher

Ahh, vacation. It was nice while it lasted, but now Monday's here again and it's time to get back to work. Fortunately, I have a very fun tip to get things kick-started again.

On the LT 2010 ribbon, you may have noticed that some panels have a small arrow in the lower right-hand corner of their title bar.

This is the Panel Dialog Box Launcher, and its purpose is to...wait for it...launch dialog boxes. (Don't you love it when names make sense?) On this panel, it launches the Dimension Style Manager. Other panels launch the External References manager, or the Text Style manager...whatever makes sense for that panel.

However, not all panels have a dialog box attached by default. And maybe you'd rather change some of the built-in associations. With the CUI Editor, you can easily attach any command you'd like to a panel's dialog box launcher.

To do this, navigate to the panel's node in the CUI Editor. First, let's look at the Dimensions panel, which we saw above already has a command associated with the dialog box launcher.
If I wanted to change the associated command, I could just drag-and-drop a new command from the command list onto the launcher item. Instead, though, let's go to the Layers panel, which by default doesn't have a dialog box launcher.

Here's what it looks like on-screen:

And in the CUI:

Notice there's no associated command under "Advanced" on the right-hand side. Let's fix that. I'm just going to drag-and-drop the Layer Properties Manager from the command list onto the Panel Dialog Box Launcher.

Then the "Advanced" section is no longer blank...

...and after I say OK, the panel now shows the arrow to launch the Layer Properties Manager.

If you change your mind, you can delete your custom launch command by going back to the panel node in the CUI editor, right-clicking on the Dialog Box Launcher, and selecting "Remove Command".

Set By Layer

An overlooked command from AutoCAD LT 2008 is Set By Layer. In LT 2010, you'll find it on the Modify panel of the home tab.

It does just what you think it might -- changes the color, linetype, and lineweight of all selected objects to ByLayer (from whatver it was).

It's a great command, because it makes changing object properties quick and easy -- and once everything's back to ByLayer, you can change the layer color and know that all objects will update.

Even better, it works on blocks too, so that all the objects in the block reflect the layer properties.

There's also a settings option so that you can choose which object properties are modified by Set By Layer.

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This tip will have to last you for a little while -- Autodesk is going on vacation next week, so by extension the blog will be on vacation too. Feel free to come by and browse the archives other good tips, but new content won't return until July 6th. Happy 4th of July to my US readers!

More keyboard shortcuts

Wednesday's post with keyboard shortcuts for quickly deleting words prompted a whole slew of comments with other favorite key combinations for text editing. Some of them I knew about while others I didn't, so I thought I'd share some of them with you.

• Alt+Backspace: undo all of your latest Ctrl+Delete or Ctrl+Backspace
• Ctrl+Shift+U: changes selected text to uppercase (AutoCAD only)
• Ctrl+Shift+L: changes selected text to lowercase (AutoCAD only)
• Ctrl+Spacebar: removes font formatting -- bold, underline, etc. (AutoCAD only)

Thanks to Murray, Kevin, Chris, and Mark for the comments -- keep those tips & tricks coming!

Quickly delete entire words

I'm a big fan of keyboard shortcuts. And not only in AutoCAD LT, but in any program where I can use them. I especially like shortcuts in word processing programs, where both hands are on the keyboard the majority of the time anyway.

Sometimes I get to the end of typing a word or phrase and realize that it wasn't really what I meant to say after all. So to quickly erase what I've written, I use the handy keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Backspace to remove entire words at once. It's faster and more precise than backspacing one character at a time, since you don't have to guess about when to let up on the key. It also doesn't require me to take my hands off the keyboard, so I can get back to writing right away.

The companion to Ctrl+Backspace is Ctrl+Delete, which erases whole words to the right of the cursor instead.

My favorite thing about this tip is that it works in just about any program where you enter text -- Outlook, Word, Excel, Notepad, web browsers, and of course AutoCAD LT. (I've used it several times already composing this post in Firefox.)

What do you think? Do you have any other favorite universal keyboard shortcuts?

Fade Objects: Locked Layers

Today I'm kicking off a mini-series of tips on fading objects. There are a bunch of different fade options for different object types, and I'm going to start with layers.

Okay, so a layer isn't an object type. But you can fade entire layers all at once, so it's not too much of a stretch.

Beginning in LT 2008, locked layers started to be faded, to make it easier to identify that they were out of play. The amount of fading is controlled by the system variable LAYLOCKFADECTL. The initial value is 50, but you can set it to anything between 0 (no fading) and 90 (maximum fading). There's an upper limit on the fade value to prevent confusion between locked layers and layers that are frozen or off.

The Layer Isolate behavior changed too, so that non-isolated layers were locked and faded instead of being turned off. If you want it to work the old way, you can use the Settings option of LAYISO (enter S before selecting objects) to switch between the isolation types.

Tune in next time for tips on fading underlays and images.

Export to Different File Formats

A question I see a lot on the Autodesk Discussion Groups is, "How do I export my drawing to a PDF?"

Until now, the answer was, "You don't -- you PLOT to a PDF."

But in AutoCAD LT 2010, you CAN export your drawing to a whole bunch of formats -- images, DGN, DWF, DWFX, and yes, PDF.

The last three options can be found on the Export panel of the Output tab.

(The rest are in the Application menu under Export.)

Exporting and Plotting are a lot alike -- you can pick an area to export, a page setup (including plot style, paper size, orientation, scale, etc.) and a location.

The end result is the same as plotting, too -- there's no difference between a plotted PDF/DWF and an exported one.

In the end, it'll probably come down to personal preference as to which one you use, but now you do get to choose!

Another way to Explode

Yeah, yeah, exploding stuff in AutoCAD LT is usually bad...but occasionally it's necessary. Sometimes, all you need is to separate the object into its component parts, in which case the regular EXPLODE command (Home tab, Modify panel) works just fine.

But if you want more control over the properties of the resulting exploded objects, you may want to use XPLODE (command line only) instead.

XPLODE is very similar to EXPLODE, except that it offers you extra prompts before breaking the objects apart.

If you pick multiple objects to XPLODE, you're asked if you want to control the properties individually or globally (in this case "globally" means the current selection set, not the entire drawing).

Whichever you choose, you're then presented with another string of options:

[All/Color/LAyer/LType/LWeight/Inherit from parent block/Explode]

• "All" means that you are subsequently prompted for color, layer, linetype, and lineweight automatically, instead of having to choose just one property to change.
• "Color" enables you to choose a new color for the resulting exploded objects.
• Same thing for "Layer", "LType", and "LWeight".
• "Inherit" is for blocks whose components originally were drawn on layer 0 with color, linetype, and lineweight set to BYBLOCK. In this case, XPLODE with Inherit gives the block objects the layer and properties of the block insertion, instead of reverting to layer 0 and BYBLOCK.
• Finally, "Explode" does just what the regular EXPLODE command does -- breaks the object apart without changing any properties.

As with all exploding-type commands, I recommend that you use XPLODE with care, but keep it in your arsenal for those times when it's truly necessary.

Customize the Quick Access Toolbar

 

The Quick Access toolbar was introduced in LT 2009 as another way of putting the commands you need where you need them.

Adding commands to the QAT in LT 2009 was pretty easy -- right-click on the toolbar, choose Customize, and drag-and-drop the commands you need from the list that appears. Getting them off the toolbar, though, was a little more difficult. You had to go through the full-blown CUI editor -- not necessarily ideal, especially if you just grabbed the wrong command by mistake. (For more on the QAT in LT 2009, check out this post.)

In LT 2010, the Quick Access toolbar has grown up a lot, with several new ways to add and remove commands quickly and easily.

First up, there's a new flyout menu at the end of the toolbar containing several popular commands. Just check or un-check the tools you want to display or hide.

The second way to add a command is probably my favorite: just right-click on a ribbon icon and choose "Add to Quck Access Toolbar".

Finally, you can right-click on the QAT itself and choose "Customize Quick Access Toolbar", which brings up the same command list you saw in LT 2009.

 

Notice the other options in this menu as well. The first one provides an easy way to take a tool off the QAT -- no more going through the CUI editor.

The second option enables you to add a separator between icons, to help you organize your tools.

Lastly, you can use the final option to move the QAT below the ribbon, in case you like it better there.

Align objects in AutoCAD LT 2010

Another long-awaited addition to AutoCAD LT is the Align command. Familiar to AutoCAD users, ALIGN enables you to move, rotate, and scale objects to line them up with other objects.

It's currently available only at the command line, but you can always make a button for it to put it on a CUI element like a ribbon panel or toolbar.

ALIGN is based on the relationship between source points and destination points. Each pair defines part of the relationship, and how many pairs you pick defines the rest of the relationship.

For example, here's what happens when you pick one source point, one destination point, and press Enter.


Looks just like the Move command, and it's about as exciting. But watch what happens when you pick two pairs, and then press Enter:


Now, the selected object not only moves, but also rotates and scales based on the angles and distances of the pairs of points. (You don't have to scale the objects if you don't want to -- it's an option that appears after pressing Enter.)

You can also align objects based on three pairs of points. It's mostly useful for 3D work, so it happens more in AutoCAD than AutoCAD LT. But just for fun, here's what it looks like:

DWT files incompatible with earlier versions

If you use a DWT template file to start your drawings, you may have noticed that they only come in one "version". In other words, now that the file format has changed, you can't use LT 2010 to create a template file that's compatible with earlier versions.

If everyone in your office is on the same version, you won't have any problems, but in a mixed environment some people may need older file formats.

In that case, simply save your template as a DWG file in your desired file format (2007, 2004, etc.), find it in Windows Explorer, and change the extension to DWT. You must have "Hide extensions for known file types" unchecked in the Folder Options for this to work.

(If you don't use templates yet, I highly advise looking into them...they're an easy way to start a new drawing containing standard layers, annotation styles, etc. without risking overwriting the original template file.)