Repair Block Authoring Palette

Ever been a little hasty with the Delete key in AutoCAD LT? Sure you have. (We all have.) Normally a quick Ctrl+Z or the OOPS command will take care of you, but what if you've accidentally deleted something from the Block Authoring Palette?

It happened to Dave recently, so he turned to the Autodesk discussion forums for help.

(Yes, this post is also an ad for the discussion forums. They're fast, free, and peer-supported--with occasional input from Autodesk staff--so the responses you get are from the people using the product every day...just like you.)

Within a few hours, Dave had his answer from Charles, a frequent contributor to the forums.

"Right click a Parameter on that tab.
Copy / Paste back into the Tab.
Right-click what you just pasted.
Choose Properties.
Change the Type, Name, and Description as needed.
Click OK."

I'd never tried that, so of course I had to go check it out for myself.

Who knew parameters had editable properties?

Under "Type" you can choose any of the basic parameters, such as point, polar, XY, etc.

"Grips" and "Actions" apply more to parameter sets, which are combinations of parameters (like point) and actions (like move).

For example, the Linear Move parameter set suppresses one grip on the linear parameter and automatically applies a move action.

With this knowledge, you can not only repair a broken Block Authoring palette, but even create your own parameter sets for the parameter/action combinations you use most often.

Pretty cool!

Comments

[Dave]

It's worth mentioning another solution I found out of necessity, and that is to export the palette needed from another machine (in this case it was parameters.xtp) and then import it where it's needed.

In my case I replaced a 2012 parameters.xtp palette from a 2011 version with no issues.