LT Unlimited

Tool Palettes and Object Snaps

I ran across an interesting issue in the Autodesk Discussion Forums, and thought I’d re-post it here in case someone else had the same trouble.

The poster was confused as to why blocks inserted from a tool palette didn’t seem to obey object snaps during placement, despite the fact that they were active.

A little detective work uncovered that the methodology was to blame—if you click-and-drag a blog from a palette into a drawing, object snaps get a little twitchy. (Is that enough of a technical term?)

However, if you click-and-release on a block, then you can place it with object snaps just like in any other insert or modification command.

The poster complained of this issue in 2011 and 2012, but it seems to be better in 2013. All the same, I recommend single-clicking over click-and-drag from tool palettes.

Redefine a Block Insertion

Ever put some blocks in a drawing, either from a tool palette or DesignCenter, only to discover later that the source file has been changed? Fortunately, the two tools that made inserting the block easy in the first place can also help you redefine it.

All you need to do is navigate to the source file in DesignCenter or find the block on the tool palette, and right-click on the block.

In DesignCenter, your options are insert, insert & redefine, or redefine.

On a tool palette, you just have “redefine.”

Note that any “redefine” option is only available if the block already exists in that drawing. If it doesn’t, the redefine options will be grayed out.

By the way, I found the inspiration for this tip while browsing the latest edition of Michael's Corner over at CADTutor.net -- both excellent resources for all things AutoCAD.

Customize Flyout Options in Tool Palettes

I picked up this handy tip from Matt Murphy at yesterday’s AUGI CAD Camp Orlando. If you haven’t seen his class on the power of Tool Palettes, I highly recommend looking it up in the AU Online archives. There’s lots of good stuff in there, including this neat feature.

You can quickly and easily populate tool palettes by dragging objects onto them straight from your drawing. Some, like blocks and hatches, become simple one-click tools that replicate the original object. But others, like dimensions, lines, and circles, become multi-function tools with a flyout.

By default, these flyouts contain a whole bunch of commands related to the main item, some of which you may or may not use regularly.

But if you right-click on the tool and choose Properties, you can pick which options appear in the flyout.

You have to click on the “Flyout options” line in order to see and click on that little three-dot button at the end, but when you do, you get a list of available “shapes.”

I’ll uncheck Jogged Dimension, Ordinate Dimension, Baseline Dimension, Quick Leader, and Tolerance, an click OK twice to get back to the tool palette.

Now, when I click on the flyout arrow in the palette, I get a shorter list of options.

 

Pretty cool, huh? See what neat things you can learn at CAD Camps? :-) They’re on a summer hiatus now, but check out the CAD Camp site to see when there might be one near you this fall.