Tips and tricks:
During the past couple of weeks I have been telling you how many problems there are in the AutoCAD 2000 program. I thought I would take a minute and mention some of the positive aspects of the program, and maybe show you a few new ways of doing things in A2k.
First, if you use Xrefs and blocks and also have the Express Tools (aka Bonus Tools) then you might want to try using the commands Bextend and Btrim. These work really nicely in both r14 and A2k. However, for those of you who have gotten used to working with the real-time pan, this command doesn't use it. It uses the older version of the pan command where you pick 2 points to determine the pan.
Second, when you do a pan in A2k (not r14) and you want to constrain the pan movement orthogonally, you can use the shift key while panning. Note that while this does work, I've found it to be unacceptably slow on most machines. If I need to do a constrained pan, I'll normally use the old version of the command. To use it you must type "-pan".
Next, if you do any sort of 3D work, especially with solids, take the time to familiarize yourself with the new solid editing commands. These are only available directly from the toolbar buttons and the pull down menu Modify > Solid Editing. These are not direct commands that you can access from the keyboard. Also, the typical way of pressing return or even the right mouse button context menu does not allow you to redo the last command. Instead you must go back to the button or pull down menu. The commands that it does add however can well be worth the hassle. These include extrude, move, offset, delete, rotate, taper, copy, and color faces, as well as copy and color edges. You can also now do a shell to a solid, check a solid for errors, separate elements for a larger solid, clean a solid and imprint. These are all subcommands of the SOLIDEDIT command, but going through the subcommand list may be more of a pain than it is worth. If you like you can create hotkeys in your LISP routine to do this for you. Remember though that you should start using the file ACAD2000DOC.LSP and not the ACAD.LSP that most people are used to.
During the past couple of weeks I have been telling you how many problems there are in the AutoCAD 2000 program. I thought I would take a minute and mention some of the positive aspects of the program, and maybe show you a few new ways of doing things in A2k.
First, if you use Xrefs and blocks and also have the Express Tools (aka Bonus Tools) then you might want to try using the commands Bextend and Btrim. These work really nicely in both r14 and A2k. However, for those of you who have gotten used to working with the real-time pan, this command doesn't use it. It uses the older version of the pan command where you pick 2 points to determine the pan.
Second, when you do a pan in A2k (not r14) and you want to constrain the pan movement orthogonally, you can use the shift key while panning. Note that while this does work, I've found it to be unacceptably slow on most machines. If I need to do a constrained pan, I'll normally use the old version of the command. To use it you must type "-pan".
Next, if you do any sort of 3D work, especially with solids, take the time to familiarize yourself with the new solid editing commands. These are only available directly from the toolbar buttons and the pull down menu Modify > Solid Editing. These are not direct commands that you can access from the keyboard. Also, the typical way of pressing return or even the right mouse button context menu does not allow you to redo the last command. Instead you must go back to the button or pull down menu. The commands that it does add however can well be worth the hassle. These include extrude, move, offset, delete, rotate, taper, copy, and color faces, as well as copy and color edges. You can also now do a shell to a solid, check a solid for errors, separate elements for a larger solid, clean a solid and imprint. These are all subcommands of the SOLIDEDIT command, but going through the subcommand list may be more of a pain than it is worth. If you like you can create hotkeys in your LISP routine to do this for you. Remember though that you should start using the file ACAD2000DOC.LSP and not the ACAD.LSP that most people are used to.
The copyright of the article The brighter side of A2k in AutoCAD Design is owned by . Permission to republish The brighter side of A2k in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
