The H-Factor

Never, never, never.

That is all

HydraCAD has had a couple of pretty useful commands on the Cleanup toolbar that many are not aware of:

1. Change Item Colors: If you have a need to differentiate piping as New or Existing , you can do it with this command. Run Pretty Pipes first, then pick the color or linetype you want and Apply it to various parts of the drawing. The pretty pipes, the sprinkler heads, hangers, pipe sizes, etc will all change to the color applied.

2. Select Plot Layers: This command is used to turn layers on and off for plotting. It is fully aware of which HydraCAD layers are meant to be turned off and which are meant to be turned on for a final plot. You can choose from Center-to-Center lengths or Cut lengths. You can even choose your own layer file based on one you have saved using the HcadTool->Layer Control->Save On/Off Status

SMaRTools will, by default, place Drop tags on all of your drop-style sprinkler heads. We have had feedback that people like this, but wish the text ere not so obtrusive. The good news is that you have complete control over what those tags look like, and you can even shut them off if you don’t want them.

Pick Ceiling Height from the Ceiling toolbar or Drops/Sprigs from the Sprinklers, Calculation or Listing toolbars. Pick Annotation Options. From here, you can choose to suppress the Drop tag entirely, or simply drop the ‘Drop’ prefix and/or ‘CC’ Suffix. I prefer to turn both of these off for drops, and the ‘CC’ off for Sprigs, if I have them

In HydraCAD V45 (AutoCAD 2007, 2008 and 2009) we switched to using AutoCAD’s version of Layer Isolate. Some users, however, don’t like the fact that this version fades and locks the layers chosen instead of turning them off. This, like most things, can be changed:

1. Pick HcadTools->Layer Control->Layer Isolate
   Note the command line says: Select objects on the layer(s) to be isolated or [Settings]:
2. Type in ‘S’ and press Enter
3. You now have two options. Enter ‘O’ for Off or ‘L’ for Lock and Fade

The AutoCAD Join party, that is. I confess I did not know this command existed until a customer in NC pointed it out last week. The JOIN command is found on the Modify toolbar between Break and Chamfer. It will join a line, polyline, arc, elliptical arc, spline, or helix. The first three are the most likely ones for us to use. It beats using the PEDIT command, that is certain.

Also – don’t forget the HydraCAD Join Pipes command on the Piping toolbar – Break in Block flyout. that command will join pipes together and size the new pipe.

The numbers menu and the tablet menu (digitizer) were intentionally removed in V45 due
to the lack of acceptance by customers and the nature of the new menu structure
provided by AutoCAD 2007 and newer. As we keep adding new features,
occasionally we need to remove some to keep the program from becoming too large
and unwieldy.  We are, however, still supplying those menus, but you will have to load them once
as follows:

Download the INPUT.CUI file and place it in your H40\PROG\CAD2007 folder

Type in CUI and press Enter.

Go to the Transfer tab and focus on the Right side of the
screen. Pick Open on the Right side.

In the CAD2007 folder you will see a menu named INPUT.CUI.
Select it and press Open.

Pick the + sign next to the Toolbars item. Pick on INPUT and
drag it to the Toolbars item on the Left

Pick OK

If you are interested in the TABLET menu, then open TABLET.CUI and expand the Legacy item and bring over Tablets 1 through 4 to the like items on the Left

Now you can right click on one of our buttons to pick the Input
menu and make it display

Some people don’t like seeing the commands written out near their crosshairs. Personally, I love it because I don’t have to look down at the command line. But….

To turn off the crosshair command prompt, right-click on the DYN (Dynamic Input) button and pick Settings. Then turn off the Show Command Prompting…

If you lose your command line entirely, hit CTRL+9 or click the Tools menu » Command Line.

To add your own Workspace –
Arrange the screen the way you want it (command line, scroll bars, ribbons,
whatever) and pick Save Current As: from the Workspace toolbar.

To make your Workspace load upon
opening a drawing – Pick Customize from the Workspace toolbar and then right
click on your preferred Workspace and pick Set Default.

To export your Workspace – Pick Customize
and pick the Transfer Tab. Then, drag your Workspace from the Main CUI File
window over to the New CUI folder. Drag over whatever else you want to save (Toolbars,
Menus, Ribbon Stuff, Cursor Menu, etc). Then pick the Save command from the New
CUI window to save your changes.

To import your Workspace
(especially after a HydraCAD update) – Pick Customize and pick the Transfer Tab.
Open your CUI from the New CUI window. Then, drag your Workspace from the New
CUI File window over to the New CUI folder. Drag over whatever else you want to
bring in (Toolbars, Menus, Ribbon Stuff, Cursor Menu, etc).