The H-Factor

For those of you still using digitizers (and it may only be one of you and you know who you are), you may have found that there are no default tablet commands with V45. We do, however, ship a separate tablet menu that you can transfer into the main HydraCAD menu so you can merrily pick your tablet commands:

1. Type in CUI and Enter. Wait
2. Pick the Transfer tab
3. On the right, pick Open where it now says New CUI File
4. Navigate to H40\Prog\Cad2007 and select the TABLET.CUI file and pick Open
5. On the Left pick the + next to Legacy
6. On the right pick the + next to Legacy and the + next to Tablet Menus and notice
there are four tablet menus. Select each one and drag it to the left
pane and let go on Tablet Menus there on the left.
7. Pick Apply and OK and they should work immediately

In AutoCAD 2008 some of you might have noticed that you do not get a Startup dialog box and there is no longer a setting for it in the Options. Great, huh?

In their wisdom, AutoCAD removed that ‘feature’ and now we are relegated to typing it at the command prompt, so type in STARTUP and set it to 1 and all will be as it should

Sometimes after you AutoList you might find that your listing tags look rather underfed. The main reason for this is that the Style BOLD has been redefined (or was defined differently in the first place). The solution is to define BOLD using the STYLE command, make it look like below and pick Apply:

A common complaint from users of the newer versions of AutoCAD is that hitting the Up and Down arrows now show coordinates instead of the last distance typed in. If this bugs you as much as it does me, try this:

Type in INPUTHISTORYMODE and Enter 0 – You will now be able to recall those distances you typed in.

Other values of INPUTHISTORYMODE:

0 – No history of recent input is displayed.

1 – History of recent input is displayed at the command line or
in a dynamic prompt tooltip. Access with the Up Arrow and Down Arrow keys at the
command prompt, or at an input prompt.

2 – History of recent input for the current command is displayed in the shortcut menu under Recent
Input.

4 -History of recent input for all commands
in the current session is displayed in the shortcut menu under Recent Input.Note that like many AutoCAD variables, this one is bitwise which means
add up the numbers of the features you want and use that value.

8 -Markers for recent input of point locations are displayed.
Use the arrow keys on the command line at a prompt for specifying a point
location.

Like many AutoCAD variables, INPUTHISTORYMODE is bitwise, which means add up the options you like and type that value in. 15 is the AutoCAD default (1+2+4+8)

Yep – It’s that time of the year again…

AutoCAD 2008 was released on March 23rd, but not with very much fanfare, in my opinion. The drawing format is the same as 2007 as are most of the commands so this should be an easy transition for all. Especially us, since V45 has been expanded to cover 2008 – we don’t need to ship CDs to everyone.

Our update is now on the company website. You will need to have V45 already installed on your computer to use the V45.03 update. If you plan to run 2008 along with 2006 or earlier, you will need to also download the HydraCAD update for V43 or V44.

New features in 2008?

Five of note:

Annotation Scaling

AutoCAD 2008 software introduces the concept of
annotation scale as an object property. Designers can set the current scale of a
viewport or model space view, and then apply that scale to each object and
specify its size, placement, and appearance based on the scale set for the
viewport. In other words, annotation scale is now automated.

Layers per
Viewport

In AutoCAD 2008 the layer manager has been enhanced to allow
users to specify color, line weight, linetype, or plot style as an override for
an individual viewport. These overrides can be easily turned on or off as
viewports are added or removed.

Enhanced Tables

Enhanced tables
now give users the option to combine AutoCAD and Excel tabular information into
a single AutoCAD table. This table can be dynamically linked so that
notifications appear in both AutoCAD and Excel as data is updated. Users can
then select these notifications, allowing instant updating of information in
either source document.

Text & Table Enhancements

The enhanced
MTEXT editor now provides the ability to specify the number of columns required
and flows new text between those columns as users make edits. The space set
between each column of text and the edge of the paper is also customizable. All
of these variables can be adjusted to specific values in the dialog box, or
adjusted interactively using the new multicolumn text grips.

Multiple
Leaders

The new multiple leader panel on the dashboard has enhanced tools
that automate the creation of multiple leaders and the orientation of the
leaders (tail or content first) with the notes.

We get asked this occasionally. A user I talked to today had this idea:

1. Open the drawing in AutoCAD 2006 or later
2. Save As a 2004 dxf
3. Start from scratch and Insert the dxf. Save the drawing
4. Start a new drawing using template and insert the scratch drawing

Thanks Brian from Hampshire Fire!

PS – I any of you have solved this any other way, please post your solutions

SMaRTools is now available for pre-release downloading on our company website!

What is pre-release? That means we have not formally announced it via email newsletter. It should be stable, but just in case there is a problem we would rather a few dozen customers have it than a few thousand.

What is SMaRTools?  Click to find out!

Do you need it? Maybe, and Yes.The driving force has been GCs who require coordination in 3D (even in NavisWorks.) The bonus is that even if that is not a requirement, SMaRTools can help make HydraCAD faster and easier because it makes figuring of hanger lengths, riser nipple, drops and head elevations obsolete.

It will install a second shortcut on your desktop which will load you into SMaRT. If you want to do things the old way, use your original shortcut.

Do the tutorial first. Why? Because we won’t support you until you do 🙂