The Mad Cadder

Do Not Be Scared of Change - AutoCAD 2009 Is Here!

DO NOT PANIC! AutoCAD 2009 should not scare you, it should peak your interest instead. The purpose of this rant is not to talk about new features or how cool the new "ribbon" is. My goal is to open the eyes of the CAD user / operator / technician / manager to change.

Change is hard for many people. But change is a good and necessary thing that is required in the software world for many reasons. The main reason is that user requirements are changing daily which forces programmers to add or enhance features on a yearly release. Remember the old days when the next release of AutoCAD was not slated for three years. CAD manager's loved this because they could spend two years making sure the old LISP routines worked on the latest version.

I know a lot of CAD users are becoming annoyed at the yearly release of AutoCAD and the rest of the Autodesk products and they may feel that this is a ploy created by the manufacturer to create yearly profits. The users may be right but look at the larger picture. The wants of the users are needed today, not three years from now.

Autodesk is not forcing you to use the latest release. In the end, it is the users decision to make the change. But a word of warning.......if you miss too many releases, you will be too far behind the ball and you will not understand why changes are made and where new features can be used.

My advice for CAD Managers and end users......purchase your yearly maintenance fees, get the product every year but only load every three years unless there is a new feature that is necessary to your business.

Sure, you could call me biased because I work for a Autodesk Reseller but I came from industry. I understand the pains of new releases and the unwillingness to work on them by CAD users because they love Release 14. The advantage I now have by being on the other side of the fence is that I have the time to review new features and changes and I do not recommend the new versions to all my clients. The trick is to finding a reseller that has your best interests in mind. The reseller should never push you in a direct that is not needed for your company but they should offer many suggestions that you can choose from.

In the end, AutoCAD 2020 is around the bend and if you are still on Release 14 when it comes, you might as well start from scratch. The new look and features of each release are necessary but if you keep an open mind you may enjoy finding out what is new.

P.S. Either throw out the digitizer or retire, you have two choices.

Where is the ACAD.PGP file?

Many CAD users change the aliases of common commands in the ACAD.PGP file. The location of this file has been moved around over the years and finding it has always been a problem.

The quickest way to access the PGP file is within AutoCAD.

1. Tools pull-down menu
2. Customize
3. Edit Program Parameters (acad.pgp)

This will open the file within Notepad. All you have to do is make modification to the command aliases.

For example, many people change the COPY alias from CO to just C.

Note:
1. You cannot have two alias with the same letters. For example, you cannot use C for the COPY and for    the CIRCLE commands.
2. Any changes made to the PGP file will only take affect aftere restarting AutoCAD.

The Old Zoom

Many users of AutoCAD 2006 and 2007 do not like the new dynamic zoom effect in the application. When using the zoom window or zoom extents command, the drawing area zooms in or out very smoothly. It almost looks like a guided missile going in for the kill. If you do not like this new zoom look, there is a system variable that controls this "VTENABLE".

The VTENABLE system variable is set to 3 by default. Setting this to 0 will have the zoom command act as it did in past releases.

Lock the display of a Viewport Part II

There is another way to lock the display of the viewport:

1. Select the viewport.

2. Right-click, choose Display Lock --> Yes

I would like to thank Donna Stelzer for this tip.

Lock the display of a Viewport

One of my biggest pet peeves is an AutoCAD operator that does not lock the display of a viewport in Layout (paperspace). It is very annoying when another user double-clicks the middle of a viewport to make a change in model space but zooms and changes the scale.

To prevent a user from changing the scale of a viewport use the Display Lock option in the Properties of the Viewport:

1. Select the viewport.
2. Open the Properties.
3. Scroll down to find Display Lock (default is NO)
4. Change the NO to YES.

Now, if you were to double-click inside the viewport and zoom, you are still zooming the paperspace, not the model space. This prevents a user from messing-up the scale.

Disable the Communication Center

WARNING! Changes made to the registry may cause damage to your operating system. Perform the following task at your own risk.  This blog is not liable for any damage or corruption to your computer related to any article published.

Annoyed by a constantly resident satellite program called "Communication Center" (WSCommCntr1.exe)? If you want to prevent it from running, here is what you do:

1. Start button-->Run--> regedit.exe

2. Search for the following location: HKEY_LOAL_MACHINE-->SOFTWARE-->AUTODESK-->R16.1-->ACAD-301:409-->CADMANAGER CONTROL-->COMMUNICATION CENTER

3. Right-click on "EnableCommunicationCenter" and choose modify.

4. Change the value data from 1 to 0 (zero).

5. Perform step #4 on the following as well: "EnableNonPatchNotifications" and "MaintenancePatchNotificationOption"'

That's it! Restart your computer and voila, WSCommCntr1.exe is not running.

I would like to thank John Deer for this posting.

Double-clicking MTEXT or DTEXT not working

Since the release of AutoCAD 2002, double-clicking either MTEXT or DTEXT would automatically open the text editor. This elevated the old "DDEDIT" or "ED" command to edit text.

Sometimes, this option stops working. If this does occur, check the system variable DBLCLKEDIT. This should be set to ON.

Combine Zoom and Pan as one for Undo/Redo

UNDO/REDO are very powerful commands, until it comes to zoom and pan. Do I really want to undo/redo every little zoom or pan? NO!

In previous versions of AutoCAD, ADT, or ABS, the UNDO/REDO command applied to each instance of zoom or pan. In a typical drawing a user zooms or pans around hundreds of times, there is no easy way of undoing or redoing a string of consecutive zooms or pans.

Now in AutoCAD, ADT and ABS 2006 the ZOOM and PAN command can be combined into one UNDO/REDO. You can use the new "Combine zoom and pan commands" which is located in OPTIONS. This will combine consecutive zoom and pan operation into one, so you can UNDO/REDO in one step.

Go to TOOLS-->OPTIONS-->User Preference Tab, then select the "Combine zoom and pan commands" under the Undo/Redo section.

Find drawings using MS XP Search

In a typical CAD environment, you might create or accumulate thousands of drawing files. Searching for a specific drawing within a CAD users enormous library of files can be a very daunting task. Without a well planned filing system or naming convention, it can be difficult to locate a drawing created in the past. The most commonly used tool to locate a drawing file is the "Search" that is found within the operating system, like MS Windows XP.

This tool has been used for years to locate files by name, but what if you forget the name? What do you do then? With the release of AutoCAD 2006, you can now use Windows Explorer to search within drawing files for specific text or phrases.

In the Windows Explorer application (My Computer), click on the SEARCH button on the top menu. Place the text or phrase within the "A word or phrase in the file" field. Windows will search within all DWG and DXF files for the text or phrase you specify.

Controlling the grips to stretch centered MTEXT

The beauty of MTEXT is that you can manually adjust the text width by grabbing a grip and resizing (stretching) the text. This can still be done in AutoCAD 2006, but when the text has a justification of CENTER, the resizing also moves the center origin of the entire MTEXT.

To re-size the MTEXT when center justified, AutoCAD expects the user to use the Ruler in the In-Place Text Editor. Therefore a user must double-click the text, adjust the ruler and exit the editor. This is way too many steps for me!

Therefore, to revert the MTEXT grip stretching back to the way in was in the past you must change the value of a system variable. This new variable can only be found in AutoCAD 2006, it is called CENTERMT which is set to 0 by default. This system variable controls  how grips stretch  multi-line text  (MTEXT) that has a centered justification.

0 -  When stretching the MTEXT with grips, the center grips also moves in the same direction.

1 - When stretching the MTEXT with grips, the center grip stays in place while the text is re-sized.