forum.datacad.com

I think Multi-Layout is the best feature of Datacad. But my opinion is that it lacks few things, but always have room to improve.
1. Making Sheets accessible as you would access a GOTOVIEW (Eliminate those "Selection Sets" toggle
2. Making Sheets Zoomable and Pannable So I can view around my sheet. Pick a Detail and exit to edit.
3. Allowing "details" to be flexible in aligning with other "details" in Sheet layout and not everytime 'eyeballing' it
4. Making it a almost a seperate interface where placing GOTOVIEWs, Aligning and Zooming Panning will become a piece of cake....the sending the final layout to PLOT.

I know it is possible!!!!!

Hello Sinha,

1. What do you mean by "Eliminate those "Selection Sets"? I don't understand.
2. You got my vote for that one.
3. You can do this now by selecting Details - Make Current.
4. Chief Architect uses the method you suggest with a separate layout file, it works well and can be opened separately from the drawing file. With the judicious use of Snap Points, Insertion points and grid snapping DataCAD can be very accurate. I know its clumsy and circuitous, but, will have to do until something better comes along.

I mean who uses "Selection Sets" and whats its purpose. If I am in another GTV and need to call up a selection, does it attach to my cursor? Does D11 automatically pan my dwg to that selection....you see my point? What I am saying is instead of ALT+key toggling selection set...make D11 toggle with Sheets.
Man this sounds like an argument, but it is not.
I love using D11...and believe me I have never come across a software that is this flexible.
Zooming and Panning with scroll button is goin to be a really great achievement. Say?

Sinha,
re your #3: Allowing "details" to be flexible in aligning with other "details" in Sheet layout and not everytime 'eyeballing' it ..... you can line up details precisely if you use a smaller grid spacing... go to printplot/multilayout/layoutset... toggle gridmarks on, go to layoutdiv and set (example for 36X24 sheet) horiz divs to 72 and vertical to 48... this produces a dot every 1/2" on your sheet... then turn on snap2div and when selecting a gotoview hit insertpoint and you will be prompted to pick a point... then just line the details up on the grid!

There is no argument here. To those new to DataCAD, especially coming in at version 11, the use of Selection Sets may seem obtuse and not necessary. I would tend to agree that the usefulness of SelSets has dimished with Masking (which is the basic function of SelSets), Xrefs, and the Symbol Browser (symbols are so much easier to control and keep layering through the browser than through templates).

Prior to DataCAD 11, SelSets had many uses. The "Mask" was not availble as a regular method of selecting entities. Changing colors, linetypes, lineweights, fonts; moving or copying the same bunch of entities; and several other functions were easier using Selsets. There are some macros that require Selsets in their execution (but I can't recall which ones offhand). And prior to Xrefs, this was an easy method of "composing" odd angled buuildings. For example (I didn't feel like finding a drawing file):

Hello:

Sinha wrote:3. Allowing "details" to be flexible in aligning with other "details" in Sheet layout and not everytime 'eyeballing' it

This one is already "in there" -- turn on Snap to Div(ision)s. You will need to add more divisions, and you will want to try out the Insertion Point option. You have 9 standard insertion points as well: upper left, upper center, upper right, center left, center, center right, lower left, lower center, lower right -- these are changed by hitting the arrows.