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#5249 by jddarr66
Tue Aug 16, 2005 6:54 pm
I am curious to know if there is a way certain settings such as input mode, snap aperture and big cursor to be user related and not drawing related?? If there isn't there should be. Not everyone likes to use the aperture or the big cursor mode or direction / distance input mode and I'm hearing whining from people. :roll:

Because it appears these settings are native to the drawing, when I save the file, those settings are evoked. Since I am a minority with using these functions, I've been told I cannot use them. Most CAD programs (at least the major ones) leave these settings to be defined by each user as part of the GUI.

Please tell me there is a magic button I do not know about that does not save these settings as part of the drawing OR that future versions of datacad will correct this mistake.

Thanks,
David Darr
#5250 by Nick Pyner
Tue Aug 16, 2005 8:04 pm
The big cursor can be changed by hitting the + key at the far right.
The input mode can be set in your ini file and is thus not drawing dependent. Keyboard macros are not drawing dependant either. I'm sure a single keyboard macro could be written to call the various setting you want to make, and if they are toggles, the same macro could be invoked to revert the settings when the file is exported.
#5256 by Steve Scott
Tue Aug 16, 2005 9:13 pm
No, unfortunately, these settings are drawing specific, not user
specific. There was a big discussion about this on the DBUG
forum quite a while back, and if I remember correctly, most
users seemed to want something like this.

I'd be up for having all these settings be user specific and saved
in program preferences or something like this. Nick noted that
a few of these can be coded into the ini file, but the vast majority
are toggles. Keyboard macros are useless for toggles, because
they are not absolute settings, which is what is needed. There's
no way to know whether something is on or off before reversing
(or not reversing) it.

When working with others, there's nothing more frustrating than
having to hunt for settings that might be messing you up. And,
there are so many of them, some of them go unnoticed.

Input mode, aperture, grids, snaps, big/small cursor, drawing
marks, walls on/off, ortho, free zoom, curve center, dynamic,
object snaps, scroll distance, printer/plotter default selections,
"and copy", and layer order are all personal settings that I know
are at variance with at least one other co-worker or file types
created by another co-worker in my office. What's needed is the
ability to set all of these at the same time with one keystroke or
built-in setting, or something.

DataCAD had some "network friendly" upgrades a few updates
back. This would fit right in with that concept. I'm all for it.
#5257 by joshhuggins
Wed Aug 17, 2005 12:41 am
Here's a link to another thread where I listed how we set most of our user settings via one toolbar button.
#5277 by Steve Scott
Wed Aug 17, 2005 12:58 pm
Josh,
Okay, I see it is possible to do many of those things, but
part of my wish it the ability to do it without resorting to
custom features using programming-level language. When
custom toolbars advanced in v11, I took the initiative to learn
how to create custom toolbars and icons, created the ones I
always wished for, and moved on. Now, I've forgotten all
about how to do those things. Your use of extended characters
in your toolbar file is also a non-typical thing for me. I wouldn't
have the slightest clue how to create those characters, let alone
know that they're the ones that are needed. Is there a list of
those somewhere?

The ability to control something as universal as personal settings
should be available to the common user with simple settings,
such as a dialog box. Thanks for the link, and maybe I'll need
to referrence it the next time I'm on a team with a personal
settings fringe wacko activist, but maybe DataCAD will address
it before then. :)
#5278 by joshhuggins
Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:35 pm
Your right twice. One does forget how to do these things after a while of not messing with them, and there is a list for the extended characters. It does take a bit of time, but like shown below my code I have it broke up so you can see whats set, so some one can take one line at a time, edit it and make their own. But... once you get the general idea of how they work, creating custom toolbars are worth taking the time to play with them when you can.

It would be nice to have a save settings button in the program prefs, to save all of these settings to a file, and then one could reload them at any time. Then we could have a toolbar code just to load those text files, so we can load the prefs via the toolbar, and not have to go into the program prefs. You gettin' all this Dave :wink: :?:

Extended Character Codes
Function Numbers
#5288 by David A. Giesselman
Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:09 pm
Yes go ahead, I'm listening. :wink:
#5290 by joshhuggins
Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:23 pm
David A. Giesselman wrote:Yes go ahead, I'm listening. :wink:


The man is everywhere :!:
#5361 by Miguel Palaoro
Fri Aug 19, 2005 8:54 am
Hello Dave,

Would have a (even remote) possibility to have a handy engine to personalize toolbars ?

The 'context toolbar' is great! I'd like to have it improved much more. But for that it requires to remove the 'programming alike' steps on the toolbar creation. It scares the middle user.

Considering that the built-in command numbers and the extended character codes are powerful mechanisms to interact with DataCAD, and that they can be put together with simple text files (toolbars .dtb), what about to build a dialog that would automatically codify the user choices.

I am checking out MS Word's "Personalize" feature and understand this is a way to think about it.

Do you believe it is possible ?

Or perhaps you could try to unify the sintax for all internal and extended character codes, making easier to understand a tutorial for building it ?

Please, see my difficulties for teaching a routine to do it here: http://www.datacad.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=1498

Thanks,
Miguel
#5362 by RPadgett
Fri Aug 19, 2005 9:38 am
hmmm, I was thinking of more like an autoexec batch file that could be loaded up when you open a drawing. Similar to a default drawing file, but it might allow a way to create personalized settings.

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