forum.datacad.com

[Neil Blanchard]

Hello,

The list of new MSP features in v12 is pretty impressive, and if you are not already using them, you should give 'em a try!

Select the MSP details by clicking on them, and then move them (helps especially if there a lot of details and/or if the names are too cryptic)

See the detail name what scale they are set for by hovering over them (the detail in question is shown with a heavy outline!)

Use Control-Right Click on each detail to:

*Rename
*Update (it to the current view)
*Make Curr(ent view -- this makes the detail act like a GTV, which can help in old drawings)
*Rotate
*Pen Table (each detail can have it own Pen Table; by scale or custom)

Pen Tables can be set up to change for different plot scales -- so the same color line can be plotted at different widths.

And the "biggie": Bind One sheet or Bind All MSP sheets to a new layer, which you can then export to DWG. The new layer gets named what the sheet is named, and each detail is made into a symbol; each of which has just the layers that are used in the detail, and any Clip Cube is duplicated as a Symbol Clip.

And don't forget about the "old" features in MSP: use custom insertion points (with or without the grid) to precisely align a row/column of details, and if you use self-references (or XRef's) you can overlay details on the plans or sections, and only have to add the new text, etc. You save having to draft something more than once -- and your drawings will be more accurate, because you are clipping out a piece of the overall building. This helps especially if the main drawings get changed -- the changes will show up in the detail, too!
_________________
Sincerely, Neil

http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/

[Daniel Kaczor]

In addition to Neil's tips, my frequently used feature are the arrow keys which let you attached the cursor to the corners or perimeter midpoints of the detail.
_________________
Daniel Kaczor
DataCAD user since the big Cadkey fire sale.

[Neil Blanchard]

Greetings,

An item of interest that comes up at DBUG meetings from time to time, is to use Control-Right Click to use the context menu for different items:

If you do this with a symbol, you get a menu with all sorts of tools to work with symbols; like open it in the Symbol Editor, or to toggle Fix Text, look at it in the o2c Viewer, apply a Symbol Clip cube or fence, open the symbol folder where it came from, or edit it's Text Attributes -- among many other things. Try 'em all out!

If you Control-Right Click on an XRef (or self-reference), you can get to an appropriate set of XRef tools; including opening the source file for the XRef, bind it to the drawing, or open a linked GTV.

If you Control-Right Click on text (ParaText or otherwise), you can toggle whether or not it "Obeys Clip Cubes", or resize ParaText -- and other useful things. Poke around and try stuff out.

If you Control-Right Click on lines or polygons, etc. you can change the layer they are on, their color, linetype, Pen Style, etc.

Save your drawing *twice* before trying anything (Control-S is great for this), so that both the AEC and the DBK files are up to the moment.
_________________
Sincerely, Neil

http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/

[Neil Blanchard]

I have found that using ParaText for all "normal" text to be very helpful, and I would encourage you all to at least try it. It especially pays dividends when you have to change the size of the text; because it also correctly changes the line spacing AND you can easily resize the whole note to fit after you resize it.

I set the margins to 0, and I set the boundary to show as a non-printing color dotted line -- so I can see it on the screen, but it won't print. You can also just set it to not print, even if it's a normal color -- it's your choice on what makes the most sense to you. This will let you snap to and align text more easily, and it helps a lot in resizing, too I think.

If you use Control-Enter to close the dialog box, that makes it easier.
_________________
Sincerely, Neil

http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/

[Neil Blanchard]

If you receive a file that has floor plans that are *not* stacked; and worse yet, all the plans use the same set of layers -- how can you get them stacked, and have all the entities in each be on different sets of layers, so you can then use GTV's?

Here's what I came up with:

1) Make all but one of the plans into a symbol (and use an insertion point that can be snapped to on every floor), and then place the symbol on top of the base plan.

2) Open the symbol(s) in the Symbol Editor, and then open the Layer Manager -- and rename each layer by adding a prefix appropriate for that floor.

a) Highlight the first layer, and hit Enter to edit the name
b) Hit the Home key to move the cursor to the beginning of the line
c) Type in the prefix
d) Highlight the prefix and hit Control-C to copy it to the Clipboard
e) Hit *Tab* to enter that name, and open the next layer's name for editing. (We have Clay Rodgers to thank for this!)
f) Hit Home key, then Control-V to paste in the prefix, then hit the Tab key -- and repeat this step until you are done with all the layer names.

3) Save and exit the Symbol Editor, and then Explode the symbol.

4) Turn on the layers in groups, and save GTV's for each floor.
_________________
Sincerely, Neil

http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/

[Roger D]