Who Has My Drawing Open?

It hasn't to me for years but it did yesterday. I tried to open a drawing but it was locked by another user, and I had no idea who it was.

I fell back on an AutoCAD command I haven't used for years and it still works great.

Type "whohas" on the command line, and browse to the file in question.

Click the Open button in the Select Drawing to Query dialog and Wa-Shaw!

It was Spellerberg all along! SPELLERBERG!!!!!!!

Date Field that Updates

 I am working on a file, and I want a date stamp on it, not a plot stamp. Plot stamps do a great job of displaying when a drawing was last plotted. For this project I want to see the date stamp update like a normal field. On Open, Save, Plot, eTransmit, and Regen for sure.

Turns out that Date fields do not update the way all other fields do.

To side step the issue, I used a bit of Diesel code "$(editime,0,MON DD","YYYY -H:MMam/pm)"

The difference is that when I Regen, the Diesel field updates. Thanks ancient CAD technology!

Display Driver Missing or Corrupted and Hardware Acceleration

I had quite an issue on a machine that I had installed AutoCAD 2014 on multiple times, but every time I tried to fire it up I would get this "Display driver file is missing or corrupted" error. Then AutoCAD would crash.

I copy pasted drivers and files from a working machine but nothing. Then I thought, "I have been having issues with hardware acceleration".

I added this switch "/nohardware" to the start up icon, and wa-shaw! no worries.

I am looking into which drivers, video cards, and yadda, yadda, but at least now we can fire up this machine and draft things.

Back to business people.

What are you Hiding?

Every users hits a point when AutoCAD displays a dialog box alerting you to something and you see the check box that says something to the effect of "Don't ask me again" and that box gets checked.

Many people have enjoyed the not being bugged afterward, but occasionally there is regret.

Here is how to erase that regret.

Go to the Systems tab of the Options dialog, and click the "Hidden Messages Settings" button.

This will open the expected dialog revealing everything you have chosen to hide. More importantly, you can choose to see the regretted dialog boxes of your choice, by checking the boxes next to them.

Oh Snap!

Today I got asked why every time a user pressed F3 the Osnap settings dialog appeared instead of the Osnaps toggling on and off. Clicking the osnap icon at the bottom of the drawing window produced the same result. The answer was revealed when I looked at the settings dialog.

No snaps were selected, so AutoCAD figured if you want to toggle on the snaps, you might want it to mean something by selecting a snap. Selecting any snap, returned the toggling tools back to normal.

I am naming this phenomena the Dan Maneuver, in honor of Dan's perplexing question. 

AutoCAD, when did you get smarter than us?

Who do you trust?

After installing AutoCAD 2014, you may have an issue with some routines that worked fine in the past. In my case it came down a lisp that gets called from outside of my normal environment. You may already know that the addition of Trusted Locations, is an effort to increase the security of AutoCAD. It limits the use of lisps, executables, and the such to only the ones found in trusted locations specified in Options on the Files Tab. The "Trustedpaths" system variable can be used to command line the trusted locations.

Now that we have the ability, I had to track down the location of these files so I can add them to the list of Trusted Locations. After a bit, I got tired of looking because.... I'm Lazy duh. So instead I hopped over to the System tab. there you will find an "Executable File Settings" button. Click that, and choose the top selection, which just like it says, will load from all locations without displaying a warning. You can accomplish the same thing with the "Secureload" system variable, setting it to 0,1, or 2. those number equate top to bottom of the choices in the dialog.

There is also a "trusteddomains" system variable out there to add trusted sited to download from.

Limiting Layers

Layers are awesome. 

They are the key to everything visibility in AutoCAD. 

Because of that, people generally feel that for maximum control, you need maximum layers. Compound that with the fact that a drawing rarely stands alone. In fact most drawings have other drawings with maximum layers in them being referenced in. The result... (infinity)x(infinity) layers.

Well, not infinity, but in the example below, the user needs to navigate 233.

By selecting "Xref" in the left panel, then checking the "Invert filter" box, the user only has to navigate the 98 layers that are actually in the drawing being used. That helps!

Properties, Properties, Properties

If you are old enough to remember when AutoCAD didn't have a Properties, window, pallet, dialog, or anything... when a properties anything pops up on your screen you more than likely go full on grumpy geezer.

Well, here are the most common ways a properties something injects itself into your workflow grandpa. 

First if you see this....

Try setting your Rollovertips = 0

If you see this....

That is Quick Properties. Click the button circled in red in the image to turn it off.

If you see this one...

Selection Cycling is turned on. Turn it off by clicking the circled icon in the image above.

tSpaceInvaders

Every once in a while I come across a crazy command or in this a case a command with a crazy name. So back in the 1980 there was a great video game called Space Invaders. Oddly enough there is an AutoCAD command (Express Tools) called tspaceinvaders.

The command will ask you to select objects then show you every where a text object has an object on top of it invading its space. it will allow you to step through each instance and fix them along the way. It a classic game and a classic problem.

Who knew there was also a command to handle it.

Revit Window Tile for AutoCAD

When you have been drafting a while, your hands just start to take care of business out of habit without  any real thought. Its a reflex. The hard part of drafting by reflex is when you have to switch from one software to the other on a daily basis. In my case it's AutoCAD for a bit, then Revit, some more AutoCAD, more Revit. I find myself doing things in AutoCAD that only work in Revit.

I use WT in Revit to tile the Revit windows. I find I want to do that in AutoCAD now. So I wrote a little lisp to make it do the same thing.

Making things the same in both programs, let's me draft by reflex, which is super productive/

Super Script and Sub Script with Mtext

Creating special characters in AutoCAD can make you feel like you are in a secret club that knows all the codes like %%D for diameter and %%P for plus or minus. 

The Mtext dialog has some real strange symbols hiding under the @ button like Monument line and Not equal. Squared and cubed are included but what if you get into a situation like 1st where you want super script the letters st?

There is a little trick with the stacking function that can really be useful.

In the Mtext dialog add the ^ symbol found above the number 6 on your keyboard ahead of text that you want to be a sub script. Select the text and the ^ then click the stack button and boom, there you go.

Do the same for a super script but in this case put the ^ after the required text.

Convert Exploded Attributes to Text

It doesn't happen often that I need this LISP, but when I have, it has been a life saver. 

In today's situation, we are linking a CAD file into a Revit project and the text would not come through. Looking at the CAD file we received, the text is all attributes that have been exploded.

This little gem saved the day. One other thing we end up doing is changing the font for the text in AutoCAD to Zurich LT BT. It looks like Simplex, but plots way better out of Revit.

I don't remember where this lisp came from and it isn't documented, but thank you so much stranger.


;;;
;;; Convert Attribute definitions to text
;;;

(defun c:A2T (/ eset1 blkcnt en enlist vl space)
  (setq eset1  (ssget (list (cons 0 "ATTDEF")))
blkcnt 0
  )

  (if eset1
    (while (<= blkcnt (- (sslength eset1) 1))
      (setq en   (ssname eset1 blkcnt)
   enlist (entget en)
   space  (cdr (assoc 67 enlist))
      )
      (setq vl (list
(cons 0 "TEXT")
(cons 100 "AcDbEntity")
(cons 100 "AcDbText")
(assoc 7 enlist)
(assoc 8 enlist)
(assoc 10 enlist)
(assoc 40 enlist)
(cond ((assoc 62 enlist))
      ((cons 62 256))
)
(cons 1 (cdr (assoc 2 enlist)))
(if (= space nil)
  (cons 67 0)
  (cons 67 space)
)
      )
      )
      (entdel en)
      (entmake vl)
      (setq blkcnt (1+ blkcnt))
    )
  )
)

Spell Checky Thingy

Two things;

1) When writing out the title to this article I noticed that "Thingy" is some how a word, and "Checky" is not.

B) When you are typing, that's a good time to notice that words are misspelled. AutoCAD has been providing this feedback for a while in the form of a red squiggly line under misspelled words.

Some how, this function can get turned off, and no matter how appropriate soooo Aweesome! is, it would be nice to know that it is not proper English.

Right click in the text editor and select "Editor Settings" to put a check mark by "Check Spelling". Or turn it off and be the free spirit you deserve to be.

Acaddoc.lsp Instead of Scripts

I had a situation today where the base point in a whole mess of drawings were all wrong causing an X-reference nightmare. You can create a script file and use something like script pro to run a series of commands on a batch of drawings. As an alternative I added a specific set of commands to acaddoc.lsp specific to the user who was doing the work. the result was that every drawing she opened afterwards would move the base point to the proper location before the command line even showed up. She open the 60+ drawing from Windows Explorer, then used the "Closeall" command to shut the whole thing down. Took just a few minutes, and I had time for extra donuts.


It's something to consider anytime you have something to do over and over again in a lot of drawings. Don't forget to turn off the command string when you are done though!

Squeezing the License Pool

Rumor has it the Autodesk is preparing to raise the price of licenses come July 1st. At the same time businesses are doing a little better than years past and everybody wants to do as much work as possible. So how do you squeeze the most value out of the licenses you do have?


Stand Alone vs. Networked

Autodesk licenses can be managed one of two ways. If a license is stand alone, it works where it is installed and that's it. A networked license can be accessed by any number of users one at a time. Licenses can be migrated from stand alone to networked and back (talk to your re-seller). Most all the advice that follows is based on a networked license.

Use Viewers

This is an easy idea that is sometimes hard to put into practice. If you have users that spend most of their time viewing or plotting, encourage them to use a viewer for those activities and not to pull from the license pool. You can download Autodesk DWG Trueview for DWG based products, and use the Revit Viewer found under all programs to access RVT files.

Leverage the Options File

If running networked licenses, the network license manager is a given. What you may not be aware of is that the system manager can create a text document to help control how licenses are used. That file is generally referred to as the options file. Use Notepad to create a a plain txt file then name it with the extension "OPT". Put it in the same folder as the "LIC" file and enjoy the benefits.


Benefit #1
Time out inactive users. Every office has people that automatically open an Autodesk product then promptly does nothing with it all day. The timeout option will reclaim inactive licenses and let others use them. The user of the reclaimed license rarely realizes they lost a license because when they become active in the Autodesk program again, they usually get a license back if one is available. If they a license is not available they will get a dialog telling them they need to save and exit. There is a 5 minute grace period to save and exit, last time I checked. The line below will time out user of the indicated version of Revit after 1200 seconds (20 minutes) of inactivity.


TIMEOUT #####REVSYP_F 1200

Benefit #2
Max out users. If you have some license hogs, limit them to how ever many licenses you want. The line below is holding John Doe to a maximum of 2 licenses.


MAX 2 #####REVSYP_F USER jdoe


Benefit #3
Reserve licenses. Sometimes its best to ensure that certain users always get licenses. Use the reserve option to hold a license for selected users.


RESERVE #####REVSYP_F USER jdoe


Combine options to suit your firm's needs either by individual or by groups. Find out more by checking Autodesk help page.

Rename all Files in Folders with Sub-Folders

I recently wanted to update version numbers on a ton of AutoCAD Blocks. I copied the old blocks in their current folder structure to a new location and needed to add a version number to the end of each DWG file. This folder structure treed out like a Mighty Oak and the idea of manually changing every file made me nauseous.


You can go old school and open up a DOS prompt by typing CMD in the search box in the start menu. To change every file in a folder quick by browsing to the folder in question and type out...


REN *.dwg *_V2.dwg


I gues you should some DOS commands like CD to change directories. To find out more, just type HELP in the DOS window. DOS will supply a whole list of helpful commands and what they do. Once you figure that part out, the command above works fine,one folder at a time.


To handle a folder structure like I had you'll need a DOS statement with more horse power. This baby below does the trick. Just go to the top folder in your structure and let her rip! It takes about two seconds to rename hundreds of files.


for /f "tokens=* delims= " %a in ('dir /b /ad /s') do rename "%a\*.dwg" "*_V2.dwg"


If you are a copy/paste type of person, you might be annoyed to find the DOS command prompt doesn't seem to want to copy or paste. Click the little icon at the left of the title bar, then click Edit, then Paste. To copy, do the same except pick Mark then highlight want you want to copy out of the DOS editor.

What do you know, that old school DOS really is good for something.

ACET-Autoload Error

It has been going on for years, and it happened to me again. I got this error after upgrading to 2012 when I used the Burst command.


ACET Autoload not found, blah, blah, blah.


Well, Burst is an Express Tools command, so number one make sure Express Tools is loaded. Seeing it in the ribbon is a good indication. If it is not loaded, go to Programs and Features in the Control Panel, and select the current version of AutoCAD, then select the Uninstall/Change button.

From there change the install to include Express Tools. See the image below.

If all of this doesn't solve your problem, chances are, you are just missing a path in Options. Under the Files tab make sure a path like the one highlighted below is present.

Status Bar El-Gone-O

The Status Bar occupies the bottom 1/4" of your AutoCAD screen. I has tools to control object snaps, grids, object tracking, workspaces, and a ton of other things. If it ever disappears it can be brought back by typing "statusbar" on the command line and changing it back to "1".

Network License Manager Errors

I had issues today with the network license manager. It is always pressure situation when 

people can not use Autodesk products. The CAD staff has nothing to do at all. I found the codes below some time ago and they have been invaluable to solving network licensing issues from 

the incredible short error number you get. I hope they can help you in your time if need.

-1 Cannot find license file. 

-2 Invalid license file syntax. 

-3 No license server system for this feature. 

-4 Licensed number of users already reached. 

-5 No such feature exists. 

-6 No TCP/IP port number in license file and FLEXnet Licensing service does not exist. 

-7 No socket connection to license server manager service. 

-8 Invalid (inconsistent) license key or signature. This usually happens when a license file has been altered. 

-9 Invalid host. The hostid of this system does not match the hostid specified in the license file. 

-10 Feature has expired. 

-11 Invalid date format in license file. 

-12 Invalid returned data from license server system. 

-13 No SERVER lines in license file. 

-14 Cannot find SERVER host name in network database. The lookup for the host name on the SERVER line in the license file failed. This often happens when NIS or DNS or the hosts file is incorrect. Workaround: Use IP address (e.g., 123.456.789.123) instead of host name. 

-15 Cannot connect to license server system. The server (lmgrd) has not been started yet, or the wrong port@host or license file is being used, or the TCP/IP port or host name in the license file has been changed. 

-16 Cannot read data from license server system. 

-17 Cannot write data to license server system. 

-18 License server system does not support this feature. 

-19 Error in select system call. 

-21 License file does not support this version. 

-22 Feature checkin failure detected at license server system. 

-23 License server system temporarily busy (new server connecting). 

-24 Users are queued for this feature. 

-25 License server system does not support this version of this feature. 

-26 Request for more licenses than this feature supports. 

-29 Cannot find ethernet device. 

-30 Cannot read license file. 

-31 Feature start date is in the future. 

-32 No such attribute. 

-33 Bad encryption handshake with vendor daemon. 

-34 Clock difference too large between client and license server system. 

-35 In the queue for this feature. 

-36 Feature database corrupted in vendor daemon. 

-37 Duplicate selection mismatch for this feature. Obsolete with v8.0+ vendor daemon. 

-38 User/host on EXCLUDE list for feature. 

-39 User/host not on INCLUDE list for feature. 

-40 Cannot allocate dynamic memory. 

-41 Feature was never checked out. 

-42 Invalid parameter. 

-47 Clock setting check not available in vendor daemon. 

-52 Vendor daemon did not respond within timeout interval. 

-53 Checkout request rejected by vendor-defined checkout filter. 

-54 No FEATURESET line in license file. 

-55 Incorrect FEATURESET line in license file. 

-56 Cannot compute FEATURESET data from license file. 

-57 socket() call failed. *OS Error

-59 Message checksum failure. 

-60 License server system message checksum failure. 

-61 Cannot read license file data from license server system. 

-62 Network software (TCP/IP) not available. 

-63 You are not a license administrator. 

-64 lmremove request before the minimum lmremove interval. 

-67 No licenses available to borrow. 

-68 License BORROW support not enabled. 

-69 FLOAT_OK can't run standalone on license server system. 

-71 Invalid TZ environment variable. 

-73 Local checkout filter rejected request. 

-74 Attempt to read beyond end of license file path. 

-75 SYS$SETIMR call failed (VMS). *OS Error.

-76 Internal FLEXnet Licensing error-please report to Macrovision Corporation (Acresso). 

-77 Bad version number must be floating-point number with no letters. 

-82 Invalid PACKAGE line in license file. 

-83 FLEXnet Licensing version of client newer than server. 

-84 USER_BASED license has no specified users - see license server system log. 

-85 License server system doesn't support this request. 

-87 Checkout exceeds MAX specified in options file. 

-88 System clock has been set back. 

-89 This platform not authorized by license. 

-90 Future license file format or misspelling in license file. The file was issued for a later version of FLEXnet Licensing than this program understands. 

-91 Encryption seeds are non-unique. 

-92 Feature removed during lmreread, or wrong SERVER line hostid. 

-93 This feature is available in a different license pool. This is a warning condition. The server 

spooled one or more INCREMENT lines into a single pool, and the request was made on an 

INCREMENT line that has been pooled. 

-94 Attempt to generate license with incompatible attributes. 

-95 Network connect to THIS_HOST failed. Change this_host on the SERVER line in the license file to the actual host name. 

-96 License server machine is down or not responding. See the system administrator about starting the server, or make sure that you're referring to the right host see LM_LICENSE_FILE 

environment variable). 

-97 The desired vendor daemon is down. Check the lmgrd log file, or 2) Try lmreread. 

-98 This FEATURE line can't be converted to decimal format. 

-99 The decimal format license is typed incorrectly. 

-100 Cannot remove a linger license. 

-101 All licenses are reserved for others. The system administrator has reserved all the licenses for others. Reservations are made in the options file. The server must be restarted for options 

file changes to take effect. 

-102 A FLEXid borrow error occurred. 

-103 Terminal Server remote client not allowed. 

-104 Cannot borrow that long. 

-106 License server system out of network connections. The vendor daemon can't handle any 

more users. 

-110 Cannot read dongle: check dongle or driver. Either the dongle is unattached, or the necessary software driver for this dongle type is not installed. 

-112 Missing dongle driver. In order to read the FLEXid hostid, the correct driver must be installed. These drivers are available from your software vendor. 

-114 SIGN= keyword required, but missing from license certificate. You need to obtain a SIGN= version of this license from your vendor. 

-115 Error in Public Key package. 

-116 TRL not supported for this platform. 

-117 BORROW failed. 

-118 BORROW period expired. 

-119 lmdown and lmreread must be run on license server machine. 

-120 Cannot lmdown the server when licenses are borrowed. 

-121 FLOAT_OK requires exactly one FLEXid hostid. 

-122 Unable to delete local borrow info. 

-123 Returning a borrowed license early is not supported. Contact the vendor for further details. 

-124 Error returning borrowed license. 

-125 A PACKAGE component must be specified. 

-126 Composite hostid not initialized. 

-127 A item needed for the composite hostid is missing or invalid. 

-128 Error, borrowed license doesn't match any known server license. 

-135 Error enabling the event log. 

-136 Event logging is disabled. 

-137 Error writing to the event log. 

-139 Communications timeout. 

-140 Bad message command. 

-141 Error writing to socket. Peer has closed socket. 

-142 Error, cannot generate version specific license tied to a single hostid, which is composite. 

-143 Version-specific signatures are not supported for uncounted licenses. 

-144 License template contains redudant signature specifiers. 

-145 Bad V71_LK signature. 

-146 Bad V71_SIGN signature. 

-147 Bad V80_LK signature. 

-148 Bad V80_SIGN signature. 

-149 Bad V81_LK signature. 

-150 Bad V81_SIGN signature. 

-151 Bad V81_SIGN2 signature. 

-152 Bad V84_LK signature. 

-153 Bad V84_SIGN signature. 

-154 Bad V84_SIGN2 signature. 

-155 License key required but missing from the license certificate. The application requires a 

license key in the license certificate. You need to obtain a license key version of this certificate 

from your vendor. 

-500 Invalid server port number. 

-501 Invalid value in license where an integer was expected. 

-502 Invalid value supplied for count. 

-503 Invalid hostid supplied in license. 

-504 Invalid hostid type supplied. 

-505 Bad feature line syntax. 

-506 Internal FLEXnet Licensing error. 

-507 Bad date format in license file. 

-508 Bad SERVER line. 

-509 Bad license string. 

-510 Server's feature doesn't authenticate on client side. 

-511 No license checked out. 

-512 License already checked out. 

-513 Error list returned. 

-514 No certicom module available. 

-515 Wrong or incomplete certicom module. 

-516 SIGN or SIGN2 required in license certificate. 

-517 Feature object has no licensesources. 

-518 An Identical license is already checked out on this license source. 

-519 This license has an asynchronously-queued checkout pending. 

-521 Library for native hostid couldn't be loaded. 

-522 Already connected to another vendor daemon. 

-523 No such user, host, or display. 

-524 Shutdown of license server system failed. 

-525 Shutdown failed - already connected to license server system. 

-526 Invalid license source string. 

-527 Log file switch error.

No Hatch Dialog

In my last post I was talking about using system variables for evil. In this post use a system variable for good. Problem; every tome the hatch or boundary hatch command is issued, instead of the hatch dialog, there are only a command line options.

When all else fails, the likely culprit is the system variable HPDLG.

HPGLG controls the display of the Hatch and Gradient and Hatch Edit dialog boxes.

Set it to 0 and Hatch and Gradient dialog boxes are not displayed for HATCH/GRADIENT commands unless Settings is entered at the command prompt.

Set it to 1 and Hatch and Gradient dialog box are displayed for HATCH/GRADIENT commands but not for existing hatch object selection.

Set it to 2 and Hatch and Gradient dialog box are not displayed when the ribbon is active (RIBBONSTATE = 1). When the ribbon is inactive (RIBBONSTATE = 0), the Hatch and Gradient dialog box is displayed.