From: drake@Autodesk.COM (Dan Drake)
Newsgroups: alt.cad.autocad
Subject: Re: AutoCAD Questions:  Please Help.
Date: 12 Aug 92 19:51:17 GMT
Organization: Autodesk Inc., Sausalito CA, USA

davidc@brahms.udel.edu (David Casper) writes:
> ATTN: To anyone who can help:
>  

Here are a couple of answers.  Other people can do better with most of
the questions.

> 2. A user can be prompted for non-graphical attribute values when a
>    sub-drawing is imported via "wblock/insert" ?  Is there a similar
>    procedure for "wblksol/xref" (for AME solids) ?

This ought to be automatic.  Whenever you insert a block that has
Attribute entities in it, you get prompted for values unless you've
suppressed the prompt by setting ATTREQ to 0.  See page 336 and
surrounding pages in the R11 ref manual (US edition).

> 4. Can a user specify a limit to the amount of command steps that
>    are to be "stored/remembered" for the purpose of allowing the
>    "undo" command?  (I am familiar with setting markers)  If so,
>    would reducing this amount be beneficial (freeing memory, etc...) ?
Your choices (on an option of the UNDO command are 0, 1, and infinity.
The information is saved in a temporary file, so there's no memory
saving from turning the feature off.

> 7. Is there a method for changing the line-width of circles/arcs in a
>    similar manner to using "pedit|width" on polylines? 
No.  You're stuck with using 1-segment or 2-segment polylines if you
need width.  (sigh)  However, R12 will give you a lot more freedom with
the widths of *plotted* entities.

> 10. Is there a sytem variable to set to make AutoCAD expect/use a
>     Wietek (sp?) coprocessor?
No; it's not supported.  A considerable amount of benchmarking went into
the determination that the Weitek chips, which came from a
single-precision background in digital signal processing, offered little
or no advantage over Intel coprocessors in doing the highly unpipelined
double-precision stuff that AutoCAD needs to do.

> 15. Is there a method to change the "default" filename from within
>     the drawing editor?
Not sure what's needed here.  Anyway, try R12 and see how much better
life is without the Main Menu, alias Black Bozo Screen.

> 17. Why are there always 2 regens for "zoom|E" ?
Not always, but too often; the program can't know the extents accurately
after you've been deleting things.  It might do better, but the R12
solution is to keep so much of the drawing in vectorized form that you
don't have to do much ZOOM-E-ing.

> 20. I often use "enter" (either via keyboard or cursor) to repeat
>     a command...but many times I use "redraw" to clarify that my
>     last operation was successful -- but I don't even realize that
>     I have done so (habit)...I am then FRUSTRATED when using "enter" 
>     only repeats the "redraw" and not the command I had intended:  
>     my point:  Is there a way to have "enter" repeat the previous
>     command WITH THE EXCEPTION of "redraw" ?
Not that I can think of.

> 22. Is there a method for having the UCS automatically "restored" to a
>     corresponding setting for a viewport when that particular is
>     selected as current?
No, but it sounds like an interesting idea.

> 23. Is there a method for having "UCS|plan" and "Zoom|E" center
>     the drawing entities and, perhaps, leave the drawing entities
>     sized A LITTLE SMALLER than the screen (i.e., as if "Pan|(center)"
>     and then "Zoom|.7x" were executed immediately after "UCS|plan"
>     or "Zoom|E" commands?
No, this would require a little Lisp program to implement your own
single command that would do both.  A useful thing to have, and a pretty
simple Lisp exercise.
   
--
Dan Drake
drake@Autodesk.com