ACA Object Styles

[OwenWhitehouse]

Where is the setting that tells an ACA object which layer key it is supposed to use?

[Anonymous]

Which version? The robbin hides everything.
Best to have your 'layer key style' set up in a reference drawing somewhere.
'_AecDwgSetup' will give you a tab to set your layer drawing and
layerkeystyle.
Ticking the box near the bottom will write to the registry to make this your
default settings.
Under the Format pulldown - Layer Management you can access the layer key
style for the OOTB objects.
Using Pallete tools you can set another layer key style in the tool, say
when using walls as cabinets instead of default. RC on the tool for
properties. The layer key refers to the std keys and you can add your own
if you need to.

wrote in message news:6369060@discussion.autodesk.com...
Where is the setting that tells an ACA object which layer key it is supposed
to use?

[OwenWhitehouse]

ACA 2010.

I can deal with the Robbin (I like that...it is an efficiency thief) by turning it off. It turns out that 2010 no longer ships with the menus, either. Starting to get seriously annoyed. I now see that the menus supported a lot of commands that are not accessible via that ridiculous Robbin. I'll bet someone has a CUI or MNU out there that will get the menus back.

We used to have a template drawing that had all kinds of custom content and objects in it. The file was huge, and most of the stuff in it never got used. I created a set of palettes from the stuff in the drawing. Now I want to create a simplified layer key style, but the objects in the palettes obviously have some default settings that tell them what key to use. When I open the Properties, there is nothing in the Layer Key setting, just two dashes. If I insert them, however, they use one of the layer keys. I'd like to know how to edit those settings without having to set a layer key for every single item in every palette.

I believe that creating a custom layer key style will get me more than 50% of what I want. I hate having to do this, but we are a multidiscipline company, and I cannot have ACA layers showing up with 'S-' and 'C-' prefixes. Those are reserved for Structural and Civil.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

David's (Koch) better with the layer keystyle stuff, hopefully he will chime
in. (Check his web site archives)
The S and C come from your layer standard (Open layer manager and far LHS
top button). and layer key style.
I created my own for a multi-floor in one file approach and to be honest I
still don't have my head around it.
Would the S & C come from an AIA layering standard that you are using?

for e.g. I created my own based on level first Site,1,2,3 followed by
component Wall, Roof Floor etc.
Then I used that with my layer key style to create the layering system and
it works well. Overrides change levels.


So do you double up on columns? You draw them and then eng draws them??
Actually I think that comes from your Layer key Style and you may need to
customise your own. Remove any reference to S and C prefix's and see if
that does it.

With your palletes, you needed to have exported them out (to content
browser) to be able to load them again on another system together with all
your layer keying. I haven't come across a way to add odd keys en masse.
There are some good teaching vid's at Autocad Exchange or in the sub area at
autodesk site on how to export them for reuse.
Archidigm also has a good tut on LKS's I think that's where I got my info
to click in my brain.


wrote in message news:6369457@discussion.autodesk.com...
ACA 2010.

I can deal with the Robbin (I like that...it is an efficiency thief) by
turning it off. It turns out that 2010 no longer ships with the menus,
either. Starting to get seriously annoyed. I now see that the menus
supported a lot of commands that are not accessible via that ridiculous
Robbin. I'll bet someone has a CUI or MNU out there that will get the menus
back.

We used to have a template drawing that had all kinds of custom content and
objects in it. The file was huge, and most of the stuff in it never got
used. I created a set of palettes from the stuff in the drawing. Now I want
to create a simplified layer key style, but the objects in the palettes
obviously have some default settings that tell them what key to use. When I
open the Properties, there is nothing in the Layer Key setting, just two
dashes. If I insert them, however, they use one of the layer keys. I'd like
to know how to edit those settings without having to set a layer key for
every single item in every palette.

I believe that creating a custom layer key style will get me more than 50%
of what I want. I hate having to do this, but we are a multidiscipline
company, and I cannot have ACA layers showing up with 'S-' and 'C-'
prefixes. Those are reserved for Structural and Civil.

Thanks!

[David_W_Koch]

Most AEC Object types have a baked-in-the-program-code layer key that is used "by default" (eg, when the command is invoked from the ribbon or by typing, or when the tool palette tool selected does not have a different Layer Key set in the tool's properties. For example, Walls use the WALL layer key, Doors use the DOOR layer key, etc.

You can open up a Layer Key Style that exists in the current drawing in a number of ways. On the Manage tab, on the Style & Display panel, click the Style Manager tool. In the Style Manager dialog, you will find Layer Key Styles listed under Multi-Purpose Objects. You can open the Style Manager, filtered for Layer Key Styles, by opening the Layer Properties Manager (in 2010, the palette version, not the dialog version) and, near the top of the palette, clicking on the second icon from the left (the one with the "key" in the icon image). If you like typing, you can achieve the same filtered Style Manager result by using the LayerKeyStyle command.

If you are using the out-of-the-box AIA (256 color) Layer Key Style, you should be getting mostly layers starting with "A-" as the Discipline Designator. There are some, for site- or structural-related objects, that have "C-" or "S-" Discipline Designators. The AIA (256 color) Layer Key Style is set up to have the Discipline Designator reflect the discipline generally responsible for the design of an object type, rather than designate the discipline that is doing the actual drawing. Either approach can be used, and both are discussed in the US National CAD Standard. If you want (or need) to take the approach that anything drawn by an architect needs to have "A-" as the Discipline Designator, then you will need to edit (a copy of) the Layer Key Style to suit.

Once you have your Layer Key Style as you want it, you will probably want to save that to a central source file that all users can access, and then have everyone set that source file on the Layering tab of the Drawing Setup dialog. In 2010, you can access that dialog through the Application Menu (big red A in upper left corner) > Utilities > Drawing Setup. Set your source file as the Layer Standards/Key File to Auto-Import (use the button at the upper right, with the ellipsis [...] icon to navigate to and specify the source file). Then, in the Default Layer Standard area, set your revised Layer Key Style in the Layer Key Style dropdown list, and, finally, check the Always import Layer Key Style when first used in drawing toggle. With that checked, you do not have to worry about copying the Layer Key Style to your template files (and doing so each time you edit the Layer Key Style). Whe you open a file, the first time you use a command that makes use of a Layer Key, the program will check the source file to see if the Layer Key Style version in the source file is more recent than the one in the current file. If it is, it will automatically import the revised version into the current file.

[OwenWhitehouse]

Great information, David! Thank you. I think that will do the trick for me.

It sounds like our Architecture template can be pretty much the same one that everyone else uses, and the Auto-Import option will insert our modified layer key style when they start a drawing. Since all of our custom content has been stripped out of the template alreadty and located in a content file, and ACA imports the stuff it needs from various resource files, do we need to give the Architecture group their own template?

[David_W_Koch]

What is "everyone else" running - vanilla AutoCAD or a different vertical product?

The template file can be kept fairly lean, but you are going to want to have your office-standard display settings in the template file; that is not something you want to import every time you start a new file. If that does not pose a problem for everyone else, then you could use the same template for everyone. If the others are using vanilla AutoCAD and would rather not have all the display stuff making their files that much bigger, then you may want to maintain separate templates.

[OwenWhitehouse]

David,
Most users have 'vanilla' AutoCAD, but third party applications are added on top of it. I had forgotten about the display settings. I'm not sure how much they add to a 'lean' template, but they are not needed by the majority of the users, so I think a separate ACA template is the right idea.
While we are talking ACA Object Styles, is it possible to assign different layer key settings to different components within a style? For instance, we have a wall style that has metal sheeting on the outside, and we'd like to be able to isolate the sheeting on another layer. Right now, everything in that style comes in on the A-Wall layer.

[Anonymous]

Go into the wall style and assign the componant for sheeting to a particular
layer via the Display Properties and the Display Rep in question. You can
see here you are not assigning the componant to a layer but rather the
componants representation for that display rep to a layer. i.e. for
Reflected view it could all be simply on layer 0 and follow the layer key.
ALTHOUGH a better way is to use By Material settings (tick the box on the
same page) and set your layers via the material setting rather than the wall
style. Say everytime your sheeting is using the plan rep it displays on THIS
layer. Easier to edit this way.

Personally I don't like hardcoding layers thisway as it reduces your
flexibility if you start adding it to all your styles (from changing
layering systems etc) but if you need to then this is really the only way
except for splitting the wall into 2 seperate items.

wrote in message news:6371206@discussion.autodesk.com...
David,
Most users have 'vanilla' AutoCAD, but third party applications are added on
top of it. I had forgotten about the display settings. I'm not sure how much
they add to a 'lean' template, but they are not needed by the majority of
the users, so I think a separate ACA template is the right idea.
While we are talking ACA Object Styles, is it possible to assign different
layer key settings to different components within a style? For instance, we
have a wall style that has metal sheeting on the outside, and we'd like to
be able to isolate the sheeting on another layer. Right now, everything in
that style comes in on the A-Wall layer.