AutoCAD Architecture

[#1]

We are on ACA 2011 and are useing Project Navigator. We are having a problem when dragging a View onto a Sheet. The problem is that once this process is complete, any layer that is set to no plot automatically freezes in the Sheet drawing. We don't want this to happen.

Is there any way to turn off this "feature"?

[#2]

Please elaborate.  It's not clear what you mean by "no plot"  are you setting a layer to be a non-plottable layer?  Does the file eventually recover from the freeze?  How does a layer freeze?

[#3]

I cannot reproduce that here in ACA 2011.  When you say the layers are "frozen", do you mean globally (-LAYER command) frozen or do you mean viewport (VPLAYER command) frozen?  If the latter, are the layers set to be frozen in new viewports?

[#4]

Ok, in AutoCAD, one of the layer options is to make it a "no plot" layer. The advantage to this is that you can see the objects drawn on that layer, but it won't plot/print. For example, the DEFPOINTS layer is automatically set to no plot. This feature is hard coded into the ACAD software and a user cannot modify it. However, all other layers have this option. For example, I create a layer specifically for viewports and set it to no plot instead of turning it off or freezing it.

That leads me to your other question: How does a layer freeze.

Again, in ACAD, you have 2 options or properties for making a layer non viewable and non plottable/printable. You can either turn a layer off or you can freeze it. The on/off option is indicated by the little light bulb icon: when it's yellow it's on when it grey, the layer is off which means you can't see it and it won't plot/print. The freeze/thaw option is indicated with a sun and snowflake icon: Sun = thawed, Snowflake = frozen.

Finally, no, the file never recovers from this. The user must thaw the layers manually.

Thanks for your reply,

Mb

[#5]

@ David

When I say frozen I mean frozen... The layers that have the no-plot property turned "on" in the View drawing are automatically frozen when the View dwg is dragged into a Sheet dwg. No commands are issued - it's simply a drag-n-drop procedure.

Ah ha! I did not think to check the: frozen in new viewports option... duh...

I'll check that and see if that is selected. I'll let you know what I find but I have a funny feeling that is it.

Thanks for the smack upside my head on that one.

Mb

[#6 · Accepted solution]

@ David

Well, I checked the: Freeze in New Viewport setting in the template files as well as the Sheet & View files. They are not set to freeze in new viewport, so that's not it.

However, I tried to recreate the problem and could not!!!! I tried this with a new View & Sheet dwgs as well as existing??? I may have corrected this issue when I edited the Layer Key db.

If I run into it again, I'll let you know.

Thanks for the idea though.

Mb