CJ,
Your method is what I'm familiar with-- Since I'm among the 'new kids' at
this office, (and in charge of implementing standards) I can tell you it's
sometimes like herding cats to get everyone on board that boat.
By building some display macros into my menu-- they see how this method
benefits them, so having tools in place is the best persuader (short of pink
paper).
(example)
our layers have AX_ prefixes - A for discipline, X for phase of project
(new, existing, demo... 1, 2, 3, whatever). They have P suffixes for
piping, so we can see duct+pipe or duct-pipe or pipe-duct in our mechanical
layouts.
Macros are run prior to plot:
All AE_* and AD_* layers = project's demolition work
All AE_* and AN_* layers = project's Construction work
Architecture is xref'ed in... so it's usually a static layer setup.
Civil work? I can imagine that it creates a snake pit of settings....
"CJ Follmer" wrote in message
news:034D04B2D2550D54FF2454D0B602B7B4@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> The best advise i could give you is to setup a system where by freezing a
> layer means it should be permanently off and turning off is a temporary
> measure for clearing up a drawing while you're working.
>
> as for the plot command, you can build a LISP reactor which would fire
> before the plot command started and turn the layers on. You would have to
> also possibly set the reactor to fire with a preview as in my own effort
to
> try to get a plot log reactor working, found out that it wouldn't work if
> the user previewed a dwg and then plotted from there.
>
> Go to the customization ng and see if anyone can get you started there.
>
> cj
>
>
> "John Schmidt" wrote in message
> news:7F40995371D8A2DBB5654C76998DF711@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> > We do generally do xref the model files into sheet files, but most
> annotation is also in the sheet files. But even doing it this way still
> requires the operator have the correct layers turned on for plotting, if
> they've turned stuff off while working on annotations, etc.
> >
> > I've also discovered that redefining the PLOT command won't really help
> us, since the Plot ( on Layouts), uses the .Plot function,
so
> it ALWAYS brings up the Plot dialog, since "." functions can't be
redefined.
> Our users are very used to plotting this way. Because of this, I'm more
> interested than ever in how companies are dealing with this problem.
> >
>
>