My favorite thing about AutoSketch

[mitch]

Hey here is a new idea, why don,t you reply with what you like about AutoSketch 7.0 It sound to me that this is it for a while so let's make the most of it shall we?I have been useing it since it was released and have not had that many problems.
What I like the most about AutoSketch is the rubber stamp feature. When I am doing a complexed drawing with some repeatable features all I have to do is highlight the items that I want repeated and right click on the dot in the center of the selection and change the move about point to the location that suits me and boom there it is! I can click to my hearts content and if I think I'm going to use it again some time I just make it a symbol. Gotta love it!
Tom Mitchell

[Anonymous]

Tom,

It's been in my mind for a while to post all the tips and tricks I've seen on
this newsgroup during the past few years that I've been gathering in a folder.
These aren't necessarily the "normal" operations. Rather, they're commands
hidden somewhere in the program waiting to burst forth with abandon when someone
points us. For instance, did you know there's an aerial view command? Hakon Alm
come up with that one last year.

Paul has a page on his site where he lists what he considers to be the most
useful tricks. You can check that out at http://www.resolv.com.au/. Since he's
redone the site (IN JAVA - - WHY???) your going to have to click on the
AutoSketch tab and then "Tips and Tricks" button on the left.

In addition, Rod Hulbert, John Ehman, John Nolte, GB, Chris Leubke, Ross George,
Ric Norris, many others, have contributed interesting workarounds and subtle
undocumented tricks that can be VERY useful. Along with answering questions of
the normal type - but sometimes with surprising twists.

There are more "usual suspects", and I urge you to hang around and be one. The
more the merrier, so to speak, to coin a phrase, such as it is, as it were.

Just so's ya know, two things that AS still doesn't have that lots of folks want
to see: Macros, and aligning text to a curve. ADSK maintains a wish list at
http://www.augi.com/wishlist/asketch00.htm and you should give a look. So far we
haven't seen too many wishes make it into the new version, but we're told that
ADSK takes them seriously and you can actually vote there on your favorites.
Moot.

Onward and sideways.

H

mitch wrote:
>
> Hey here is a new idea, why don,t you reply with what you like about
> AutoSketch 7.0 It sound to me that this is it for a while so let's make the
> most of it shall we?I have been useing it since it was released and have not
> had that many problems.
> What I like the most about AutoSketch is the rubber stamp feature. When I am
> doing a complexed drawing with some repeatable features all I have to do is
> highlight the items that I want repeated and right click on the dot in the
> center of the selection and change the move about point to the location that
> suits me and boom there it is! I can click to my hearts content and if I think
> I'm going to use it again some time I just make it a symbol. Gotta love it!
> Tom Mitchell

[Anonymous]

I think the best thing about AS is the discussion group. More than anything
else it makes the program useable, and continues to expand my capabilities.
A few more years and I may even master most of the capabilities of AS.

--
John

[mitch]

Hey John don't sell yourself short. AutoSketch is not that hard to get the hang of. All I can say is the more time you spend using it the easyier it will be for you to grasp.
Keep it up guy!
Tom Mitchell

[Anonymous]

It is windows oriented and easy to learn. I have taught 5 people to
use it. The ones who had no AutoCAD experience picked it up quickly
and are very competent with it. The one that was a whiz with AutoCAD
never did figure out how to use AutoSketch.

Other favorites:

Keyboard snaps ( I do not like auto snaps)

DWG compatibility (version 6)

Trim and extend are one command (rather than 2 commands like AutoCAD)

Rubber stamp (when I use AutoCAD I really miss this one)

Ability to select what you want (e.g. all text that is the color blue
on layer 43) - AutoCAD does not have a simple way to do this. (When I
was in the AutoCAD group I was admonished for not writing some
complicated macro to do this simple selection.)

Drawings are to scale. (Output on my 3' x 4' paper is critical and
what I want to see. I do not want to worry about how I will get the
300' by 200' store scaled properly and placed on the page every time I
print - when I change scales in AutoCAD it does not save with the
drawing, it saves them with the program. So if the last thing I
printed was 1/4"=1' the next will be also, even it used to be 1/8"=1')

Read and write Drafix CAD files nearly perfectly (version 6)

Property painter (I really miss this when I need to use Drafix 4.11)

I am sure there are others but these are the ones that came to mind
--
Len Rafuse
Vision Engineering

[Anonymous]

"L. Rafuse" wrote in message
news:39BF6EE5.C8A1AE38@wn.net...
> It is windows oriented and easy to learn.

That's it! Easy to learn! Before I started with Sketch I used TechnoboxCad
on an ATARI ST. I still love this machine but it's software unfortunately is
getting a little out of date. So I get to know Sktech and I have to say, I'm
still amased about it's features. The price is very good too, only around
$140,- in oppsosite to $600,- I almost payed for TBCAD.

> The one that was a whiz with AutoCAD
> never did figure out how to use AutoSketch.

This syndrom I know too. When I changed from the C64 to the ATARI ST I also
thought in the beginning "where the (EDITED) can I enter the command to open the
floppy disk" :-))))

> Other favorites:
>
> Drawings are to scale

That I love too and specially the fact that Sketch is what I call paper
orientated. Means I start to organize my drawings according to the size of
the paper my printer is able to use and I know before how big this and that
element will be on the paper.

> Property painter (I really miss this when I need to use Drafix 4.11)

Like it too, even it is a little bit stupid tool. Why (EDITED) really
all properties are taken from one element to the other (hatch scale, hatch
orientation, etc.)??? Already tried to take a very dense hatch (which I
already scaled to a bigger scale in the source object) to several other
objects? Gee thats coffee time, because the new objects always have the
default scale and sketch almost fell asleep meanwhile trying to redraw the
screen. Maybe my P166 is also getting out of date 🙂

> I am sure there are others but these are the ones that came to mind

I can tell you. Simply getting results! I use Sketch to design antique style
furnitures and I never had so fast and so useful results! Yes I'm still busy
with my bug report to Autodesk (which I started to write on V5.0, now I work
with 6.0) and Sketch is with a long long distance THE program which crashes
most. But for this price all these useful features and combined in an
interface which is even for so called dummies easily to understand. IMHO
without concurence. Until know I made about 3500 drawings with Sketch and no
other program could seduce me to change to it, even my bug report is still
growing...

Greetings from Java
Mick!:-)

[Anonymous]

I think you've got it, John. I never would have learned this package without
this newsgroup. It was my first foray into cad work and AS got me hooked.

Since then I've had the opportunity to use other cad packages in this price
range. Some have macros and other features "missing" from AS, but in the end I
always return to this one. Not out of any particular loyalty, but because on
balance, this is just the quickest and most reliably productive one to use.
Certainly the simplest.

And it's fun waiting for your next problem so I can hold onto that chili donut.

H

John Nolte wrote:
>
> I think the best thing about AS is the discussion group. More than anything
> else it makes the program useable, and continues to expand my capabilities.
> A few more years and I may even master most of the capabilities of AS.
>
> --
> John

[Anonymous]

The upgrades are cheap. I am always looking forward to an upgrade, almost
holding my breath.
John

"mitch" wrote in message
news:ef3fbd2.-1@WebX.SaUCah8kaAW...
Hey here is a new idea, why don,t you reply with what you like about
AutoSketch 7.0 It sound to me that this is it for a while so let's make the
most of it shall we?I have been useing it since it was released and have not
had that many problems.
What I like the most about AutoSketch is the rubber stamp feature. When I am
doing a complexed drawing with some repeatable features all I have to do is
highlight the items that I want repeated and right click on the dot in the
center of the selection and change the move about point to the location that
suits me and boom there it is! I can click to my hearts content and if I
think I'm going to use it again some time I just make it a symbol. Gotta
love it!
Tom Mitchell

[Anonymous]

Guys,
 
My favorite thing about Sketch is that it's got a
loyal, (EDITED ) group of customers such as yourselves. 
 
Rich

"mitch" wrote in
message news:ef3fbd2.-1@WebX.SaUCah8kaAW...Hey
here is a new idea, why don,t you reply with what you like about AutoSketch
7.0 It sound to me that this is it for a while so let's make the most of it
shall we?I have been useing it since it was released and have not had that
many problems. What I like the most about AutoSketch is the rubber stamp
feature. When I am doing a complexed drawing with some repeatable features all
I have to do is highlight the items that I want repeated and right click on
the dot in the center of the selection and change the move about point to the
location that suits me and boom there it is! I can click to my hearts content
and if I think I'm going to use it again some time I just make it a symbol.
Gotta love it! Tom Mitchell

[Anonymous]

Now Rich,

You're gonna have to be a little more careful about setting yourself up for the
Husky. We can't keep protecting you by no quote-backs.

We'll make allowances since this is your first post here, but I mean
REALLY...why would you call us LOYAL? I'm non-plussed.

H

[Anonymous]

"Loyal"??

Hey, you're still using the product aren't you?

R
"Harvey Smith" wrote in message
news:39BFD4FF.CCC73616@westnet.com...
> Now Rich,
>
> You're gonna have to be a little more careful about setting yourself up
for the
> Husky. We can't keep protecting you by no quote-backs.
>
> We'll make allowances since this is your first post here, but I mean
> REALLY...why would you call us LOYAL? I'm non-plussed.
>
> H

[Anonymous]

My favourite things in autosketch are the easy to use tools, especially the
different methods of doing circles etc. The buttons for doubling/halving
the grid that I put on my custom toolbar make life so easy, the ability to
easily create symbols and then explore the libraries, easy to make
templates, keyboard locks ................ I could go on forever, but the
last one I'll mention is that oh so useful recovery file thingy on the few
occasions when AS actually manages to trap a fault!

On the whole I really do like AS, even V7. For the money, I think that
keeping AS updated has been the best investment my employer could make. On
the down side, there doesn't seem to be an easy way of defining default text
and dimension setups without doing it through a template, but hey-ho that's
the way things go!

Regards to ya all!

[mitch]

Here is another thing that I love about AutoSketch. The icons can all be replaced! I have built my own set of icons to match my needs. I have found that color codeing by type such as dimensions, polygons etc makes it easier for me to find the tool I need when I am drawing. If any one is interested in the set I would be willing to E-mail them to you. They can at least give you a spring board to coming up with your own designs. You know I just realized that I need to get a life!!!!! Oh well let me know if you want'em.
Tom Mitchell

[Anonymous]

Tom,

If the file is discrete, why not upload it to Customer Files?

Unless of course you want a royalty for each copy. If so, I'll have my peaple
talk to your people.

H

mitch wrote:
>
> Here is another thing that I love about AutoSketch. The icons can all be
> replaced! I have built my own set of icons to match my needs. I have found
> that color codeing by type such as dimensions, polygons etc makes it easier
> for me to find the tool I need when I am drawing. If any one is interested in
> the set I would be willing to E-mail them to you. They can at least give you a
> spring board to coming up with your own designs. You know I just realized that
> I need to get a life!!!!! Oh well let me know if you want'em.
> Tom Mitchell

[mitch]

Hi Harvey,
If you want me to upload the 18.6 k of icons, sent me the link to exactly where to I do it. I find AutoDesk's links to be very confusing sometimes and by the time I get to where I was going, I forget what I was going to do!
Tom Mitchell

[Anonymous]

Tom,

Go to http://discussion.autodesk.com/WebX?14@@.ee940b3. You'll
find two ways to access CF. My preference is to use the Newsreader link. That
way, the group adds to your mailer client as a normal newsgroup and you can go
from there.

Using the Web format is dicey for me. The links aren't as apparent and not so
easy to see.

Your choice.

Also, it's a good idea to zip the file before uploading, although 18K isn't a
big deal. But sometimes an SKF can be quite large. Zipping can reduce it to
one-tenth it's size.

H

mitch wrote:
>
> Hi Harvey,
> If you want me to upload the 18.6 k of icons, sent me the link to exactly
> where to I do it. I find AutoDesk's links to be very confusing sometimes and
> by the time I get to where I was going, I forget what I was going to do!
> Tom Mitchell

[mitch]

Well here is the icon set for you Harvey. I hope this is the way to link it up. Tom Mitchell

http://discussion.autodesk.com/WebX?14@112.nz8ZaLYTc7M^1@.ee940b5

[Anonymous]

Tom,

That's nice. The link brings up the web page. I'd rather just open the newsgroup
and find the post. If you reference the title here it can make it easier.

Now. I need a hint, due to a certain thickening of the cranial material.

They open OK in Paint Shop Pro as small pics. Now what does one do with them?
How to use?

H

mitch wrote:
>
> Well here is the icon set for you Harvey. I hope this is the way to link it
> up. Tom Mitchell
>
> http://discussion.autodesk.com/WebX?14@@.ee940b5

[mitch]

Well I'm typing this very slowly cause I know you read slowly but here goes. First unzip all of the bitmaps into your bitmap folder in the AutoSketch folder. Next fire up AS. Go to the tools menu or in my case the customize Commands button on my Custom tool bar. Open "customize commands". Next click on the command bitmaps tab. In the drop down list choose the command that is in your toolbar. Such as 2Point Intersection (which is the first choise in the list. Then click on the Browse... button and navigate to the bitmap folder. Click on the bitmap of your choice. Click OK and when you are back to the "Customize Commands" click on the Assign... button. If there are other commands that you want to change the icon for then just repeat the same steps as the last icon. Once you have completed choosing the icons just ckick OK to close the "Customize Commands" Dialog. And there you have it your very own customized User Interface U.I. for short. Happy trails Dude!
Tom Mitchell