topic Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session in AutoCAD Forum

Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Jun 2019 09:53:13 GMT

Hi Everyone,
I want to quickly open all the drawings which i had worked in last session. Suppose Today I have many drawings opened in autocad tab for working. But tomorrow when i start the autocad again i have to open all the drawings which takes more time to reopen all the drawings which i had opened yesterday. Is there a quick way to open all the drawing which i work on frequently.

Thanks in advance.

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

imadHabash — Sat, 15 Jun 2019 10:38:42 GMT

Hi,

>> Is there a quick way to open all the drawing which i work on frequently.

you can view the most recently used files with the Recent Documents list. Files display in the Recent Documents list with the most recently used file at the top by default. You can keep a file listed regardless of files that you save later by clicking the push pin button to the right of the file name.

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Jun 2019 14:22:21 GMT

Hi,

Thanks for your reply !

Is there any settings where i can make some of the recent documents to open automatically when autocad starts.

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Moshe-A — Sat, 15 Jun 2019 16:27:50 GMT

@Anonymous hi,

here is your solution with lisp that have a small limitation, i mean you need to control it cause there no way that lisp know when you exit AutoCAD. so a moment before you close AutoCAD invoke DUMPDOCS command. the lisp should be loaded from appload statup suite so it will be available all times and it does not matter from which opened dwg you run it.

wrap the following program in a lisp file call it dumpdocs.lsp

the lisp creates a script file with all dwgs (that were open at the time you run it) to be open the next startup. the script is created in root directory of drive c:\ but you can move it to any place else you want by changing the path for fname variable.

to run AutoCAD with the script, copy AutoCAD shortcut on your desktop, right click it and select properties, go to shortcut tab and copy and paste following characters to the end of the target field, not too close, leave one space there.

/b c:\dumpdocs

/b is a command line switch that tell AutoCAD to run the script at startup.

enjoy

moshe

(vl-load-com)

(defun c:dumpdocs (/ fname f)
 (setq fname "c:\\dumpdocs.scr") 
 (setq f (open fname "w")) 
  
 (vlax-for doc (vla-get-documents (vlax-get-acad-object))
  (write-line (strcat "open " (vl-prin1-to-string (vl-string-translate "\\" "/" (vla-get-fullName doc)))) f)
  (vlax-release-object doc)
 )  

 (setq f (close f))
 (princ (strcat "\nCreating " fname ", done.")) 
 (princ)  
)

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Anonymous — Sun, 16 Jun 2019 06:04:12 GMT

Hi Moshe,

Thanks for your reply.
But i am not getting it worked. may be dont know where i did wrong.

I did the following :

1. I created the dumpdocs.lsp file and placed in drive C:\

2. In Autocad shortcut properties Target field i modified at the end of the field as below:

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2018\acad.exe" /product ACAD /language "en-US" /b c:\dumpdocs

when i invoke dumpdocs command before exiting autocad it prompts an error.
; error: bad argument type: streamp nil

When i start autocad i am getting below message:

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Moshe-A — Sun, 16 Jun 2019 06:24:22 GMT

@Anonymous hi,

Maybe something is wrong with the file names. make sure all the opened files are real file names (not drawing1, drawing2...etc) and has at least one save and if you still getting the same error wrap 2-3 of these file in zip and post them (you can delete the content)

better to lay dumpdocs.lsp file in a library lisp folder.

of course if the lisp result with an error the script file is not created and AutoCAD fail to find the script.

moshe

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Moshe-A — Sun, 16 Jun 2019 17:26:02 GMT

@Anonymous hi,

edit this code line (in red)

(write-line (strcat "open " (vl-prin1-to-string (vl-string-translate "\\" "/" (vla-get-fullName doc)))) f)

with this line (in blue)

(write-line (strcat "open " (vl-prin1-to-string (vl-string-translate "\\\\" "/" (vla-get-fullName doc)))) f)

maybe this will make it work?

moshe

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Jun 2019 04:50:41 GMT

Hi Moshe,

Thanks for your reply. I will check this out and let you know.

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Jun 2019 07:15:12 GMT

Hi Moshe,

I changed the code but still iam getting the same display as i got in message 5

I tried placing the lsp file in start up suite also but i am not getting. Anyway thanks for your help. i will check what went wrong in my steps.

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Moshe-A — Sun, 23 Jun 2019 08:12:40 GMT

@Anonymous hi,

the first time you must open autocad with the old shortcut than run the lisp, this should create the script file and only than you can use the new shortcut but again if running the lisp stops with and error, then the script file is not created and there is no point in invoking autocad from the new shortcut.

wrap in zip file 3-4 of the files you are testing (skip the xrefs i do not mind) and post it here so i can check also.

moshe

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Jun 2019 10:32:08 GMT

Hi Moshe

i have attached the zip file of drawings which i used for testing. You can test it and let me know if it works for you!

Then i have to look at it what is wrong in my procedure.

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Moshe-A — Sun, 23 Jun 2019 15:40:52 GMT

@Anonymous

Are you using AutoCAD LT?

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Jun 2019 16:43:48 GMT

No, i am using Autocad 2018 ...

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Moshe-A — Sun, 23 Jun 2019 16:55:45 GMT

maybe you are missing some in warping the lisp file so here it is attached.

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Jun 2019 03:39:26 GMT

Hi Moshe,

I checked the file but still iam not getting. if it works for you then its good. i have to check again on my side what went wrong. Thanks for your support and time Moshe.

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

Moshe-A — Tue, 25 Jun 2019 04:34:24 GMT

@Anonymous ,

it's impossible it does not work for you. it is a simple lisp no more

describe in details what you are doing? where you saved the lisp? how do you load it and run.

do a video or send some photos.

moshe

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

a.rossiM7BDC — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 10:48:31 GMT

You need to create a .scr file with Microsoft Notepad and save it in "C:\dumpdocs.scr" (see screenshot attached).

Then it work for me.

Thank you very much @Moshe-A.

Best regards!

Re: Open all the drawings quickly worked in last session

dmadduxjr — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 16:26:13 GMT

This works great! Any idea how to make it compatible with read-only files. The script pauses for user-input when asking if you would like to open drawings as read-only which then stops the script from continuing to run.

Anyway to default to "Y" when asked to open as read-only or I'd even take just opening everything as read-only as a consolation. Love the code but I would typically use it when I have several drawings open from a server that are read-only and I don't want to go through and save each one locally.

Thanks in advance!