Setting specific aec dimension style by default

[maurot.ferrarese]

Hi,

I would like to set by default an AEC dimension style, so every time I click on the ribbon the AEC dimension automatically my AEC dimension style is selected. Otherwise I have to click on the command and in the properties pallete I have to choose the style and then I can draw the measurement. I have to do this hundreds of time, therefore I found it time consuming. Any ideas?

[David_W_Koch · Accepted solution]

I would make a tool palette tool for my AEC Dimension Style, referencing a source file, and use that.  But our workflow was set up years ago, pre-ribbon, so you may not find that particularly convenient.

You could set up a source file with your AEC Dimension Style(s) and include that in your Styles Browser Library, and access the style that way.  That avoids the setup and maintenance of a tool palette tool but provides fewer pre-set options.  If you use the Styles Browser for other object types on a regular basis, that may result in too many clicks to get to the AEC Dimension Styles when needed.

If the ribbon workflow works for you, you can customize the ribbon and add a tool specific to your AEC Dimension Style.  This will require that you set up a tool palette tool, as the style-specific AEC Content ribbon tools use the AECRIBBONTOOL command to "run" a specified tool palette tool that has to be available in the workspace.  The out-of-the-box ribbon tools reference tools on a tool palette called Ribbon Tools - AutoCAD Architecture (US Imperial) in the US Imperial content.  This palette is not included in any of the out-of-the-box Tool Palette Groups and is not meant for the end user to see or use, so that the tools are not modified or deleted unintentionally.  It does show up if you select All Palettes.

The ACA Home ribbon tab has AEC Dimension tools on the Annotation - ACA panel and the ACA Annotate ribbon tab has them on the Dimensions - ACA panel.  You could modify either or both locations to either add another tool that references your AEC Dimension Style (via a tool palette tool) or if you have no need for the out-of-the-box styles, you could edit one of those tools to reference your style.

You can find more than you ever wanted to know about AEC Ribbon Tools in this blog article.

Here are two screenshots of the Customize User Interface dialog, showing where the style-specific AEC Dimension tools are on the aforementioned panels, and the properties of the AEC Dimension Interior tool.  If you change the tool palette tool name that follows AECRIBBONTOOL in the Macro property to the name of a tool palette tool in your workspace that references your AEC Dimension Style, then that tool would start the DIMADD command with your style selected.  You probably will want to modify the contents of the Command Name, Description, and Command Display Name properties to reflect the change as well.  (You can do that in a duplicate of the tool if you want to preserve the out-of-the-box tool.)

[pendean]

Nothing in AutoCAD/ARCH is going to do that without much effort on your part through customization, and perhaps using a different "button" instead of the default.

It would help you a lot if you create all of your preferred standards (all with unique names) in a template and then always, always, use that template for starting (and INSERTing to fix) your DWG files.

How would you like to proceed?

[David_W_Koch]

If you go with modifying the Ribbon, make sure you back up your CUIX file, so that you can restore it should you ever have issues with a corrupt file in the future, or have to reset/reinstall ACA.

Also document the changes so that you can incorporate them into future versions.  You could bring the CUIX file forward, but I always worry that I will miss out on any changes made to the out-of-the-box CUIX file in future versions, so I try very hard to not customize ACA.cuix whenever possible.