Altering standard blocks with good practice

[Scottishduthie]

I have been using autocad electrical since January and managed to fumble my way through to make a set of drawings. When I wanted to tweak symbols to suit how I wanted them ie moving wire numbers on source and destination arrows etc, I altered the original block and saved over it. I have now just finished doing an autocad electrical course and was told by instructor that my method was bad practice as when I download the new autocad it will replace all my libraries and won't find my tweeked blocks. I have a back up folder of the whole catalogue so that I can re insert into folder so won't lose altered blocks but he told me there was a way to change the environment file and that it was the good practice way. He then told me it was a complicated setup and then wouldn't tell me process as we didn't have enough time. Does anybody Ave any input to this and ever done it this way or is it more hassle than it's worth? I don't want to do things cowboy but was a bit difficult wary as to its benefits. Thanks for any help as always

[rhesusminus]

He's wrong.

Just put the symbols you've changed into a spearate folder, and make sure that this folder is located first, or at least before the other folder containing the same symbol, in the Schematic Symbol Library paths:

Set up like this, AcadE will find and use your custom symbols first.

[jseefdrumr]

One comment I'd like to add: 'good practices' or 'best practices' are at best general terms...they're not very objective. In other words, my best practices might not be best for you. While there are some things that may fall within a larger consensus where most of us would call it 'best practice', the truth is that ACADE (and regular, Vanilla ACAD) can be used in so many ways that actually defining any sort of one-size-fits-all 'best practices' is probably not possible.

You're already on the right track in keeping backup folders of symbols. You've made a good start, better than what most ACADE operators get when they start out on this software. I had to train myself, using the F1 key and making a lot of visits to this forum and Doug McAlexander's website. Very few of us get the benefit of formal instruction in this software in the early stages. So as you progress with ACADE, just remember to stay fluid and adaptable. As you learn more about how the software works, you will continue to find little things that you can adjust that will make things easier -- in other words, over time you will define your own 'best practices'.

Until then, don't sweat it too much. You've got the benefit of having learned some tools, now take some time to learn all the different ways you can make them work for you.

Jim

[TRLitsey]

Hi there,

Was this ‘instructor’ certified by AutoDesk?

I have been using autocad electrical since January and managed to fumble my way through to make a set of drawings. When I wanted to tweak symbols to suit how I wanted them ie moving wire numbers on source and destination arrows etc, I altered the original block and saved over it.

The good practice would be to use the symbol builder. Take the out of the box symbol, explode it, use symbol builder to modify it, save it with a new name. Add this to your Icon Menu.  The To/From arrows are a special case as they are hard coded, which is to say that when you insert a arrow ACE goes looking for a specific file name for the arrow, you do not have the chance to say which arrow you want to use.  At least not in my experience.

I have now just finished doing an autocad electrical course and was told by instructor that my method was bad practice as when I download the new autocad it will replace all my libraries and won't find my tweeked blocks.

Installing the new version of ACE will not replace anything in my experience. I have 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018 installed on one workstation. They all work independently. I seem to remember a funny thing with profiles crossing over but libraries are all in separate folders. If your custom symbols are part of your menu they can be pulled into a new ACE revision using the Migration tool.

I have a back up folder of the whole catalogue so that I can re insert into folder so won't lose altered blocks but he told me there was a way to change the environment file and that it was the good practice way. He then told me it was a complicated setup and then wouldn't tell me process as we didn't have enough time. Does anybody Ave any input to this and ever done it this way or is it more hassle than it's worth? I don't want to do things cowboy but was a bit difficult wary as to its benefits. Thanks for any help as always

Playing with the .env file has a lot of befits but you really need to understand what you are doing before you do it. With what you are asking here it sounds like you are looking to crack a walnut with a 10 pound hammer. There is a tutorial bundled with ACE that demos how to take a standard symbol and create your own rather than altering the original, and adding the new symbol to your Icon Menu. There is also info in the ACE Help and this board as to how you can Migrate all of your custom settings and symbols from an older ACE revision to a newer ACE revision.

How much did you pay for that ‘class’?

Good luck

[Scottishduthie]

Ahh ok, so for instance, put folder with custom symbols inside iec60617 and
make sure it's at top of folder? Will give that a try on Monday and see
how I go. Thanks for that

[ccad2509]

my good practice from bitter experiance

is to create a project and in this project layout your custom sysmbols you use this way you have a saved record just in case sombodys decides to change the symbol on the servers

[Anonymous]

As usual, rhesusminus has the right solution, but he forgot one caveat:

Those custom folders are wiped out when you reinstall, repair install, or upgrade ACADE. I make sure I keep a document of how to reinstall and setup custom folders, as well as using the "custom settings backup" tool that only backs up a few random settings... 

[Scottishduthie · Accepted solution]

I did the autocad electrical course in Auckland with the authorised trainers and distributers, he seemed ok, was a basic 3 day course and as I had been fumbling through autocad electrical since January I had a very limited gain from it. I appreciate the idea of altering a symbol and changing it in symbol builder and under different name, but it was the source and destination blocks I realised as you say are hard coded therefore I didn't know how to change them and keep separate as autocad wouldn't look for my symbol, it would just keep going to its own one. that is why I saved over original. I didn't realise about the install replacing things, and maybe he was confused wit what I said, which wouldn't have been first time, and what you say is true, I was just going by what the trainer said I thought id investigate. thanks for feed back, ill see what I can do. course was $1500 NZ. a very basic course like I say which started from the very start. would have been more usefull in January to be fair when I had no idea but is a scheduled date and is what it is.

[Scottishduthie]

That makes a lot of sense, I will give this a try. I didn't realise that was how that folder works so always appreciate a better understanding, thanks very much. 

[Icemanau]

With the Source and Destination arrows, ACADE comes with 4 predefined styles and allows room for another 5 custom styles. Which style is used is set by the styles tab in the DWG Properties and Project Properties. The specific dwg properties will override the project properties but a new dwg which has the project properties applied will match the project settings anyway.

The block names to look for are HA?S# and HA?D#. The ? indicates which style it is (1-9) while the # indicates the connection direction (1-4). Styles 1-4 are provided with ACADE leaving 5-9 as custom styles for the user to set up.

As for a Custom Blocks folder, I have that in the same directory as all the library folders on a server not in the actual library directory itself. This makes it easy to copy to the new location and the contents aren't affected by any updates, uninstalls or new releases. Just make sure that it is listed before your current library in the search path in the project settings. That way ACADE will find your custom (or modified) symbols before finding the standard symbol.

Regards Brad

[rhesusminus]

I wouldn't out it inside the iec-60617 folder keep it away from anything standard. It will make it easier when you upgrade to a new version later.

[rhesusminus]

Sorry. An old reply stuck in my outbox.