It is RIDICULOUS that you can't see all of your open tabs in AutoCAD at once. FIX THIS.

[Anonymous]

How is it that there hasn't been an implementation yet to have multiple rows of tabs visible at the same time? 

[jseefdrumr]

If that's a feature you'd like to see implemented, consider posting it on an Ideas forum. It's unlikely that anyone from Autodesk who can do something about this will see it in the general forums.

Since this would be for all versions of ACAD, not just ACADE, I'd post it in the General AutoCAD Ideas forum.

[pendean]

If you only wish to rant and never get heard, you've succeeded.

If you want to be taken seriously, the places to ask for new abilities are here:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-electrical-ideas/idb-p/37
and
https://www.autodesk.com/company/contact-us/product-feedback
and
https://www.augi.com/wish-list

HTH

[dougmcalexander]

I may have misinterpreted your post, but, since release 2014, there are tabs - one for every drawing you open.  You can click them to move from one open drawing to another.  

Having multiple drawings from the same project open at once presented some issues for the Electrical data manager when AutoCAD started allowing this, but the programmers have worked very hard over the years to equip the data manager to maintain a healthy database, even as drawings are open and in flux.  I personally try to keep the number of open drawings to a minimum though.

[jseefdrumr]

Doug, I believe what the OP is looking for is to see the tabs shift into two rows when there are too many to display in a single row. Currently, ACAD keeps all tabs in a single row and puts up the little arrows that direct you to either the front end of the row or the back end of the row.

Like you, I tend to work ACADE with a minimum of drawings open at the same time; I have a nice wide monitor and I rarely open up so many drawings that the tabs don't all fit in one row. That said, I can see the value in multiple rows for tabs, I'd vote for this if I saw it on the Ideas Forum.

[dougmcalexander]

Jim, I wonder if he is referring to the ribbon menu tabs?  They do compress and become fly-outs if the screen isn’t wide enough to support the resolution.  

The way I teach the software is to keep a minimum number of drawings open.  I never saw a database crash until Multiple Document Interface was introduced and Electrical was forced to accommodate it.  

If I have enough drawings  open that it would require a second row, I am seriously tempting fate, when it comes to database integrity, not to forget the drag it places on  computer resources.

[jseefdrumr]

I don't think so....even on a small monitor it would be hard to have all the ribbon tabs use up all the available space. Pretty sure OP meant the drawing tabs - I've seen this in other software.

Even though I started ACADE after MDI was 'incorporated', I have always tried to work with a bare minimum of drawings open at once. I actually CAN'T open up too many of my panel drawings at once, because they are all very laden with wipeouts. All of the footprints have one, plus I use them randomly to obscure things for readability - including my balloons for the BOM. Wipeouts extract a pretty decent performance penalty, cumulatively at least, so if you open enough drawings that have enough wipeouts, you could lock up ACAD.

That said, I've had well over a dozen schematic drawings open at one time, and I usually don't see issues with my databases. However, as a force of habit, I also run AEREBUILDDB at least once an hour, no matter which project I'm in or how big/small it is. Given that, I just can't be sure what sort of effect there might be by keeping so many drawings open in these newer versions of ACADE.

Regardless, I think adding a multiple-row functionality for the drawing tabs is a worthy addition to the core ACAD software. Like I said, I'd vote for that, even though it would have limited use in ACADE specifically.

[dougmcalexander]

I guess I am more conservative.  I want to see current features made more “bullet-proof” before introducing new features.  Anytime sonething new is added, it has the potential to break something that has been working fine.  This is called regression in the programming world.

For example, there is a serious problem with the past three releases for those who sequentially number their wires, if they also use the Terminal Jumper utility to designate jumpers between schematic terminal symbols, and those same circuits use source and destination arrows to continue across multiple drawings, such as a power bus.  Inserting wire numbers drawing wide will result in different wire numbers than when inserting wire numbers project wide.  This is a serious integrity issue.

[rhesusminus]

Well Doug. The wrie numbering is a problem for the AcadE devlopment team. Multi-row drawing tabs would be the core AutoCAD development team.
A organization like Autodesk should be able to handle both issues.

But I really don't see the issue here. If you open between 20 and 30 drawings, the context (right-click) menu will stop working anyway 🤣 (Old, known issue)

[testsubject]

I typically have between 5-10 drawings open at once but I definitely close all but one if I am doing a signal update. If you don't the text justification go all wonky.