Some questions/suggestions especially for AutoCAD answer day :-)

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thank you for this opportunity, here are some thoughts/suggestions from me and some of my colleague-AutoCAD users at my company.

Some things that I think that should be considered to be standard available:

- Why are the express tools not standard after so many versions?

- In general there's alot of need for LISP routines, some of them should be considered to turned into a standard command in AutoCAD, is it being researched which ones could qualify to make it a standard command?

- A specific one, BCOUNT: counting of dynamic blocks should be possible too via BCOUNT or a simplified method should also be available instead of using data extraction.

A final question (for now 🙂 ), it's possible to submit ideas on the forum but what about ideas for basic AutoCAD (now only for Civil 3D, Electrical,...)?

Thank you and kind regards,

Bart

[braudpat]

Hello from France

For counting blocks (static or dynamic) into the text screen (F2), I am using since a long time ago an excellent routine from Gilles (gile)

BCNT is able to count static & dynamic blocks + is able to count from A Circle or AN Ellipse (closed) or A Pline (closed)

I am using BCNT very often ... So please appreciate BCNT (with fast US translation) ...

Please load this Lisp/VLisp routine with APPLOAD command ... and then on your keyboard : BCNT <Enter>

Thanks to Gilles, Regards, Patrice (I am not an Autodesk Advisor)

[Anonymous]

Hi again Pat,

Thanks for sharing this very easy and fast working LISP routine for counting normal and dynamic blocks!

I asked this a few years ago and on this AutoCAD answer day I hope someone of the AutoCAD team also reads this post, because it would be nice if it was a standard command in AutoCAD or if they improve the existing BCOUNT command!

Greetings from Belgium,

Bart

[Volker_C · Accepted solution]

Hi Bart,

Thanks for that feedback. Over the years many of the Express Tools have been incorporated into AutoCAD and with feature requests from customers such as yourself I'm certain more will be migrated. Having said that, there are numerous CAD departments that do not want certain Express Tools installed at all. The tools which have been migrated are most commonly used in the drafting environment. 

In addition to the migration of certain Express Tools into the product, the option to install them is now a default, so unless unchecked during installation they will be available to the user.

BCOUNT would indeed be a nice tool to incorporate, and that is a great feature request which I will pass on. I would also encourage you to submit feature requests such as this at our Product Feedback page. The more requests the product team receives the greater the consideration for that feature.

There are alternatives to BCOUNT and DataExtraction, for example the QSELECT command is a powerful tool and I often use it to count blocks. 

I hope I understand the last suggestion correctly. This AutoCAD/AutoCAD LT Answer Day is only the first. There will be future Answer Days for AutoCAD and other Autodesk applications. Stay tuned!

Cheers!

Volker

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply,

In response to your answer:

About Express Tools:  that the option to install them is now a default is indeed an improvement, I asked the question because some of those tools I often use are worth to be added to existing standard toolbars/panels, but maybe it's better it (also) stays on the Express tools tab where people are accustomed to find it.

About BCOUNT/Data extraction/QSELECT: I know and use all these methods depending on the situation, BCOUNT is very fast and easy to use for a quick count of the blocks when you don't need to much additional information.

Now BCOUNT exists for a while and is for many people a well known command I think, but so far iI know it's still a hidden command, there is no command button for it and it still doesn't count dynamic blocks.

About final question about submitting ideas: it would be nice and easy if people with suggestions like these could post them as an "Idea" at, a new to add, "AutoCAD IdeaStation"!

I noticed that a lot of people have the same need for this on this forum!

In addition to this, how can users post questions/suggestions about the forum itself? The forum is already well thought out, but I have some other suggestions.

Kind regards,

Bart.