Work in CAD while dialogue window open

[yuben112]

Hi all,

I am curious if there is a switch in cad to allow cad to function when a dialogue box such as structure properties in pipe network. In other dialogue boxes or windows such as layer manager and xref manager, you can still work in CAD with them open on the side, but when dialogue box like structure properties is open the rest of CAD is "locked" for lack of better word. I think it would save a lot of going back and forth. Many Thanks.

[michael_robertson]

Those types of things are usually driven by the tool programming and how AutoCAD code starts the tool, not by a variable/setting. They are known as model (doesn't allow interaction outside of tool) & modeless (allows interaction outside the tool) forms/dialogs.

[dgorsman]

Erm - that should be "modal" and "modeless".

[Cadguru42]

I agree with the OP. After 15 years it's ridiculous that Civil 3D has so many modal dialog boxes for displaying and editing data. The one that is the most frustrating for me has been the survey figure properties window. 

I'm not a programmer, but I don't know why it should be so hard to get the object data that shows up in the special C3D dialog boxes to show up in the regular properties window and allow it to be edited from there. They already do that partially with subassemblies, but there are a lot of others like survey figures, survey points, etc. that can't. 

[dgorsman]

It may not be a technology restriction, it could be a procedural one.  There may be a need to enforce certain things (fields being completed, data verified) before the user can be allowed to edit the model contents.  There may also be a need to prevent the user from editing the model content at the same time, which would invalidate the contents of the modeless dialog.

[yuben112]

Well. That is sad. Hope they make some effort to make this software better.

Any recommendations out there of a user-friendly software, better than AutoCAD?