What is a force multiplier? I'm sure there is a concise definition out there, but for me, it's any tool that I can use which greatly improves efficiency. I'm extremely lazy, so I am always looking for force multipliers. That way my half-hearted efforts can produce equivalent efforts of more competent workers. In case my employer ever reads this, I'm joking (but not really). I'm a strong proponent of working smarter and not harder, with an emphasis on not working hard. As it turns out, my efforts to be just as productive as my peers often fail and I unintentionally create things that allow me to be far more productive than my peers. This over-productivity is a direct result of the adaptability and flexibility of the tools I use. One reason I love working with AutoCAD is the rich features that allow for customization and 'working smarter.'
AutoCAD seems like a tool that can get just about anything done and in several different ways... though it sometimes takes some customizing. For me AutoCAD is a force multiplier due to the myriad of ways it can be customized. You can customize the User Interface, and you can run Lisps, you can run macros, you can run scripts, you can use the action recorder just to name a few of the out of the box options available to you.
In this post I want to focus on macros, and specifically using the tool palette to launch and test macros. Many of the jobs I encounter have nuanced repetitive tasks. So I need the ability to rapidly create and tailor macros to job specific tasks. When you use the tool palette to host your macro it gives you easy access to edit and modify the macro.
In the example below I used a macro to change the direction of the arcs of a rev cloud. This particular example is pulled from a question from the forums, but I have created and deployed this exact macro for a job previously. There were about 30 drawings on which I needed to fix the rev clouds and having this macro made short work of it.
So lets take it from the top. To begin, lets create our tool palette. Click on the view tab. On the Palettes Panel, click tool palettes.
Once the tool palettes are open, right click and select new palette.
Its a good practice to rename the new palette to something meaningful. Right click and click rename.
Next we need to create a command. To create the command open the Customize User Interface dialog by typing CUI in the command line.
To create a new command click on the Star Icon.
Creating a new command can be tricky as it drops the command in as command1 and sometimes the list will not show that section so you have to scroll to the new command.
It is a good practice to rename your new command. Right click on the command and select Rename. I named this one as "REVCLOUDREVERSE." Trust me on this... name it something. By the time you hit command6 it gets pretty confusing and a pain to deal with.
Next locate the newly created command in the command list. selecting the command will bring up the properties window for that command. In the macro field you can insert your macro text in the macro section.
The macro I'm using is below.
^C^C_pedit;\_D;;.revcloud;o;l;
Once you have your macro in the macro property for the command click apply.
Next, click and drag your command from the command list to your new palette. This will allow you to run your command from the tool palette.
Below you can see the macro in action.
Personally I rarely have the macro dialed in perfectly the first time. I often need to make changes to the macro. This can easily be done from the tool palette. Right click on the command on the tool palette and you can edit the command's macro.
The ability to quickly edit the macro from the palette allows you to easily tweak the macro for job specific tasks. This aspect for me is the most important as it allows for rapid development of my macros.
Usually I will have several of these macros that I will change and tailor to the particular project that I am working on. I also keep a "TEST" command that I will use to author new macros. This allows for quick and rapid iteration and adjustments. Once I have it behaving like I want I will copy the test macro into a more permanent command.
One of the more exciting feature coming from the AutoCAD development team is the Macro Recommendation feature. The beauty of this is that there are frequently repeated tasks that I don't realize that I do. So this helps me identify even more tasks I can optimize.
If you have not looked into using macros I would strongly suggest it. Work smarter, not harder.
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