construction detail insertion wizard
Old fashioned pop menu as 1st suggestion
You pick a block/dwg and its name is added to a list, pressing cancel will exit with no value saved so then insert all your blocks/dwgs. Note if your dwgs are in a support path only need name and not full path.
The old fashioned menu supports next so can have more than 20 items displayed.
Happy to explain how to make a mnu. The images are Slides. If you can use notepad you can make the image shown.
Ok now remember this is old fashioned goes back to start of Autocad, but is easy to make. Yes people will talk about tool palettes I just find this easier and I am in control not Autocad.
You need to understand how a POP menu works it has sections and in this case we take advantage of the IMAGE section. That does just displays a SLIDE image in the please pick box.
This will be a little long winded.
***MENUGROUP=abcSTDS
***POP20
**CADLIB
[LIBRARY]
[->Stddwgs]
[TRENCH]$I=abcSTDS.TRENCH $I=*
[PIPES]$I=abcSTDS.PIPES $I=*
[PITS]$I=abcSTDS.PITS $I=*
[KERBS]$I=abcSTDS.KERBS $I=*
[ROADX]$I=abcSTDS.ROADX $I=*
[PAVEMENTS]$I=abcSTDS.PAVEMENT $I=*
[MISC]$I=abcSTDS.MISC $I=*
[<-]
[->IDM dwgs]
[TRENCH]$I=abcSTDS.IDMTRENCH $I=*
[PIPES]$I=abcSTDS.IDMPIPES $I=*
[PITS]$I=abcSTDS.IDMPITS $I=*
[KERBS]$I=abcSTDS.IDMKERBS $I=*
[ROADX]$I=abcSTDS.IDMROADX $I=*
[PAVEMENTS]$I=abcSTDS.IDMPAVEMENT $I=*
[<-]
This continues for the rest of your menu unitil you get to image section***image
**PITS
[PITS]
[abcSLD(SD301,PIT DIM SET OUT)]^C^C(openblk "P:/ACADSTDS/CIVIL STANDARDS/CGG301")
[abcSLD(SD302,UNHAUNCHED)]^C^C(openblk "P:/ACADSTDS/CIVIL STANDARDS/CGG302")
[abcSLD(SD303,HAUNCHED)]^C^C(openblk "P:/ACADSTDS/CIVIL STANDARDS/CGG303")
[abcSLD(SD304,MIN WALL THICK)]^C^C(openblk "P:/ACADSTDS/CIVIL STANDARDS/CGG304")
Ok if we look at a line in the image section
[abcSLD(SD305,STEP IRONS)]^C^C(openblk "blablah")
abcsld is a slide library it holds say a 100 slides in one file, you do not need to worry about that at moment.
(SD305,STEP IRONS) SD305 is the name of the slide and "Step irons" is a description
^C^C cancel current command twice at least.
(openblk "blablah") is a lisp program that inserts a block, you would use the following say for a "PIPE1" block.
[(PIPE1,PIPE1)]^C^C(command "-insert" "pipe1" pause 1 1 0)
or a pathed answer
[abcSLD(LeftLaneMustTurnLeftSign,MustTurnLeft)]^c^c-INSERT P:/Autodesk/blocks/trafficsign/LeftLaneMustTurnLeftSign DRAG \1 1 0
a
The menu file I copied out of is 750 lines long and matches this yes I need to recapture should be pits, so I start with stddwgs then select a sub group within and finally choose which block.
Ok now tricky bit but if you do you can have a go at making get stuck make a zip of your mnu and slides and post.
Making a slide is capturing an image of your block, so have block on screen I turn off all junk not required say dims etc. Now for a history lesson slides came in like 40 years ago when computer res was 640x480 not 4k like now, why am i metioning because your slides will be screwed if you use high res. So the quick way around is reduce your Cad screen to like a 1/4 size, get your block do Zoom E then zoom 0.9xp, this is a nice size, the MSLIDE this makes a slide save it to a directory, the directory should be in your support path makes life easier.
Ok to check use VSLIDE should be self explanatory.
Open Notepad and make a start using what I posted as an example. I have been doing this for like 40 years and have a lot of shortcuts latest writes the mnu based on a slide list. You can make like 100 slides in one go using a script or a lisp. But I donot want togo down that path just yet.
Make a mnu with say 5 blocks. Just a comment we had like 500 blocks in our library.
Look at left side of this image, cars had like 20.
