Custom Leader LISP

[grantmhollier]

Hello all,

This may be long winded but i want the full situation here so i can get the best answer.

We had an old function that was in place long before i got here and it somehow got lost in computer upgrades and AUTOCAD edition changes. What this function did was:

User types "LE"

Then is prompted for options for Leader head type "A for Arrow" " L for Loop" " and "H for Homerun"

after this option is selected you then pick a point to place the leader head and can draw a series of arcs ( not a spline).

When that is entered- Option comes up for "T for Text" or "K for keynote" or "N for none"

This all follows DIMSCALE.

Ive found a way to get close with the text/ none options using custom MLEADERs i made and attached to the tool pallete.

(These follow Annotation Scale of course)

Here is the problem- We want our Keynote Octagon box to be one color (Cyan) and the text inside it to be another (green).  From what ive seen MLEADER makes these items the same color. It would also be desired that this would follow DIMSCALE and not Anno just because thats what the old one did. Besides, our main drafter really liked the ability to type "LE>>>A>>>K" and get a nice little arrow arc and keynote. Can someone get me on the right track of creating a LISP or advice on this? I have very little knowledge on the LISP functions. He was previously using AUTOCAD 2013 when this function last worked. 

Thanks in advance for any tips suggestions.

[ВeekeeCZ]

Better post DWG sample to see what you are talking about.

[grantmhollier]

Sample of what the leader should look like?

[pendean]

yes

[ВeekeeCZ]

Well -- I just googled it.

You can either wait for someone who knows this (US? / industry?) standards... or make a drawing that explains the thing to anyone (not necessarily me) who has no idea about that. 

[grantmhollier]

I hope this helps. Thanks.

[Kent1Cooper]

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@grantmhollier wrote:

.... We want our Keynote Octagon box to be one color (Cyan) and the text inside it to be another (green). ....

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For that part [it's a hexagon], you can just assign the Cyan color to the hexagon in the Block definition.  While Properties for the Multileader says the Source Block is called Hexagon, it's really called _TagHexagon -- I just Inserted one of those independently of a Leader, and REFEDITed it to make the hexagon a different color, and those attached to the Multileaders changed accordingly.

[grantmhollier]

Thanks! I knew there was something easy that I missed on that part. Now
really the only other thing id really like to have is for my MLEADERS to
have a PLINE leader whip and not the crazy spline they give you.

[Kent1Cooper]

[You could also assign the different color to the Attribute, rather than to the hexagon.]

For many discussions including arguments against your notion of a Polyline-style leader path, and complications involved in faking a curved Leader in other-than-spline format, do a Search for terms like "Arc Leader" -- this has come up many times before.  Extending the concept of a true-Arc imitation of a Leader to a Polyline makes the whole thing even more undesirable, in my opinion, for the reasons you'll see discussed.

[grantmhollier]

One more question ( and yes I searched the forums for this one). Is there any way I can edit the tag_hexagon block so it automatically inserts at the desired colors, even in a new drawing? It's not a big chore to ref edit each time I start a new drawing but would be nice to eliminate that step. 

Thanks again for all your help.

[Kent1Cooper · Accepted solution]

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@grantmhollier wrote:

.... Is there any way I can edit the tag_hexagon block so it automatically inserts at the desired colors, even in a new drawing? ....

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Where did it come from?  If it's a .dwg file, you can open that and assign the color(s), or if it's a Block pulled from some drawing such as with the Design Center, you can open that drawing and edit the Block definition there.