Ordinate Dimension - Specific margin for text placement

[Anonymous]

I was wondering if there is a way to make a LISP for the ordinate dimension command to where when you click the point you are trying to dimension it automatically places the dim text at a certain distance so that all the dimensions on the X and Y plane are lined up....i attached a picture for reference, we have to click twice meaning the location getting dimensioned and then the location of the text, just want to be able to click once and then the text gets automatically placed 

[Kent1Cooper]

If it was always the same distance from the Dimensioned location, I can imagine a way to write a routine to do that.  But your image involves the same distance from something else, with the distance to the Text from the Dimensioned location varying.  I imagine it would still take multiple picks -- the Dimensioned location and somewhere about that something else [in this case the surrounding rectangle].

But even if one could pick the rectangle just once, and have the Text parts of all following Dimensions automatically positioned relative to that, you have an inconsistency.  All but one  of your Y-coordinate Dimensions have their Text off the right side of the rectangle, and all but one  of your X-coordinate Dimensions have their Text off the top.  By what criteria could a routine decide that the Text of a given Dimension should be placed off one side rather than the opposite one?

[Anonymous]

I understand what you are saying I never thought about that...is there a way to make is so there is a margin that the dimensions can lock to instead of setting a distance, for example have a 1" margin on every side of the block to where the text can be placed.

[Kent1Cooper]

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@Anonymous wrote:

....is there a way to make is so there is a margin that the dimensions can lock to instead of setting a distance, for example have a 1" margin on every side of the block to where the text can be placed.

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That sounds doable, with certain questions arising:  Are they always Blocks?  Is the rectangle part always the outermost extent of the entire Block?  Are they always orthogonally oriented?

[Anonymous]

No they are not always blocks, a variety of different components need to be dimensioned, but mostly they are rectangles...Would it be easier to have on offset margin from the 0,0 point instead of the edge of the component being dimensioned.  Yes to the orthogonal question

[Kent1Cooper]

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@Anonymous wrote:

No they are not always blocks, a variety of different components need to be dimensioned....

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For a Block [with rectangular perimeter and orthogonally oriented], its bounding box can be extracted, and a Polyline rectangle built along that, which can be Offset.  For a Polyline, of course it can be Offset directly [there are routines around to Offset a Polyline always outboard without the User having to pick to which side].  But does "a variety of different components" mean more possibilities than those, such as that a rectangle could be, for example, 4 Lines?  Or have some number-less-than-4 of its sides as a Polyline and the rest as Lines or another Polyline?  Those kinds of possibilities would start to become greatly more complicated to deal with.  I have something to find the overall extents of a selection set of any number of items, which could be used as a collective bounding box similarly to that for a Block, but the User would need to be watching, see what's been selected already and ensure that all pieces making up such a "component" have been picked.  Are there any other entity type possibilities?