Trick or Treat! Bonus Tool for AutoCAD 2007 Based Products
No trick as it is a Halloween treat! That's right this blogs 999th post since August 2003 is a new Autodesk Bonus Tool for AutoCAD 2007 and based products. Bonus Tools have been a long standing tradition of Autodesk developers to create cool tools. Suresh Kumar put together this new one named Drawing Tabs. This Bonus Tool is provided as-is with no support. If you like the idea of Bonus Tools perhaps we will provide more for you.
Bonus Tool: Drawing Tabs
This utility allows you to quickly navigate the files which are currently open in your drawing session.
Dear Shaan,
Here's another one for the books. Periodically, creating irregularly shaped Viewports in AutoCAD 2008 results in an anomaly that I cannot figure out nor can any of the CAD gurus in the company.
One moment I am working on one of the Viewports (all are locked) and then the next I zoom out to go to one of the other Viewports and they are or one of them is no longer a Viewport, though in Properties it is listed as a Viewport and a Polyline.....
Nothing any of us have attempted gets the port active again. It is just a polygon with nothing inside. I have to recreate each. A minor annoyance, but if I was doing a presentation and loaded a drawing that the night before was intact with all Viewports locked, only to find that one or more no longer show my data, it could be a disaster.
Help!
Jim
Posted by: Jim Comrada | 08 November 2007 at 09:55
Dear Shaan,
In slowly learning AutoCAD through 2004 to 2008 I had the right-click equivalent of the Edit mode menu with Move, Scale, Rotate, etc. all there at my fingertips. Now it is gone and I see that if I can program a routine in LISP I can maybe get it back. What gives?
Why is this excellent tool to expedite work gone now??
Thanks.
Posted by: Jim Comrada | 08 November 2007 at 09:48
Almost forgot... Uh well i did forget...
Please add this to my comment if you decide to post it...
The ability to move the order of tabs around... Again similar to Firefox...
Posted by: moon47usaco | 05 October 2007 at 09:39
Great add-on... =]
Suggestion:
Proportional shortening/truncating of the tabs and dwg names with newly opened tabs similar to Firefox...
A user defined variable/setting would be good for that too... In the form of max # of tabs or min width of tabs before overflow into the side list pull down...
Our drawing names are fairly long and i can only fit 2-3 before they go into the side list and my resolution is set as high as it gets here (1280x1024)...
I love the full path rollover effect... It makes way for truncating... Would have been my 2nd suggestion but its already there... =]
Thank you,
R
Posted by: moon47usaco | 04 October 2007 at 16:44
I think improvement can be done to everything but i just want to thank you for the good job you done. This tab really helps a lot.
Posted by: JohnnyWalker | 15 September 2007 at 10:05
Wish list.
1. Ability to control font and font size on tabs.
2. Ability to locate tabs on top, bottom, or side.
3. Ability to right click on tab without it switching to that tab.
4. The "X" on each tab (ala FireFox) would be nice, as would some color options for the tabs themselves.
We'll stick with our current tool for now.
Posted by: R.K. McSwain | 04 December 2006 at 19:21
Me either, it happens that after using my tool palette, the current dwg name changes to dccldata.dwg and can't select the tab more. I have used AcadXtabs for 2000 for trial and seems to have a better menu (right-click). The Copy Full Path option in the MDITab, seems to do nothing. Still a great tool.
Now, a sugestion, for a next bonus tool:
A quickpick in Autocad (extended drop-down list, one click toolbar button activation, extended right click, resizable dialogs, etc).
Posted by: JosueS | 27 November 2006 at 10:20
CADwerx docbar2.0...better? Nope, docbar isn't free!!! Not to mention that unwanted (by me) extra menu w/the previews.
Back to the freebie, it would be nice if the tabs had a "x" to close that specific drawing, ala' Firefox 2.0. Also, if the text in the tabs was a wee bit smaller.
The locked drawing "feature" can be distracting, i.e. after closing a locked that was opened, the tab does not go away, but hey the price is right!
Thanks again!
M.
M.
Posted by: yosso | 17 November 2006 at 06:43
I like it. Beats tiling or other garbage.
Posted by: Ralph | 14 November 2006 at 19:20
Thank you for all the feedback. We are researching the issues reported and suggestions for an updated version. We are also looking into posting more of these types of AutoCAD Bonus Tools.
Regards
Shaan Hurley
Autodesk
Posted by: Shaan Hurley | 08 November 2006 at 07:56
maybe the developers could consider adding access to 'recent files' as tabs as well? say they were located to the right...?
Posted by: theo_dore | 08 November 2006 at 05:19
How about a MdiTab16.arx?
We have already paid for 2007 products but cannot use them so we are still using 2006.
Posted by: Getsome | 04 November 2006 at 11:34
I think i have a simular problem !
when i insert a block from a tool palette,
the current dwg name changes into dccldata.dwg and can't select the tab any more !!
Posted by: bdb | 03 November 2006 at 03:23
Great tool...but I think I may have found a glitch or bug...can someone please confirm?
Try this:
1. Open a couple of drawings (or more) with at least one of them having an xref in it.
2. Double click on the xref (or type refedit and pick the xref) and modify it in some way.
3. If you save your changes, the drawing tab will now switch to the name of the xref drawing file name instead of the drawing file name that the xref is in...and it will not let you select that tab either.
The only way that I've found to fix the problem is to close the drawing with the xref in it and reopen it.
Can someone confirm if you are getting the same results???
Posted by: stikfish | 02 November 2006 at 20:17
hi, good start but a way to go to beat CADwerx docbar 2. perhaps thats where they got the ideas?
we have been using these tab bars for years. the only way to control multi open drawings.
still better late than never. cheers. congrats on your 1000th post for tomorrow!
Posted by: greychin | 02 November 2006 at 02:16
Cool- what a great tool, my users will love it. Thanks a million, this will last much longer than candy and is much better for my teeth!
Posted by: Charlie Stewart | 01 November 2006 at 13:05
nice - maybe rightclick menu could contain 'Open' and RecentItems from File menu? Seems logical since 4 items fromthe File menu are present alreday, but not exactly the ones I use the most...
cheers
Posted by: theo_dore | 01 November 2006 at 03:02