ACAD 2002 Bungling blocks

[andyboy]

I am working with an architectural drawing that has the workstation appointments labled with a block (not unlike room numbers) My problem is that some of the stations are for future staff and I have been asked to grey out those boxes. The problem is I can only (as far as I know) edit ALL the blocks, as in "In Place Edit" or explode the block. The trouble is when I explode the block I lose the room assignments and have to retype it. Is there a way to unlock a block with out losing the attributes or redefine certain blocks so I can change their properties (ie colour)

Thanks,

Jason.

[Ako]

You could draw a rectangle over the text and hatch it solid on a grey layer.

Dave

[fuccaro]

I would try a dynamic block. Draw a gray hatch over the text and make it solid or any other pattern. Adjust the hatch scale and add a visibility state to the block. You may make the hatch to appear or to hide with only two clicks.
*********** editing ************
Oh, sorry! You use AutoCAD 2002 so you have no dynamic blocks...
Well, maybe others can benefit from my answer.

[CyberAngel]

Couldn't you simply put the 'future' blocks on a separate layer? You might have to redefine the block and put everything on layer 0 (a good idea anyway), so that they'd "stay put" on their layers, but that would be easier than retyping all that info.

[Steamineagle]

Hi! Andyboy,

I think Cyberangel has hit with an idea that I’ve used on a number of occasions.
I kinda found this out by accident a while ago.
Lets say you draw a bunch of objects, including text, all on one layer called ONE & you block them whilst layer ONE is current & then you insert this block into the drawing whilst layer ONE is current.
When you go to freeze (after transfering to another layer) the block disappears. That’s easy enough.

If you make another layer current, say TWO, and you insert this block again, it will read as being on layer TWO but we all know it’s made from layer ONE. If you freeze either of the two layers the block will disappear!

What I’ve done in the past is create another new layer specifically for controlling a whole drawing inserted into another drawing as a block even though the inserted blocked drawing was made up of 50 layers or more. When I blocked the first drawing, I blocked it under this special layer so that when I froze it inside the second drawing the whole lot disappeared without interfering with the rest of the current drawing which had layers of the same names.
In effect the block had multi layer properties, all of them controllable!
It was magic!
Put the chosen blocks all on to a layer for this purpose.( future )
If you do this you should be able to control the chosen blocks without having to interfere with the original block attribute set ups.

Let us know if this worked of not.

regards

Stephen