Easier way to work with blocks?

After using AutoCAD daily for over a month, I got some questions again...

1) Resize blocks to any dimension. (from 600x750 to 620x810, not just scaling it), I'm told dynamic blocks can do this, but I can't locate a good tutorial for it... or is there an alternative method?

2) Can I have an additional toolbar or sidebar where I can place my most commonly used blocks? So I can just drag and drop them instead of using INSERT all the time.

3) Can we "lock" certain blocks so they can't be copied or moved? Or even better, lock a layer so noone can edit it or copy anything from it?

I was thinking of blocking the entire layer and unchecking "Allow Explode" , people can still copy the blocks, but it will just be a huge mess, would there be any workarounds for this if someone really wanted to copy them?

Personally, I think my boss is a little paranoid but it is a competitive market and he's the boss...

Thanks.

1: You can scale x & y diferently so you can draw all your blocks @ 1x1 and change the sizes in properties. Dynamic blocks are a much neater solution though. I think most of us tried a parameter|action pair at a time until we understood what was happening. Try with distance|stretch to resize along one axis.

2: Look at palettes. Brilliant for what you want to do. Add a new palette to the supplied one and go from there.

3: Not really. Most of these "lock" ideas only frustrate the legitimate user.

1) Yes and no... It depends on composition of the block

2) Put them on the Tool Palette (type "TP" at the command line) or Design Center

3) No. If you don't want others to have your original content, don't give it to them in the original format.

Have Mr. Paranoid, your boss, look at DETER.VLX which is freebie available at the dotSoft website.

http://www.dotsoft.com/freestuff.htm

what exactly does DETER.VLX do?

what exactly does DETER.VLX do?

Other than what it says at the website I could not say. Download it, run it and test it. Report back here with your comments.

Well... initial testing is that it prohibits exploding the stuff you selected. It will group them up and no matter what, it won't explode.

The other thing is absolutely brilliant. It prevents the user from copying it. As in, you can't CTRL+C the locked stuff. Neither can you drag it into another drawing.

I'm not at work so I can't test to see if this works across computers but so far, it's pretty good.

edit: It seems I got carried away. After I closed the drawing and opened it, I could copy it again. For some reason it doesn't prevent copying anymore. Will test it more tomorrow at work.

Thank you for your assessment thus far. It will prove invaluable to other like-minded individuals when it comes to securing their drawings.

Hmm... after some discussion, we decided to do away with trying to lock anything.

Just got to have faith in our partners.

Probably a good decision, as there are no real "locks".... only mild deterrents that are easy to defeat for anyone with a mind to do so.