me so stoopid about viewports

[charleyy]

okay, confession time: *l-o-n-g* time acad user and abuser, but i am not understanding some viewport 'features' that feel like bugs to me:

1. UCSFOLLOW: i don't get it, don't like it, and it doesn't do anything for me except make *other* viewports contents jump around weirdly. i have actually read a couple tutorials, etc on this, and *still* don't see what use it has for me (bearing in mind that there are a million autocad commands that are useful only in certain circumstances; i'm sure there are applications it is helpful)

2. related to that, in using drawings set up by others, i go to one viewport and double-click it to pan the view to another widget in model space, change the scale, whatever, and *another* separate viewport decides on its own it wants to flip around to some oddball view, for dog's sake *why*?

i WANT my viewports to be separate and discreet, not connected in some fashion that messes up another one. i don't get it.
(the original viewport had UCSFOLLOW = 0, and the other = 1; *why* is simply double-clicking the original viewport causing the other to flip around?)

in any event, i usually work around these things by simply making new viewports, etc; but i *like* to take existing drawings as templates when they have most of the same type of work I'm going to be doing on a new project, but the viewport weirdness makes that reuse of files annoying.

color me stoopid,
charleyy
charley@svmarchitects.com

[BlackBox]

Charley -

First, welcome to CADTutor!

As an immediate second, I would NOT post your email address unless you greatly desire to have you inbox inundated with spam. Just saying.

[ReMark]

Can't say I've ever had any of those things happen while using viewports and I use them quite often. I may have to run a test just for my own curiosity.

Do you lock your viewport displays?

[Dadgad]

Are the viewports of which you speak, in your paperspace or in your modelspace?

Instead of actually using previous drawings as templates, you might want to save a drawing which has passed muster, and you think will have future applicability as a TEMPLATE. With the drawing open SAVEAS > ENTER > assign it a name which will be the TEMPLATE name, and select the file type as .dwt. Later if you want to use it, you can either define it as a default template, or just type in your commandline NEW > ENTER, and you will be taking to your template file selection dialog, to choose it or whichever one you want to use.

Locking your viewports is always recommended, once you have set up your view and scale. It makes me nuts when I am working on another person's drawing and they haven't done so. Very sloppy.

[BlackBox]

It makes me nuts when I am working on another person's drawing and they haven't done so. Very sloppy.

Visual LISP Command Reactor(s) are your friend.

[Dadgad]

Visual LISP Command Reactor(s) are your friend.

Thanks for the tip, I'm sure you're right, but I've not gotten into LISP very much thusfar. I'm pretty new at this (2 1/2 years). I am very interested however. I do use the ACTION RECORDER a fair amount, which I like to use for redundant tasks, checking and the like.