Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published September 2012

A Quick Access Button to Set a Layer

Keeping track of the layer you need to be on is a daily struggle. Over the years we've seen how to set that up on the Tool Palette to automate the layer the Text or Dimension is going onto. But what if you just want to set your default layer to current, such as the Shell layer, or, in the case of many of my customers, A-FURN.

We'll add this to the Quick Access Toolbar, too, but first we have to break down the command we'll be adding.

Layers From the Command Line

The button we add can't launch the Layer Properties Manager; it has to launch the Command line version of that feature: -LA

To launch the old-timey version of many AutoCAD commands, you precede their alias with a hyphen. For the Layer command you get the following:

Enter an option [?/Make/Set/New/Rename/ON/OFF/Color/Ltype/LWeight/Transparency/ MATerial/Plot/Freeze/Thaw/LOck/Unlock/stAte/Description/rEconcile]:

Of the first three options — Make/Set/New — Make will not only create the layer, but it will also set it to current AND, if the layer already exists, it will simply set that layer to be current. Basically, cake & eat it, too!

How to Configure the QAT to Set a Layer to Current

1. Launch the CUI, then expand Quick Access Toolbars, then Quick Access Toolbars 1 to display the current content of the QAT.

2. Just above the Command List, click the button for Create a New Command. You will then see ‘Commandx’ in the list.

3. Drag your new command into the Quick Access Toolbar list of commands.

4. Now click on the command in the list to display the Properties in the lower right area of the CUI.

5. Give it a Display ‘Name’, and a ‘Command Name’, then enter the following in the Macro line, where you put the layer name you want to be current:

   '-LA;M;A-FURN;;

   Note: Many times, we will launch a command and only then discover that the layer needs to be changed. The leading apostrophe in the above macro will run the -LA command as a ‘nested’ routine; it won't cancel the current command, just put it on hold. Since the -LA command returns the option string after each requested setting, the final semi-colon completes the command.

6. Rather than making a new button top [See Michael's Corner April 2011 for that process], find an icon in the vast collection of existing AutoCAD buttons and click it to assign it to the blank command button.

7. You may also want to add a ‘Tooltip Title’ before clicking OK to complete your QAT addition.

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