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Hi Steven, That is definitely a very disciplined on-premise setup! Putting the explicit network path directly into the load call (e.g., (load "Z:/CAD_Standards/...")) is certainly much cleaner than relying on AutoCAD's native search paths to guess where a file lives. For a single office where everyone is hardwired to a local Gigabit LAN running plain-text LISP routines, it has been a lightweight way to maintain a central file. Where that setup typically runs into real-world friction usually comes down to two specific scenarios: 1. Laptops, Job Sites & VPN Latency: If an engineer opens their laptop at home or on a job site without connecting to the company VPN first, Z:\ doesn't exist. AutoCAD will noticeably hang trying to resolve that dead network path before throwing an error. Even over VPN, querying scripts across Windows SMB introduces noticeable command hesitation. 2. Windows SMB File Locks & Concurrent Read Collisions: Overwriting a shared .lsp on the fly sounds seamless, but over Windows SMB networks it frequently collides with OS-level OpLocks (Opportunistic Locking) and lingering file leases, resulting in "Sharing Violation: File is in use" errors. Even worse is the race condition: if an administrator saves a script while a drafter's on-demand macro triggers a read, AutoCAD can ingest a partially written file, throwing a fatal "; error: malformed list on input" and breaking their active command. And the moment a firm introduces compiled binaries (.fas, .vlx, .arx, .dll), Windows places a hard shared read-lock on the file the second anyone opens CAD—making live server updates during work hours completely impossible without forcing everyone to exit. In Part 2 of this series, I dive a bit deeper into how we use a local sandbox cache model to tackle these exact remote work and file-locking bottlenecks: For a strictly in-house, LAN-only team with plain LISPs, keeping it simple the way you do works if everyone is in the building. We're primarily addressing the distributed teams and compiled environments where those network drops, SMB conflicts, and file locks become daily headaches. At the end of the day, VedaCAD doesn't aim to revolutionize drawing functions or replace your team's beloved scripts—it's simply a deployment manager for your routines (.lsp, .fas, .vlx, .arx, .dll) and environment standards (.dwt, .ctb, .shx) to modernize delivery across changing fleets. Appreciate you chiming in with your team's workflow, Steven! And you're always welcome to test VedaCAD whenever you have time—I'd love to get your thoughts.

We just add the file path to the 'load' string - the files being saved on the company drive and not on a support path. We all access to the same file, not a local copy, any updates are applied to all when the file is saved. 1 line in the startup menu to load the on-demand LISP / index. Time honoured maybe but it works well and is well understood by the CAD teams.

Agreed, the -DWGUNITS command is quite comprehensive, and particularly when receiving drawings from a non-team member. When I want to use it, I expand my commandline history to display 5 or 6 lines, in one go, all the better to display the numerous options.

We basically used our DWT so would insert an external dwg then way more than units were correct. The only disclaimer is that most of our dwg's started off with "Model" only no layouts. Our design process created those.

Haha, oh no, BIGAL—I see where the confusion came from! Let me completely clear that up: A VCID is NOT a command alias, and it is definitely NOT a shortcut you type to draw! Nobody is typing arbitrary 6-character codes like "123, 456" to draw walls or doors. I would hate that software too! Here is how the architecture actually works: VCID is just an Asset Identifier: It is purely a package tracking code used once to fetch and sandbox the file (or pushed silently by the CAD Manager from the cloud). Instant, Lossless Alias Customization: Once on the machine, the draftsperson draws using their normal human aliases (e.g., W for wall, D for door). But here is the real game-changer: VedaCAD allows users and CAD managers to reassign any custom alias on the fly via our GUI, without ever editing acad.pgp, without writing wrapper LISP routines (defun c:...), and without modifying a single line of third-party source code. And regarding that conditional loading pattern you shared: (if (not ahbutts) (load "Multi radio buttons")) Using (if (not <func>) (load ...)) as a local load-guard has been a time-honored AutoLISP idiom since the 1990s. But as we touched upon in our previous discussion regarding Install.lspand AUTOLOAD, that pattern hits severe architectural limits in an enterprise environment: Search Path Fragility: (load "filename") strictly assumes the file is already sitting somewhere in AutoCAD’s native Support File Search Path. Furthermore, without a fallback argument, if the path breaks or an engineer takes a laptop to a disconnected job site, that one-liner crashes with a fatal ; error: LOAD failed. Zero Path Dependency in VedaCAD: VedaCAD completely bypasses AutoCAD's Support Paths. We engineered an independent, version-controlled Mapping Database. It binds custom aliases directly to the physical binaries vaulted inside an isolated local sandbox. The command executes natively without touching, polluting, or relying on AutoCAD's fragile support search paths at all. This series is specifically focused on solving deployment and governance nightmares for CAD Managers running enterprise fleets across dozens of workstations—where relying on manual path configurations and individual workstation edits simply doesn't scale. Hopefully that clears up the distinction between our backend mapping database and the actual drafting aliases! --- Just thinking about this a bit more, it really highlights how diverse everyone's CAD setup is. For folks who have spent decades fine-tuning their personal POP menus and local routines until it's second nature—honestly, don't fix what isn't broken! Everyone’s workflow is unique. On that note, I also wanted to give a quick shoutout to developers like @Paul Li , who recently took the time to actually test VedaCAD against his own real-world, complex application setups and sent over some amazingly detailed, hands-on feedback. It’s that kind of practical testing in the trenches that helps bridge the gap between traditional CAD habits and modern deployment. Really appreciate folks taking the time to kick the tires out in the wild!

I am using V25 had properties window open, ran code by @mhupp and it worked properties window displays and objects are highlited.

J2lstaples, I have been using AI a bit lately, When I code a bigger project even small ones I write numerous defuns the reason being they solve one task but a program may need 5 task defuns. Also I can test that defun and make sure its working correctly rather having one great big program and trying to find where it is not working. But sometimes the AI just does not work for a defun task so have to go back to searching old fashioned way. You can use AI but you have to know how to describe a task, knowing who some lisp functions like SSget work with filters. Not sure what AI would think of this, I will do old fashioned way. "Drag line over multiple parallel p/Lines get two out side linework, offset both outward further make a box, now ssget text on a layer within that box. Also get how many lines, Then sort and count the text multiplied by the number of lines and put results in a table." Yes it is a current post request, not here at Cadtutor. I am interested in what AI can do and how long it takes to make something that works.

It only takes one line to check is a program already loaded if not then demand losd. if (not ahbutts)(load "Multi radio buttons")) In the majority of programs to draw objects walls doors windows etc plus much much more are all demandloaded from a POP menu. It really comse down to how your going to present your programs to an end user, POP, Ribbon and toolbars can be used, yes your token method can be used also. I know of some software that pushed hard remember the option number to run a program, so a discussion would be use 123 pick objects then 456 and finish with 789. I had no idea what they were talking about.

Though I would quite often check because I would need to change the PRECISION or make sure the INSUNITS are correctly set by using the UNITS command, I would seldom check the actual drawing units by using the -DWGUNITS command. I would say it's most important to make sure the current units are recognized by AutoCAD as mm or inches and etc than if it's Architectural/Engineering/Decimal.

@SLW210 I’m using a Microsoft Pinyin to input Chinese. As you can see in the picture.

Thanks again for the feedback! We’ve already updated the section view so the cut faces are now properly closed, which should make the result much more intuitive. If you find CADProps useful, we’d really appreciate it if you could share it with colleagues or others who might benefit from it. And of course, any further feedback is always welcome!

Yes, it’s currently completely free to use. If you think it could be useful to the CADTutor community, we’d really appreciate it if you could share it with other members or include it in any relevant CAD resources/tools section. We’re also happy to keep improving it based on feedback from the community.

I am curious to understand what the problem is. Right now, I am working 400 km away from home and only have access to an old PC running Windows 10 and AutoCAD 2002. I must say that this code actually works for me. I will try testing it soon on a more recent version of AutoCAD, and then perhaps I’ll add a further comment.

@GLAVCVSI just tried commenting out that line as you recommended but still no joy. The freezing up now also occurs on the Win 11 OS. Even after I unfreeze the Select Files window, I still cannot Cancel out but I must make a file selection to dismiss the window. The behavior just seems very unstable with a persistent powershell setup at least on the systems I tested at my end. But thanks for your feedback & code revisions. Perhaps others here can use this faster alternative if it's stable running the code this way on their systems.

The last line of code (pl:getfiledps "Hola" "c:\\" "dwg" 1) is for testing purposes and should not be loaded at startup. Comment it out, save the changes, and open a new drawing to reload the code. Once the file has loaded, you can execute (pl:getfiledps "Hola" "c:\\" "dwg" 1). The reason for this is that PowerShell runs asynchronously, and `pl:getfiledps` might execute before the PowerShell instance is available.

@GLAVCVS Thanks for updating the code. Unfortunately, it still freezes up on me with AutoCAD on Win 10. I'll have to use the method to make either Edge on one computer or Outlook on another computer current to unfreeze the Select Files window. But on both Win 10 & Win 11, I'll encounter another problem. After loading the code on the current dwg and then I open another dwg and run the code there I would encounter problems. The error would read: Command: (pl:getfiledps "Hola" "c:\\" "dwg" 1) ("__ERROR__ The property 'FileName' cannot be found on this object. Verify that the property exists and can be set.")

I've edited the code again, and it seems to have worked this time.

Have you ever created a curved 3D model that looked smooth while working on it, but the edges appeared faceted or rough? The geometry may be correct. The display can be affected by the visual style and object smoothness settings. For curved solids, I first check the visual style and use SMOOTHMESHCONVERT or the appropriate smoothness tools when working with mesh-based geometry. For solid models, changing the display quality can also make a noticeable difference without changing the actual model. This is one of those cases where the model isn't necessarily wrong—the way it is displayed can make it look wrong. Have you ever mistaken a display issue for a modelling problem? What did you check first?

For anyone finding this older thread with the same problem: check the SLDPRT version first, and ask the sender for STEP or Parasolid if you need geometry that can be imported and edited in another CAD system. A viewer only confirms what is in the file; it does not restore the SolidWorks feature tree or drawing tolerances. I work on CADProps. Its browser SolidWorks viewer can inspect SLDPRT/SLDASM files, show converted geometry and bounding dimensions, and export STEP when the file parses: https://www.cadprops.com/tools/solidworks-viewer/ . The current guest limit is 10 MiB and files are temporarily processed server-side, so confidential models should only be uploaded if that workflow is acceptable.

It seems that Cadtutor refused to accept my modification. Basically, I changed *TOUT* to *OUT* and '(if (findfile *PS-READY*)' to '(if (and *PS* (findfile *PS-READY*))'

@GLAVCVS BTW: I didn't see any changes to your original code. For example I still see the lines using *PS-TOUT* I've tried it on a couple of Windows 10 Pro OS computers running AutoCAD 2021, 2023 & 2027 one at a time and not multiple sessions. Upon further testing the Select Files window can be unstuck by toggling to the Edge browser making that active and then toggling back to AutoCAD. The problem still occurs even when the Edge browser is not running. But as long as I launch the Edge browser (when it's not already running) then the Select Files window would free up to function as designed. This problem does not occur on the single Windows 11 OS computer I tested this on.

You were right I forgot to clean *PS-TOUT* from my test code I've also tweaked something else in the code. Try it again

Which version of AutoCAD are you using? Do you have multiple AutoCAD sessions open?

@GLAVCVS Thanks for the modified code. But I'm encountering the following errors after attempting to load it: ; error: bad argument type: stringp nil The error is caused by the following lines of code under the PS-EXEC function: ;|Waiting for a Powershell response / Esperar a que PowerShell responda|; (while (not (findfile *PS-TOUT*));(not (findfile *PS-OUT*)) (setq t0 1000) (repeat 1000 (setq t0 (1+ t0))) ) ;|Reading response / Leer respuesta|; (setq fp (open *PS-TOUT* "r"));(open *PS-OUT* "r")) (while (setq lin (read-line fp)) (setq result (cons lin result)) ) (close fp) When I change the following lines of code referencing *PS-TOUT* to what you had commented out using *PS-OUT* then at least it'll load successfully: ;|Waiting for a Powershell response / Esperar a que PowerShell responda|; (while (not (findfile *PS-OUT*));(not (findfile *PS-OUT*)) (setq t0 1000) (repeat 1000 (setq t0 (1+ t0))) ) ;|Reading response / Leer respuesta|; (setq fp (open *PS-OUT* "r"));(open *PS-OUT* "r")) (while (setq lin (read-line fp)) (setq result (cons lin result)) ) (close fp) But after this when I call the pl:getfiledps function using the following line of code: (pl:getfiledps "Select Files" (getvar"dwgprefix") "dwg" 1) The Select Files window would appear on top of my AutoCAD session and then just hang there. I'm unable to select any files from this window or move the window out of the way: I would have to terminate the AutoCAD app from Task Manager But the Select Files window remains. Now the window is freed up for me to select files and drag the window around. Any thoughts as to why this is occurring on my end?