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My only comment and its about appearance not actual details, in C2 I would move the leader "Metal siding" to the right side so it does not cross the detail, just clearer to read. @ReMark has provided great advice supporting the Penn Foster tasks.

@Steven P not sure if this is what you mean, but I have pick attribute in say title block in a layout and it will copy that attribute value into the correct attribute in all blocks of that name, I think also a do multiple atts, handy when say you change a project description, updates all layouts etc.

Paul li pretty sure using powershell managed to jump to Excel from Cad, may be useful, will try to find again. Jump to explorer window etc make current window.

The above is somewhat difficult to read/understand but I will do my best. Let's start on the left. The rebar should not extend through the bottom of the footing. The concrete slab (ground floor) appears to be missing. I don't see the steel decking in the floor above and the roof. Your depiction of the vertical steel cladding is incorrect. As regards Detail C1: the flashing should also extend down the exterior face of the structure, and both ends of the flashing should have an angled drip edge. And your steel column is missing the lines denoting the flange. As regards Detail C2: Lines denoting flange on column are missing. Steel decking is missing. Beam that attaches to column is missing. Angle and bolt appear to be sized incorrectly. Steel cladding shown correctly. It looks like you have the concrete roof slab sitting inside the channel when in fact the slab, along with the steel decking and rebar would all sit atop the channel. I'm positive there is more I could comment on but that's the best I can do at the moment. There are several threads in this particular forum that deal with the Penn-Foster structural assignment where these very same details show up. Have you looked at any of them?

The time I most often use burst is when I update drawing borders - often most of the attributes link from one border to the next... but not all of them all the time... (perhaps lazy CAD, move, burst, purge, insert and copy text back to where it should be)

I would still do the new block or would have one around for it, but like I stated some work places have a different work flow, etc. It would be good to have a "BURST" that kept the block, like with a Field you have "Convert field to text" maybe a convert Attribute value to text. I have a LISP to convert the Attribute Value to text outside the block and leaves the block.

Ive been looking for references to the Structural Project and found this website. It has helped but I worry alot of the instructions have been updated from the previous post. I'm stuck on the section Drafting Details C, C1, and C2. I feel like I'm missing something and was wondering if anyone could give me some guidance. (I am completely new to Drafting & AutoCAD.) I have uploaded the instructions and my progress via this sheet. Thanks! reading_assignment_core_1.html

I took over a project (lots actually) when I got to my current work place 16 years ago, from an Architectural firm and made revisions and "what ifs" up until last year. You may have guessed, pretty much back to the first updates I did and they just finished the project several months ago, I am glad I kept most of the working drawings, notes, revisions, etc. It was approved and then not approved a few times in that time. No doubt as soon as I delete a revised drawing, they will want to go back to that one. I often tell them, that's pretty much the exact same as the first one I issued for approval. So I pretty much keep everything until I know a project is completely dead. Sometimes my "Revision" is just the date I last worked on the drawing for updates.

Did you ever finish plate 3, section A, of the structural project?

I really don't use a lot of XREFs (and you hit on one of those reasons), even then I tend to Bind them at the end of the job, but if you revise a drawing that is Xreffed by other drawings, you can use the Reference Manager or a third party program, I know there are a few LISPs out and about, I believe I posted something for updating referenced Images a while back, I believe I have one for .dwg. By most accounts, if you modify a drawing that is Xreffed into other drawings you also need to update the revision on those as well. I also found a LISP IIRC that will do some revision work on a drawing, I was trying to improve and modify it for my purposes, but haven't revisited it in a good while. I'll get back when I can locate some of those codes. The way you do it is fine, though could be tricky for others, since I do a lot of non-production drawings I also do that on occasion. I spend a lot of my drafting time on "what if we" drawings, not to mention "off the books" drawings, so I have different methods of handling those updates.

Have you ever used SLICE on a 3D solid and ended up with a cut that wasn't where you expected? I ran into this when the cutting plane was not aligned with the part the way I thought it was. Before slicing, I found it useful to check the current UCS and viewing direction, then define the cutting plane carefully using 3 points or an existing planar object. I also make sure I'm selecting the correct side to keep after the slice. A quick UCS/view check can prevent a lot of unnecessary editing afterward. When SLICE gives an unexpected result, what do you normally check first?

@GLAVCVS I just tried your updated code testing it on two setups: 1) Running AutoCAD 2021 on Windows 10 with multiple screens: Though the File Selection window appears and no longer locks up, sometimes I would get two or more File Selection windows and they would appear behind the AutoCAD window. 2) Running AutoCAD 2027 on Windows 11 with single screen: The File Selection window appears again behind the AutoCAD window. If the AutoCAD window is full screen, I'm not able to toggle to the file selection window. I would have to hit the Esc key to close the File Selection window. When the AutoCAD window is smaller than the screen, then I see the File Selection window behind the AutoCAD window so I can select it to make it appear on top.

I've made a few minor changes to the code from my previous post. I've tested it in AutoCAD 2021 and it seems to work. getFilem.mp4

@Dadgad Actually I even went as far as creating a lisp command so I can make the selections to dwgunits within a dcl gui instead of looking at the dull command line interface. https://marketplace.autodesk.com/apps/5190d5ec-0b6a-4b70-b089-2753abcb8e3a?priceId=bfbb3227-aa55-4923-b9e6-7fe3db0a0a5b

When it comes to keeping copies of various revisions completed, file naming and renaming could become really tricky especially if they're externally referenced to other dwgs. So to avoid having to repath dwgs that may be referenced elsewhere, what I've done in the past is to have the most current dwg always named the same and stored in the same location. A folder is created with the revision date as the name and the dwg is then copied into that folder. Now I have preserved copies of major milestone revisions saved in the project folder.

This is something I hate to do, but sometimes I'm in a hurry. One title block may be different in some fundamental way. I can't just explode it, because I'll lose all the information in the attributes. There's not enough time to create an entire block for one sheet, and why bother when there's only one? So it's time to Burst a move (sorry).

That sounds like a fake Norton Pop-Up, ISeeYou, used to be (is?) an older vulnerability for web cams, I guy was activating webcams without the activation light on and blackmailing women with photos, he was caught and arrested a while back. I'll look for the article. Here is the Wiki iSeeYou - Wikipedia This looks to be a good while back.

Something maybe Dave can look at is my Norton antivirus pops up now and then with a warning about "I.see.you" has been detected. Will attach an image next time.

@dexusThis is pretty good too. Thanks for contributing. Though it does not check the AutoCAD window location and so the file selection window may open up on a different monitor, it does open really fast and remembers the monitor location where it last closed. I also like the different looking gui. Interestingly enough, I was able to get it to show multiple file types (*.dwg & *.dxf) by placing that in the filename argument instead of the extension argument: (filePicker (getvar"dwgprefix") "*.dwg;*.dxf" "")

You can give this a try: (defun filePicker (directory filename extension / appHandle des pickedFile pickedFiles shell tmp tmpopen tmpoutput line) ;; Multi-file FilePicker using PowerShell OpenFileDialog ;; Returns a list of selected full file paths. ;; Returns nil if Cancel is pressed. (cond ;; Create temporary .BAT file ((and (setq tmp (vl-filename-mktemp nil nil ".bat")) (setq des (open tmp "w")) (write-line (strcat "<# : chooser.bat\n" ":: launches a File... Open sort of file chooser\n" "@echo off\n" "setlocal\n" "for /f \"delims=\" %%I in ('powershell -noprofile \"iex (${%~f0} | out-string)\"') do (\n" " echo %%~I\n" ")\n" "goto :EOF\n" ": end Batch portion / begin PowerShell hybrid chimera #>\n" "Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms\n" "$f = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog\n" "$f.InitialDirectory = \"" directory "\"\n" "$f.FileName = \"" filename "\"\n" "$f.Filter = \"" (cond ((= "dwg" (strcase extension t)) "AutoCAD Drawing (*.dwg)|*.dwg") ((= "dxf" (strcase extension t)) "AutoCAD DXF (*.dxf)|*.dxf") (t "All Files (*.*)|*.*") ) "\"\n" "$f.FilterIndex = 1\n" "$f.DefaultExt = \"" extension "\"\n" "$f.Multiselect = $true\n" "$f.ShowHelp = $true\n" "if ($f.ShowDialog() -eq [System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult]::OK) {\n" " $f.FileNames | ForEach-Object { $_ }\n" "}" ) des ) ) (not (close des)) (setq tmpoutput (vl-filename-mktemp nil nil ".txt")) (setq shell (vla-getinterfaceobject (vlax-get-acad-object) "WScript.shell")) (setq appHandle (vl-catch-all-apply 'vlax-invoke (list shell 'Run (strcat "cmd /c " tmp " > " tmpoutput) 0 :vlax-false))) (vlax-release-object shell) (not (vl-catch-all-error-p appHandle)) (setq tmpopen (open tmpoutput "r")) (while (setq line (read-line tmpopen)) (if (/= line "") (setq pickedFiles (append pickedFiles (list line)) ) ) ) (close tmpopen) (setq pickedFile pickedFiles) ) ((setq pickedFile (getfiled "" (strcat directory filename) extension 0)) (setq pickedFile (list pickedFile)) ) ) (if (and tmp (setq tmp (findfile tmp))) (vl-file-delete tmp) ) (if (and tmpoutput (setq tmpoutput (findfile tmpoutput))) (vl-file-delete tmpoutput) ) pickedFile )

I don't normally explode blocks, particularly those with attributes, so the alternative is not to explode attributed blocks. Though different people work different and some work places have different work flows, but I would be genuinely curious to know when exploding an attributed block is beneficial.

I never got a chance on the home computer, but at work, it just gives the same message. ; error: Automation Error. Description was not provided.

I am a big fan of the "Layers 2" Toolbar, where I first encountered LAYWALK. It was much more useful to me when my drawings had appreciably less than the thousands of layers which have become the norm. I really like LAYISO (LI) and LAYUNISO (LU). I prefer unisolated layers to be turned off, rather than dimmed. I am a huge advocate for setting up and using QUICK PROPERTIES. The modest amount of time invested, customizing it to your personal preferences will pay huge rewards henceforth.

I am surprised I never was fired for using the wrong linetype in my isometric drawings. I am guessing they are generating articles now with AI. I queried DuckDuckGo Isometric vs Metric and the AI helper went off on the difference between isometric exercises and the Metric system of measurement, so on that vein I guess it's a miracle it's not considered a linetype for exercising (perhaps demon). So not a typo, just an uninformed AI assistant.

Have you ever had two solids that clearly intersect, but SUBTRACT doesn't produce the expected result? One thing I check is whether the solids actually overlap in 3D. They may appear to intersect from the current view while only touching or being separated along another axis. Using 3DORBIT to inspect the intersection from different angles usually makes the problem obvious. Have you ever found that two solids only appeared to intersect because of the viewing angle?