Tool Palette Question..

[hardwired]

Hi,

 

In a tool palette, can i have a typical blockname (which is a generic block in all our projects but maybe everso slightly different for each drawing) but instead of the path being hardcoded to the drawing it was originally from, can i have it to insert the block from the current drawing?

 

Yeah i know i can just do a standard insert from the drawing or even set-up a palette from the blocks in the drawing but i don't want to do that for every different project, i just want one palette with standard blocks in..

 

Any ideas?

[dbroada]

as far as I can tell - no.

 

The tool palette refers to a drawing that has the source block and if that drawing is moved or the block gets purged your palette stops working.

 

Design centre may be more suitable here. I don't know as I never use it.

[AlinOz]

Good News Hardwired... Your request got me thinking and whilst it isn't quite the way you think it will be, it can be done by using the INSERT Command. I've tested this on 2010, but it will be similar for all previous versions.

 

Here's the routine - Open the CUI editor using the CUI command. Cruise through the commands in the Bottom Left Pane to find the Insert Block command. Right hand Mouse click and drag it onto the Tool Pallete to get an Insert Command in there. Then Right Mouse Click on it and fill in the details (Blockname, Layer to insert it in, etc). As this is using the Insert command you will need to do it the old script way - i.e. ^C^C_insert;Blockname;

 

If you're using something other than 2010, you should also be able to select the Insert Icon from the appropriate Icon Menu and do the same routine...

 

Now, the only hitch with this methodology is that you can't have any spaces in your block name as an AutoCAD script reads spaces as an Enter and will try to insert a block name matching the letters before the space. Of course, if you want it to scale up, rotate, etc, then you will need to run these in the script as there are no options offered in the Tool Pallete Properties

 

Hope that does the trick for you - as dbroada pointed out, it can't be done the other way, but at least this will allow you to give the Insert a meaningful name and even change the Icon if you so desire...