Creating Blocks and adding them to an existing menu

[gosnellm]

I've been asked to research and figure out how to add new blocks to our library menu. I'm pretty sure it will take some programing but I'm clueless when it comes to that, but I'm pretty well versed in autocad so feel free to elaborate. I think it has something to do with creating blocks and a slide file, and I can do that but once that is done thats where I get stuck. Shown below is an example of one of the menu's with existing blocks in them and the blank spaces I'm trying to add to. If anybody has a clue what I'm talking about and can help I would appreciate it. Thanks!

[lpseifert]

I'm going to preface this by saying that you may want to consider transferring your block library to Toolpalettes. Image menus are kinda old school.

 

In your Cui, select the custom cui that includes your Image menus. There should be a category named Legacy and a sub-category named Image Tile Menus; expand and select a command. You can see its Properties in the right panel, including the macro used when you click on the image in your menu. Below that is the slide library file name (the file has a .slb extension) and the name of the slide (image) that is displayed in your menu.

It's easy enough to add commands to the image menus by rt-clicking a command and then duplicate or copy/paste then edit the properties. But adding an image is a bit more difficult. If you have the original slides you can use them plus the new slides to make a new slide library using the app slidelib.exe found in the root directory of acad's installation. If you don't have the original slides you'll need to recreate them with the Mslide command. There are a few Slide Libray Manager applications floating around on the web that are easier to use than slidelib.exe, some can add slides to an existing .slb file.

This was a crash course, if you have any questions, ask.

[rkent]

You definately want to promote useing palettes as they are trivial to produce for this purpose. Place all your blocks for a particular discipline in one drawing (or several if there are a lot), now find that file in DesignCenter, right click, pick create palette, wait, done. If you add to the file, delete the palette, and redo.

[gururajendrak]

Hi all,

i am using AutoCAD 2007 and also have a similar requirement with me,more or less same as what you are discussing. pls read below and try to help me .

 

I have made a drawing template for part drawing ( Along with title block and attributes for entering details ) what i actually want is to have this template added to the autocad library to insert it into any autocad file i open . ( i know this is possible by using INSERT BLOCK command ) but is there any way we can put an ikon on any of the tool bars so that the moment we click the ikon , it should insert that template .

 

by doing this i want to reduce the steps of browsing that block from a location it is saved for all engineers in my team.

 

kindly suggest

 

thanks

guru

[rkent]

guru,

Is this a template you want to use when starting a new drawing or a dwg file you need to insert into existing files. It sounds like the latter, but you used the term template. I haven't used 2007 in a few years but you should be able to locate the file in DesignCenter and drag it and drop onto a tool palette. You will be able to then drag and drop from the palette onto the drawing.

[chelsea1307]

you could also add a button to a toolbar and when you click it it will insert the dwg use something like ^C^C_I dwgname for the macro.

[gururajendrak]

Hi Rkent , you are absolutely correct.. i did it and its working fine for me..

 

hi chelsea , i am also keen to add a Macro and add few buttons into a tool bar to insert this template from a tool palette as you siad..

 

can you pls teach me how to do that, as this will be my first Macro in AutoCAD and i am very new to Macros.

 

also tell me how to make this tool bar buttons useful for other users in my network..

 

looking forward to your inputs

 

thanks

guru