SoCal GliderGuider

My test for entry level Acad drafters was to turn off all of the icons/menus and have the applicant use the command line. If you don't know how to use the commands and their variables you don't have a good grasp of Acad. The icons are for the impaired! Besides the flat blue icons suck. I went through the challenge of changing all of them back to the 2000 version by editing the actual dll based files.

Dr1Driver

It's true. AutoDesk takes a perfectly good program and adds chrome and fins and whitewalls and totally FUBARS it. In addition, they move commands so you have to hunt through the menus to find them. I'm on R.14 and love it. 2000 is ok, but I can't afford/don't have a source for it.

Dr.1

dmcmike

My Feedback: (14)

My favorite 'do i hire this guy' test was to give him a very simple drawing... usually a 5 x 5 unit box on a specific layer, with a 5 unit circle inside the box, with text centered on the box, 2 units below it. Gave them the sketch, set them down at the station, fired up autocad... then watched their jaw dropped when I turned the monitor off! If they could do it correctly, I usually hired them! Not hard to do, but you gotta know autocad well to do it.

dreadnaut

My Feedback: (5)

My variation on this test is to have them draw a simple figure, then plot it full scale. If they know how to do that, I can work with them.

lawsonaero

wicked! I know a guy who teaches Autodesk Inventor and he pulls a sort of similar trick during the final exam. 2 hours into a difficult 3 hour final, he goes and trips the circuit breaker for the classroom. If you haven't saved frequently, you're SOL. (Inventor doesn't autosave, for good reasons).

-B

dreadnaut

My Feedback: (5)

My variation on this test is to have them draw a simple figure, then plot it full scale. If they know how to do that, I can work with them.

O.K. I admit it. I do use some icons. One of them is the matchprop (the ''paintbrush'') When looking for it in 2007 I was pulling my hair out. They changed it from a housepainting brush to a skinny little artist thing. How productive is it when you try to train your self to visually scan for certain things, and they keep changing the apperance?

SoCal GliderGuider

I admit to becoming somewhat icon dependent or I would not have gone through the icon replacement process. I still type certain variables at the command line as it's quicker than hunting them down in the constantly revised menus. Also have custom mouse and icon menus and lisp routines I've carried over since version 2.6. I've added my left hand keyboard short cuts to the PGP file. It's always concerned me that AutoDesk will plagiarize third party utilities and include them in the next release.

dreadnaut

My Feedback: (5)

I started editing the .pgp file shortly after starting to use ACAD (v10). At that time, the list of command shortcuts was short, and the first one I added was t, for ''trim''. The default shortcut is now tr, t being ''text''. Over the years I have added to and editied it. I learned the default shortcuts out of neccesity when I was teaching.

Another example:
default
x, explode
ex, extend

mine
x, extend
xx, explode

First of all, I extend a lot more often than I explode. As I tried to pound into my students heads, do not explode anything unless you absolutely have to, and if done right, dimensions should never have to be exploded. The philosopy behind my shortcut style is due to the fact that I am a terrible typist. Also, since I am using one hand to type the commands, I like to keep the keys close together. Example pp for ''pedit'' instead of the default pe.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the default settings that Autodesk assigns to certain varables. In ACAD2K, they added ''shortcut menus in drawing area''. By the time AC2k came out I was using the right mouse button as enter. Now, by default, when you hit the right mouse button you get a dialog box that gives you a lot of command options that you know, (or should know) the shortcut for. Two other options you get are ''enter'' and ''repeat last command''. Well right click means enter, and right click a second time repeats the last command. One of the first things I did years ago when I first used 2k was learn how to get rid of that annoying dialog. Unfortunatly, most of the people that I have seen who learned to use ACAD recently think it is just fine. They were taught that way.

Other dumb defaults:

polygon - number of sides defaults to 4. Should be 6
mirrtext - defaults to 1 (on). Should be 0 (off)

As far as ADesk ripping off user ideas. They have always done it. I do not mind actually, and think it is one of the strengths of ACAD; The fact that in order to do it they made so many components of the software (.mnu, .lsp, etc.) open source.

Example. There is now a ''layer manager'' button bar. I have been using the .lsp file that inspired it for years now, and have even tweeked it slightly. I still use it since it is faster that the official ACAD version.

Bob101

If you use a menu, icon or the command line your stuck in 1st gear...go digitizer and you'll never look back. Can freehand, draw, trace if you have to (I never have), and use every possibly command right there on the digitizer.

Personally I use a digitizer and type with my left hand and can do around 45-50 words per minute with just my left hand while moving the puck with my right.

CoosBayLumber

My Feedback: (1)

Bob.....

I also use a Calcomp digitizer tablet with my Acad set up. Two for fact. A small 12 by 12 for commands and drawing, and a big one for doing a whole plan.

Situation with Acad, is not that it is difficult to use, for once you get going on it, you can quit your present job and go through classifeds for a new better paying one. It's an occupation, not a hobby.



Wm.

SoCal GliderGuider

I've always found a stylus more comfortable than a mouse. A puck is just as uncomfortable as a mouse but with more buttons. I can barely remember what the assignments to the mouse's three buttons are let alone 16. Don't find tablets much when you do contract work. I've even started to take my own keyboard and mouse as I find junk on their "extra" computer.

dreadnaut

My Feedback: (5)

It has been a long time since I used a digitiser. They are nice, but now that you can insert raster immages easily, they are not indispensable. As far as mouses go. ADesk did one thing real smart when the ''scroll mouse'' was introduced. Within a month of learning to use it, I had completely quit using the zoom, and pan commands. Except for those few times that I was stuck on a laptop with only a touch pad.

SoCal GliderGuider

How about a digitizer that is 48" x 60". Found one at a civil engineering firm years ago. Was just to digitize old drawings into Acad. Now you have surveying that is all digital input to a computer.

Bob101

The beauty of a ditizer is not to trace/digitize an image but the ability to stick the programs/menus on it.

SoCal GliderGuider

One hand on the pointer. One hand on the keyboard. Both eyes on the screen. Having to look back and forth between a tablet and a screen is unproductive. Having to take your hand off of the pointer to use keyboard short cuts is unproductive. Having stock unmodified menus is unproductive.

Acad's (and some other CAD programs) working interface is highly malleable and ripe for tweaking.

CoosBayLumber

My Feedback: (1)

Well, we are probably mentioning two different types of digitizing tablets. The small or command size, and the large or tracing size. If you go to my web-site and take a look through the pages on tablets, you will then see the relative diference in sizes.

I use my big tablet about once per month. Most plans I work on are very large. On occasion I get them scanned by a local blueprint firm and then I go through the conversion and clean up. All this takes time you see. Have not yet received back a scan that went through 100% perfect. Usually have to use some Photoshop system to alter the size some in one direction, the X axis being most common.

The large digitizing tablet is used to point off or trace a plan that may have a fuselage about 5 feet long or wings approaching 8 feet. Just hit the important points along the outside edges, the former or rib positions, etc. For as you need to assume the original plan to be inaccurate, it is so much faster in Acad to redraw those same lines, offset some fractional value and then go to next position. Very little erasing then, and you wind up with a much better appearing final plan. Have done this to about six dozen now.

Nice in that you do not have to fire up the auto, locate a spare empty computer disk, make arrangements at the location, pay the fee, then do the conversion, etc. Once a plan is digitized, then nothing to hold you back in creating a new plan, 'cept the interpretation of lines on the original.

I think very few CAD softwares support the large tablets anymore. The lengthy time involved in the scanning process is getting smaller, but it still is not cheap, nor as fast as getting to drawing as using a tablet.

Wm.