Odds and Ends

Here are just a bunch of odds and ends of things that I've picked up along the way and suggest to my dept to help avoid problems.

Do not copy 3D duct nor 3D pipe components from one dwg to another. We have discovered that some of the pipe or duct doesn't move with the rest correctly.

Always open ABS first, then open your drawing. NEVER open your drawing from Windows Explorer!

ABS can have several dwgs open in the same session. The more you have open the slower your machine will run.

Close completely out of ABS half way through the day. This will help it run faster.

To flip between Modelspace and Paperspace use the black and white icons down by the “LWT” button, or tabs.

Set your current layer to “0” for xrefs, Design Center blocks, Content Browser blocks, and items off palettes.

“Enter” out of a command, do not hit “esc”. Hitting “esc” can crash out ABS if it is done too often.

Shift plus Right click will give you “osnaps” if they are not popping up by hitting the mouse wheel button.

To select multiple grips to move at once hold down the “shift” key and select the other grips.

DYN: this is located down by the toggles for OSNAPS and ORTHO. It is dynamic input. You may like to try this out. You can toggle between the distance and angle fields by hitting tab.

Keep all of your “ABS snaps” “ON” all of the time when working with 3D duct and 3D pipe.

Turn off “Osnaps” when working on 3D objects.

Never explode a 3D duct or pipe or equipment element!

Double clicking on the wheel mouse button will zoom extents.

Holding down the wheel mouse button will allow you to pan.

Scrolling the middle mouse button will allow you to zoom in and out.

To remove things from a crossing window selection hold the “shift” key down and click the left mouse button.

To list items in an xref or nested inside a block: type “xlist” at the command line, or go to “Express” then “Blocks” then “List Xref/Block Properties” and select the item.

You can also list via the Object Inspect tool. See the “Object Inspect” section of this document.

To extend or trim using an xref as a boundary: go to “Express” then “Blocks” then “Trim to nested object” OR “Extend to nested object” and follow the command line prompts.

To change the text case: “Express” then “Text” then “Change text case” OR double click on the text and highlight all the text. Then right click on it, choose “Change case” then choose “Uppercase” or “Lowercase”. OR double click on the text and highlight all the text. Then hold down Cntrl + Shift + U for uppercase or Cntrl + Shift + L for lowercase.

For ArcAligned text: “Express” then “Text” then “Arc-Aligned Text”. You may have to match properties with a piece of text that has the correct font/etc set up.

Always type in the command first, then select the object, this will help keep your computer from crashing.

When in doubt, select the item and right click to find options you may want.

Set back to 2D wireframe when finished viewing 3D shading styles this will speed up your computer.

Do NOT load the “Refedit” toolbar, nor should you dock it. This toolbar is designed to open and close when the proper commands are invoked. If you dock this toolbar it can cause your crosshairs to start blinking and when you open up ABS the next time it will only show the palettes, NOTHING else. (You will see your palettes on your desktop, no ABS interface.) This is difficult to repair.

To make a polyline smoother use the polyline edit command (“pe”) and type “f” for fit.

Use “j” for join instead of using the “glue” command.

To break a line type “break” at the command line.

Type “burst” at the command prompt to explode blocks and have them keep their properties/values/layers.

Type “be” at the command prompt to pull up the Block editor.

To flip between open drawings hold down the “ctrl” key and press “tab” or go to the “Window” pulldown and choose the number of the drawing you want.

You may try the “overkill” command (just type it at the command prompt) to help clean up lines etc of exploded 3D objects.