Can i create a macro to change properties?

Trev

Hi,

I am looking at ways to streamline my workflow within BricsCAD, and i was wondering if it was possible to save some clicks by using macros to accomplish some often repeated property changes.

For example, when dimensioning drawings i quite often need to add a background mask to the dimension text.
This is fairly easily done by changing properties>text>text fill>background.
However, if i'm working on some sloppy client drawings, and want to change properties>Primary units>Dim precision>0 - that actually takes a lot of clicks (since i need to scroll down the properties pane to reach it).

So what i would like to achieve is to relegate some of these repeated changes (and ideally in the future multiple property changes) to buttons on a tool palette. I don't have any knowledge of LISP, so i'd prefer not to involve that. To my mind this seems like something that should be within the scope of macros, but i don't know how to do it.
Unfortunately -Properties doesn't seem to be recognised on the command line - does this mean that it's not possible to do what i want?
Can anyone advise me on this?

Many thanks,

Trev

Roy Klein Gebbinck

You can look at the ChProp command. But it can only change common properties. To change dimensions the _-DimStyle command can be used. And in your scenario _MatchProp can also be an effective tool.

Hans De Backer

The Structure Panel can be a powerful help to find and modify entities with certain properties.
As an illustration, I attached 'sort by dim precision.cst', which is a Structure panel configuration file.
Place it in your support folder. If in doubt which folder that is, key in 'SupportFolder' on the command line, a Windows Explorer session will be opened showing the location and content of your support folder.

Keying in 'StructurePanel" will open the Structure Panel.
If this is the first time you use the panel, it will use the default configuration named 'default' and show the name of this config at the top of the panel.
Clicking on this name will open an editor which allows to modify the default configuration.
Clicking the 'down' arrow at the right side will show a list of available configuration files: if 'sort by dim precision.cst' was copied to the support folder, it should now be possible to select it from the list.

The Structure tree will now show the drawing content grouped per Entity Type and entities will be sorted by Dimension Precision, entity types that don't have a Dimension Precision property will be sorted by Handle.

By default, entities selected in the Structure tree will also be selected in the drawing.
As a result it is straightforward to e.g. select all Aligned Dimensions that have a precision of e.g. 3 (or 0.000).

Hope this gets you on your way...

Trev

Hi,
Thanks for your replies. I think for now i'll probably stick to using matchprop as Roy suggests, although i'll also be checking out the v18 content browser and seeing how that can help my workflow.
Thanks Hans for educating me about the Structure Panel, i'm not sure i'll use it for these particular cases, however i can immediately think of a number of other situations where it will be extremely helpful...