The ability to quickly edit a drawing
to meet changing preferences is often as important as creating the
drawing itself.
What if you need to change line
widths, dimension styles, or text fonts for groups, individual objects,
or perhaps the drawing as a whole? DesignCAD provides you with a tool to
accomplish all of this and more through a convenient tool called the
Info Box. In this story we'll take a look at the most common uses of the
Info Box and how it can speed your daily drawing chores.
Start DesignCAD. Make certain that
you’re in 2‑D Mode and that you have the Main Toolbox, Snap Toolbox, and
Toolbar visible. If you’re not sure whether all of these toolbars are
currently visible, right‑click on the one of the visible toolbars. A
list of the toolbars appears. Toolbars that are currently visible have a
check mark next to them on the list. If one of these toolbars is hidden
(doesn't have a check mark next to it), select the toolbar from the list
to make it visible.
Download the drawing to
your hard drive. Click here to download a zip
file containing Display Face.dc.
NOTE: You will
need WinZip installed to your computer (or other compression utility
program). Just double-click on the display face.dc file
located within the zip file and it will automatically open in
DesignCAD.
From within DesignCAD you can use the
command to open the drawing (if it isn't already open).
The Info Box is designed to serve a
host of purposes to help speed your DesignCAD work flow. It’s a unique
type of toolbox that behaves a bit differently than most other toolbars.
The only time the Info Box can be made visible is when one or more
drawing items are selected. The Info Box can be displayed by pressing
Ctrl+I,
double‑clicking on a drawing item, or by right‑clicking on any of the
toolbars and choosing . You can also
choose to display the Info Box by clicking the Info Box icon in the Main
Toolbar.
Let’s have a look at how it works by
using it to perform a few common editing tasks.
One of the most common editing tasks
for CAD drawings is changing an object’s layer. Whether you’re moving
lines to help finish up a foundation, or swapping solids back and forth
between editable layers to keep them safe from other editing tasks, the
Info Box will make this a simple process. Let's look at how to use the
Info Box to change a selected object's layer. This technique works
regardless of the number of objects you have selected.
Click on the dimension on the left
side of the drawing to select it. Press Ctrl+I to open the Info Box.
Note that the top of the Info Box shows the initial layer number and
name. Since the layer name “Beginning Layer” is a little long, it’s cut
off in the readout but will show completely when you click the
down‑arrow at the right end of the field. The other fields indicate the
additional editing we can perform on this type of drawing object.
Click the down‑arrow for the layer
list box. Change the layer from 1 Beginning Layer to 3 Dimensions by
moving the cursor over the layer entry
to highlight it and clicking the mouse. The selected object’s layer is
now 3 Dimensions.
You’ve just learned how easy it is to
change a selection’s layer; however, most drawing objects have other
useful properties that can also be edited from the Info Box. Let's edit
the selection’s arrowheads and affect the way the dimension value is
shown in the drawing.
The dimension’s arrow type can be
changed in much the same way you changed the dimension’s layer. Locate
the down‑arrow directly to the right of the option and
change it to any other type of arrowhead.
To change the text size, double‑click
in the
field to select the value. This field controls the size of the text used
to display the dimension’s value. You can change this value while the
text is selected simply by typing in a new value. Type
1.5
to change the text size to 1.5 units, then press your keyboard’s
Tab
key. Notice that DesignCAD processes the value and makes the change to
the dimension text when you press
Tab. You can also activate
the change by clicking elsewhere in the Info Box or on the drawing
screen.
Dimensions have a special property
that allows you to enter a fixed value for the dimensioned distance
without affecting the dimension’s true measured distance. When enabled,
the Fixed Text option accepts any text you enter and replaces the
displayed distance with the information from the Fixed Text field. This
is a useful tool when you need to change a dimension value to match
other parts of a drawing but don’t want to redraw the entities you’ve
dimensioned.
To change this value, click the
checkbox to the left of the option and then
highlight the value. You can now enter anything that you’d like to be
displayed for the dimension value—even words.
You can disable the Fixed Text option
to restore the original dimensioned distance by clicking the checkbox
again to uncheck it.
Changing an object’s line type is as
fast and easy as editing the dimension’s properties. Let's look at some
properties of lines that can be editing using the Info Box.
Line type properties can be applied to
nearly any 2‑D drawing entity that isn’t a group, a dimension, or a
piece of text.
Click on the tan outer perimeter line
to select it. Note that the Info Box properties for lines (also known as
vectors) are different than those in the dimension example.
With a line entity, the Info Box
displays the total length and area. (Area is only available with closed
perimeter shapes.)
Click the down‑arrow at the right end
of the Line Type field. Notice that several different line types are
displayed. Choose any line type that you’d like to apply to the selected
line. Line Type changes are always applied as soon as you change the
line type in the Info Box.
At times you’ll notice that changing
your line type to a dashed or dotted line appears to leave a solid line.
In reality, your line is set to the line type in the Info Box. The
problem is that you might have used too small a scale to separate the
line type enough to appear dotted or dashed. You can edit this property
through the Line Scale field in the Info Box.
A higher value means more space
between the dots or dashes in the line, so double‑click the current
value (1.8629) to select it, then type in
5.0 to increase the scale
for the line. Press
Tab to apply the values
and move to the next field. You should see an increase in the spacing
between the dashes.
The width of a line can also be
controlled from the Info Box.
Double‑click in the field and type
a new width value of
1 to produce a noticeable
increase in the width of the perimeter’s line. To keep the fill in the
wide line and prevent it from looking hollow, leave the Fill Wide Line
box checked.
Although these tasks have been used on
a dimension and a line, they can also be used on other entity types.
Recall that different types of entities will support different types of
editing options.
A group is a combined set of drawing
entities that have been combined into one special entity to make working
with them easier. Typically, you would need to explode a group to edit
its members, but through the Info Box you can edit the group’s members
as if they were still separate entities.
Click on the button with the "On" and
"Off" text. This object has already been defined as a group.
Here is the Info Box for the group.
Click the
button 
. A list box
containing the group members appears. You can now select individual
group members and edit them normally using the same techniques discussed
above.
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