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A continuation from Part 1, Doug discusses how to utilize AccuDraws Shortcuts to streamline your workflows.
Accudraw Shortcuts The best aliasing system for MicroStation may be AccuDraw and its shortcuts. At the present time, AccuDraw allows the user to program up to 400 shortcut keyins! With the 35 or so standard AccuDraw shortcuts, you are left with 365 shortcuts that you can customize as aliases which require no Enter button to invoke. Single VS Double Character Although AccuDraw comes with single-character shortcuts, it is recommended to edit these to two-character shortcuts. This will avoid any possible conflicts with shortcuts that start with the same letter. For example, the delivered shortcuts have the letter C activate the Snap Center command. Attempting to create the shortcut CI for the Place Circle command will result in a conflict. In this case, edit the existing shortcut C to CS or other logical pair of characters.
Shortcut.txt AccuDraw stores the shortcuts in a text file which can be located in the .../system/data folder. To quickly edit and create shortcuts, you can simply open this file with any text editor and work directly in it.
The Input Focus One drawback to using this alias system has been getting the 'input focus' to reset to AccuDraw's keyin field. Take a look at the small MDL routine from CadGurus called adrst.mdl, which re-focuses AccuDraw by hitting your Reset button. Just put this little gem in your ...\mdlsys\required folder and you're ready to rock and roll! Entering commands using the AccuDraw shortcuts is now the fastest, most productive aliasing system I have used in any CAD system. Create a new Accudraw Shortcut Let's take a look at creating a shortcut SL to activate the Place Smartline tool.
My List of aliases for MicroStation's AccuDraw Shortcuts: Because I use Structural For Triforma in conjunction with MicroStation, this list includes a few placement and manipulation commands unique to that software. Macros, MDL's and various settings are also programmed into several shortcuts.
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Hopefully these two articles will give a few ideas of how you too can streamline your workflows in MicroStation. Enjoy!