HyperPics: Beyond the UI

Transparent Toolbar Button Images

I have been working recently on some white papers covering menu customization and one of the things that just recently came up (about five minutes ago from one of my good friends Steven). The question that he asked was how to create a transparent background in the Button Editor for creating images in AutoCAD 2004 and higher. To do this you can use the Light Grey color in the lower-left corner of the swatch for AutoCAD 2002 and earlier, or the True Color 192,192,192 in AutoCAD 2004 and later. Thanks for the memory jog Steven and an excellent question.

Sincerely,
  Lee

AUGI Training Program (ATP)

Have you sat at your desk lately wondering if you should go back to school and learn something new?  Maybe you have asked the boss to attend a seminar on learning new features in AutoCAD, but he can't justify the cost.  Maybe you don't have time to spare in your busy schedule, but you should always try to make room to learn.  If you are short on funds and/or time maybe you should consider checking out AUGI's Training Program (ATP).  They have some different courses running each month.

In May they held ATP sessions on Logic, Debugging and Error Handling for VBA and Maintaining CAD standards while avoiding a coup d’état.  This month they are launching 4 new sessions that range from the new Dynamic Blocks feature in AutoCAD 2006 to a session in 3D.  Along with AutoCAD sessions this month, there are a couple on ADT.  The sessions are developed in 3 segments that make it easy to pick up and go through yourself, but if you need some help the forums dedicated to each session are just a click away.

So get out there and sign up for them today... oh did I forget to mention they are free to AUGI members.  What is even better than that is the AUGI (http://augi.com/) membership is free as well.  So now you can do it on your lunch hour, before or after work, standing in line at Starbucks or even on your porch late at night.  Since it is free and can be done at anytime of the day you learn something new each day.

Sincerely,
  Lee

Importing and Exporting Tool Palettes from ABS and ADT

After writing a couple of articles on Tool Palettes for AUGI's HotNews over the last couple of months a couple readers pointed out an issue to me. Being a native user of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT, I didn't think to look and see if anything was different in the vertical products in the area of Tool Palettes. I knew the verticals had a lot more content built in, but failed to notice the affect that this might have on it. We there is no direct way to Import and Export Tool Palettes from one machine to the next through the user interface.

This is claimed to be as design for both ADT and ABS versions 2004/2005. From what I have seen it makes total sense to limit this feature, but it would be nice to have it look at the Tool Palette to see if the content is standard in the base product or not. Then based on the inspection of the Tool Palette then allow the user to Export it out or not, along with Importing Tool Palettes. There are many companies with mixed environments, but still have common tools and blocks between the groups.

So the link below is to how Autodesk recommends the handling of Exporting and Importing Tool Palettes when using ADT or ABS.

Export Tool Palettes (Originally published on 2004-06-03) and applies to ADT 2004/2005 and ABS 2004/2005

Links to AUGI HotNews articles on Tool Palettes:
Leveraging Tool Palettes - Part I
Leveraging Tool Palettes - Part II (Making Use of the Established Content)
Leveraging Tool Palettes - Part III (Importing & Exporting)

Sincerely,
  Lee