Topic: Is there a shortcut key made for Add General Note in Civil 3D 2008? Found it...

[mjfarrell]

Alan,

There all sorts of label styles in C3D to take the place of MTEXT notes.  As most all C3D objects have there own unique Labels functions to go with them.  however the ones you will use most in place of manually type general notes will be found under Toolspace>>Settings Tab>>General as shown below.

Don't be too quick to use MTEXT for notes, if you dig around, and use some of the C3D objects labels styles, along with Expressions and such they can be made to function quite handily. However you will need to get out of the CAD, and or Land Desktop mindset to use them effectively for things other than what they seem suited for.  We cover unconventional use of these tools in all of my classes, however note I am NOT an autodesk vendor, and as such all of the training I do is far beyond what any autodesk vendor can ever teach you.

As an example a student an I used the User Defined Properties found under Points to create tables of construction notes from the bubble call outs on their construction sheets.  Not what it was intended for, however it works just fine for that purpose.

[alanjt]

Alan,

There all sorts of label styles in C3D to take the place of MTEXT notes.  As most all C3D objects have there own unique Labels functions to go with them.  however the ones you will use most in place of manually type general notes will be found under Toolspace>>Settings Tab>>General as shown below.

Don't be too quick to use MTEXT for notes, if you dig around, and use some of the C3D objects labels styles, along with Expressions and such they can be made to function quite handily. However you will need to get out of the CAD, and or Land Desktop mindset to use them effectively for things other than what they seem suited for.  We cover unconventional use of these tools in all of my classes, however note I am NOT an autodesk vendor, and as such all of the training I do is far beyond what any autodesk vendor can ever teach you.

As an example a student an I used the User Defined Properties found under Points to create tables of construction notes from the bubble call outs on their construction sheets.  Not what it was intended for, however it works just fine for that purpose.

ah ha, i knew there had to be better options than mtext. i'm loving all the options c3d has to offer, i know i haven't even scratched the surface of all the goodies/capabilities. the vendor that did our training mostly read from the book.
you are definitely right about having to leave the CAD and land desktop mindset behind. i know i'm going to have to go through my folder of lisp routines i've written/collected and used on a daily basis and get quite a few.
i wish i could have received my c3d training from someone that 'trains c3d' not a vendor that can read the book and muddle through it with you on the overhead.
thanks again, i'm sure i will be bombarding the group with quite a few questions for a while.

[mjfarrell]

Alan,

Perhaps you folks might work together with a local Technical college, to arrange a class with myself as the instructor.  This is the second year of such an arrangement that I have with South East Tech in Sioux Falls, S.D.  The local professionals come to the school and we hammer on C3D for an entire week at a very nice rate for the students.  Call around and see if any of them are willing to host such a 'professional development' or continuing education course for the Civil professionals in your area.
I will be more than willing to put together the course outline, and other materials to help promote the class as needed.

[doggarncity]

Morning all,
   I love using the General Note from the Annotation pull down, but would love a shortcut
key call for this is there one or anybody know some code to call it.

I did a little digging in the CUI and found it and made these few shortcut keys.

Code: [Select]

(defun c:gno () (command "AeccLblDlgGeneralNote")(princ));make General Note
(defun c:c1 () (command "AddContourLabelingSingle")(princ));make a Single Contour Label
Mike

is the general note used as a replacement for regular mtext labels, mleaders w/text, qleaders w/text, or is there a different one for that?

I use it to replace Mleaders, General Notes work better for me when I using annotative text with a leader. When I'm doing twisted viewports and different scales they seem to adapt smarter. The luck I have had with Mleaders and the maintance of them is simpler for me. Also, I don't have to make a number of different scales like I do with Mleaders, but I may be just to new to Mleaders to appreciate them. So, I hate them. That's my take. I think the General Note is the best thing Autodesk Civil 3D has done for us in the trenches. The rest in being assimilated... it's funny that the Borg may be Autodesk and as we are now trying to assimilate what Civil3D is doing.....Hmmmmm! I only wish that someone could make it as easy as it was for the Borg so I could assimilate Civil3D. I use the 'gno' to create a note, and the 'double clk' that Sinc came up with and you have a winning pair of tools to do your tags and eat it too.

Mike

[sinc]

Except those general note labels can't be copied to other drawings...  The text overrides reset.  The text overrides also reset if you change the style.  And Fields can't be used in C3D labels.

And MLeaders have the handy ability to have multiple leaders, and use Annotative Scales (including the ability to place the MLeader in different locations for different scales).  Not sure what you mean by "a number of different scales"...  If you mean you are creating styles for 1"=20', and for 1"=30', and for 1"=40', then yeah, you shouldn't have to do that.

And then MTEXT has all kinds of nifty formatting features these days, including left/right/center/decimal tabs, paragraph spacing, and more.  So MTEXT is also handy for many things.

We actually use C3D General Notes or C3D General Segment labels (to control label rotation) for some things, MLeaders for some things, and MTEXT for some things.  Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that makes C3D far more complicated than it needs to be, as there is an unnecessarily-complex set of factors that determine which one we use for what.

We have been wishing for a couple of years now that Autodesk would come up with a "Super Label" that combined the best features of all three of these.  Or at least, a C3D label that didn't suffer from resetting text overrides, had width capability, and had MLeader's multiple leaders and annotative scale abilities, which would be pretty darn close to the "Super Label".  Just add per-viewport visibility and placement, and we'd be set.

[doggarncity]

Alan,

Perhaps you folks might work together with a local Technical college, to arrange a class with myself as the instructor.  This is the second year of such an arrangement that I have with South East Tech in Sioux Falls, S.D.  The local professionals come to the school and we hammer on C3D for an entire week at a very nice rate for the students.  Call around and see if any of them are willing to host such a 'professional development' or continuing education course for the Civil professionals in your area.
I will be more than willing to put together the course outline, and other materials to help promote the class as needed.

So, why don't you do a webinar that we can pay for. I'd surely be willing to promote that. That way all of us from far and wide could really take the Forum to another level.

Mike P

[doggarncity]

Except those general note labels can't be copied to other drawings...  The text overrides reset.  The text overrides also reset if you change the style.  And Fields can't be used in C3D labels.

And MLeaders have the handy ability to have multiple leaders, and use Annotative Scales (including the ability to place the MLeader in different locations for different scales).  Not sure what you mean by "a number of different scales"...  If you mean you are creating styles for 1"=20', and for 1"=30', and for 1"=40', then yeah, you shouldn't have to do that.

And then MTEXT has all kinds of nifty formatting features these days, including left/right/center/decimal tabs, paragraph spacing, and more.  So MTEXT is also handy for many things.

We actually use C3D General Notes or C3D General Segment labels (to control label rotation) for some things, MLeaders for some things, and MTEXT for some things.  Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that makes C3D far more complicated than it needs to be, as there is an unnecessarily-complex set of factors that determine which one we use for what.

We have been wishing for a couple of years now that Autodesk would come up with a "Super Label" that combined the best features of all three of these.  Or at least, a C3D label that didn't suffer from resetting text overrides, had width capability, and had MLeader's multiple leaders and annotative scale abilities, which would be pretty darn close to the "Super Label".  Just add per-viewport visibility and placement, and we'd be set.

Great Idea maybe Version Civil3D 10... You always seem to be 3 steps ahead of Civil3D, wish you and Mike F. would be in a webinar together to learn more of what you know and share it, and I wouldn't mind paying for that, at all.

Mike
ps: by the way where do you find the time to dig into all this anyway?

[sinc]

ps: by the way where do you find the time to dig into all this anyway?

Good question.

Must have something to do with not having one of those "wife" things around telling me what to do...   

[mjfarrell]

I 'find' the time to dig into all of this during all of my training sessions.
My students help make me smarter, which is why I do not charge the same crazy fees as autodesk.
I have a lot of time in hotels while traveling to teach, and I do not go out and 'party' at night.
I read the help file, test differnt stuff in C3D and PLAY with it practically every day of the year for some reason or the other. 

In short; I do not simply teach C3D, this is what I do, so it is my mission to be the best at it at all levels possible.  I'm sort of driven that way.


Oh, yeah and the no wife thing really helps too.