Topic: /Rant Leaders disassociating theirselves

[dubb]

A major pet peeve of mine. Qleaders mysteriously disassociating from their relative mtext.
I searched a Autodesk forums and I feel so bad for this guy who had about 200 leaders disassociate. When someone QC'd my drawings I feel really embarrassed that my leaders were all messed up.

Can anyone relate?
Any solutions?

[ChrisCarlson]

Use mleader?

[ronjonp]

Use mleader?

This^^  ... I have not used regular leaders since AutoCAD 2008 was released.

[pendean]

Qleaders mysteriously disassociating from their relative mtext.
Can anyone relate?
Any solutions?

MLEADER command permanently associated the leader with its body of text, they are inseparable until you EXPLODE them. Unless you are on a very old version of AutoCAD consider updating your chosen tools.

Otherwise look into DIMREASSOCIATE command and be ready to always have this problem when sending to other AutoCAD users who don't remember oldies-commands fixes 

[dubb]

I hate to say it but, we are behind the curve when it comes to mleader. I will try to push for mleader.

Use mleader?

This^^  ... I have not used regular leaders since AutoCAD 2008 was released.

[ChrisCarlson]

Understandable, a lot of people gripe about changing their procedures but when you convince them on their time savings and quality improvements, the good designers will conform. When I started everything was drawn in scaled in paper space. Do you know how annoying it is to do a material take off when you need to apply a factor to your line counts 

[dubb]

Part of the issue with transitioning from one feature to another is implementation and possibility of loss of features. For instance, with qleader/mleader we lose the feature of background masks on mtext. Mleader doesn't have a way to set the mtext properties's background mask by default so you would have to mask the mtext after an mleader is drawn. A little annoyance, that I hope others will be able to adapt to in transition. Other than that, if mleader is an evolution of the leader then it should be worth while to utilize it.

[pendean]

Mleader doesn't have a way to set the mtext properties's background mask by default so you would have to mask the mtext after an mleader is drawn.

Are you using LT, or Full AutoCAD? A Lisp/Reactor would take care of that need easily if you are not using LT, plus you get to take advantage of your full AutoCAD investment by using all its available customizations.

EDIT: see this tip http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?94107-Multileader-mask-on

[ronjonp]

.. Mleader doesn't have a way to set the mtext properties's background mask by default so you would have to mask the mtext after an mleader is drawn. ...

Check

Code - Auto/Visual Lisp: [Select]

1. (defun c:mlmaskon (/ s)
2.   (if (setq s (ssget ":L" '((0 . "multileader"))))
3.     (foreach a (mapcar 'vlax-ename->vla-object (vl-remove-if 'listp (mapcar 'cadr (ssnamex s))))
4.       (vla-put-textbackgroundfill a :vlax-true)
5.     )
6.   )
7.   (princ)
8. )