Keep a Cheat Book

[smith1680]

Notebooks are great. But with my writing and lettering, sometimes I can not read my own notes. I've been using an "Excel" file to keep all my autocad command notes and comments on. This way if I can not remember exactly what I am looking for, I can do a search on a keyword and get close.
This has also worked on the numerous passwords that I use for different applications.
Comments and ideas are good, that's how we learn. Keep it up!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ron_09812001]

Having a cheatbook is a very smart move and on his way to mastery
.Everytime you encounter any new/fascinating idea just jot it down, you will never know the time when you will forget something which is needed badly................its a priceless collection.

[pauljordan]

With todays technology, you can keep most things on a thumb drive. I have a 4gb thumb drive and keep all my lisp routines on it for reference. I also keep a group of programs from portableapps.com that allow me to check my personal e-mail using Mozilla Thunderbird even on machines that don't have that installed. Also runs my Firefox with my bookmarks already there. When I unplug it, it all goes away with me.

I've taken it one step farther, as an Autodesk Sales/Techie/Application Engineer, I tend to visit my clients a lot. I sometimes will start talking about a different product and by the time I'm finished, they'll say "Hey, I'd like to get a trial of that sometime." at which point, I reach into my pocket and pull out my 30gb Ipod and a cable and say "Got usb?". I carry all the trials for the Autodesk software I sell and support on my Ipod. I also have the Portableapps installed on it so I can again check my e-mail and perhaps show the client a website I have saved in my favorites.

Older Ipods are getting a lot cheaper with the new ones coming out. A 30gb video or even one of the older 40gb or 60gb photos is a great score in the portable hard drive arena.. Ohh, and you can listen to music too. Can we say Win-Win??

Now, as for my reminders of what lisp routines I've created, here's a sample of a lisp routine that tells me what my commands are:

(DEFUN C:LAZY () ; give a paged list of the macros in this file
(TEXTSCR)
(Prompt "\n ")
(Prompt "\n LIST OF KEYBOARD MACROS IN ACAD.LSP ")
(Prompt "\n ")
(Prompt "\n A.............AREA AE............ATTEDIT ")
(Prompt "\n ANSI31........ANSI31 HATCH ARC...........ARC ")
(Prompt "\n ARCC..........ARC CEN TO CEN ARY...........ARRAY ")
(Prompt "\n BL............BLOCK BR............BREAK ")
(Prompt "\n BRAT..........BREAK AT BR1P..........BREAK & ERASE ")
(Prompt "\n BR2P..........BREAK & ERASE 2 BRK...........BREAK INTS. ")
(Prompt "\n C.............COPY CH............CHANGE ")
(Prompt "\n CHST..........CHANGE STYLE CC............COPY CROSSING ")
(Prompt "\n CI............CIRCLE CL............COPY LAST ")
(Prompt "\n CON...........CONCRETE HATCH CP............COPY PREVIOUS ")
(Prompt "\n CTC...........CHANGE TO CUR LAY CW............COPY WINDOW ")
(Prompt "\n DB............DBLIST DI............DISTANCE ")
(Prompt "\n DET...........INSERT DET BLOCK DO............DONUT ")
(Prompt "\n DT............DTEXT EARTH.........EARTH HATCH ")
(Prompt "\n EARTH45.......EARTH HATCH AT 45 EC............ERASE CROSSING ")
(Prompt "\n EL............ERASE LAST ELL...........ELLIPSE ")
(Prompt "\n EP............ERASE PREVIOUS ER............ERASE ")
(Prompt "\n EX............EXPLODE EXT...........EXTEND ")
(Prompt "\n FL............FILLET GYP...........GYPSUM HATCH ")
(Prompt "\n HA............HATCH I.............INSERT ")
(Prompt "\n IL............ISOPLANE LEFT IR............ISOPLANE RIGHT ")
(Prompt "\n IX............ISOPLANE TOP LA............LAYER ")

(setq temp (getstring "\nPress Enter to Continue: "))
(Prompt "\n LI............LIST LIC...........LINE CENTER ")
(Prompt "\n LIM...........LINE MID LIN...........LINE NEAR ")
(Prompt "\n LIQ...........LINE QUAD LIQQ..........LINE QUA TO QUA ")
(Prompt "\n LLQQ..........LEADER QUA TO QUA LL............LEADER LINE ")
(Prompt "\n LLE...........LDR LINE END LLI...........LDR LINE INT ")
(Prompt "\n LLN...........LDR LINE NEAR LNT...........LINE INT ")
(Prompt "\n LOOP..........DIMBLK TO LOOP MC............MOVE CROSSING ")
(Prompt "\n MI............MIRROR ML............MOVE LAST ")
(Prompt "\n M.............MOVE MP............MOVE PREVIOUS ")
(Prompt "\n MW............MOVE WINDOW OFS...........OFFSET ")
(Prompt "\n OS............OSNAP P.............PAN ")
(Prompt "\n PG............POLYGON PL............POLYLINE ")
(Prompt "\n PLYV..........PLYWOOD HATCH PNT...........POINT ")
(Prompt "\n QS............QUICK SAVE QT............QTEXT ")
(Prompt "\n QU............QUIT RE............REDRAW ")
(Prompt "\n RECT..........RECTANGLE RO............ROTATE ")
(Prompt "\n SA............SAVE SC............SCALE ")
(Prompt "\n ST............STRETCH STA...........STATUS ")
(Prompt "\n TE............TEXT TR............TRIM ")
(Prompt "\n U.............UNDO UN............UNITS ")
(Prompt "\n WB............WBLOCK ZA............ZOOM ALL ")
(Prompt "\n ZD............ZOOM DYNAMIC ZE............ZOOM EXTENTS ")
(Prompt "\n ZP............ZOOM PREVIOUS ZQ............ZOOM PREVIOUS ")
(Prompt "\n ZW............ZOOM WINDOW ")

(setq temp (getstring "\nPress Enter to Return: "))
(graphscr)
)
(DEFUN C:LD () ; LOAD THE SPECIFIED LISP PROGRAM - I love this one!
(SETQ LISPNAME (GETSTRING "Enter LISP Routine name: "))
(LOAD LISPNAME)
)
(princ "\nLazy.LSP -- Loaded. Type lazy to execute. ")
(princ)

The very last part is a short way to load lisp routines. Once you load this file, if you just type "ld" (without the quotes of course) at the command line, it will ask you what lisp routine you want to load, type in the name and it's loaded. You can add an autorun to your lisp routines to make it run right away if you so desire.

Enjoy.

[simonalex12]

I recently finished an autocad class and a cheat book will definitely come in handy. The instructor worked with autocad for years and shared alot of tips and tricks. (I'm sure there's more to learn). I'm sure I'll post soon to ask about lisps because I need to know more about em.

[pauljordan]

Simonalex, take your time and learn the main program before you try using lisp routines. If you handicap your learning process by using lisp routines, there will come a time when they're not available and your basic skills won't be there to bail you out.

As an instructor, I show a couple of simple lisp routines in my more advanced classes, in the basic classes, it's all about the basics.

[simonalex12]

Thanks for the advice Pauljordan. It is quite overwhelming with alot of the basics so I will take your advice on holding out. I started to feel like I missed something in class.

[pauljordan]

You're absolutely right about missing things in class Simonalex, there's just no way to teach someone everything in a week long class. Most places run 3 day classes, we run week long classes here..

Basically, you've learned a bit of the Autocad language as I like to call it. You've been exposed to learning how people talk about the software, things like blocks, xrefs, layers, and palettes.

The best thing you can do now is be near someone that can mentor you. Being a member of AUGI gives you access to the best mentoring system in the world, I kid you not. I wish they had this when I was learning R10 many moons ago. I was lucky enough to have a co-worker that learned at the same time as I and we sat facing each other and had the time to discover all the neat things.

Cruise the forums here, there are E-learning exercises all over the place, you can download the contect from last years Autodesk University, and when you get stuck, by all means, do a search on your question, then ask away. The neat thing about this software is like when you might ask "How do I draw a line?" there might be 4 or 5 different answers right away. All of them will tell you a different way of doing it. When you ask a question and get multiple answers, try them all. Not only will you find the best way for you to do the task but, you'll also learn more about the program.

Find a local users group and start going to the meetings. Search the web for Autocad blogs and other websites. There are tons out there. After a few months, look into taking a higher level class.

Good luck.

[BeKirra]

Thanks for the advice Pauljordan. It is quite overwhelming with alot of the basics so I will take your advice on holding out. I started to feel like I missed something in class.

Another approach is to learn customise menu/toolbar/button brfore heading into lisp.

Building personal buttons, for example, is a self basic lisp learning lesson - it's simple & fun.

You'll learn to understand commands, variables by building buttons.

[BeKirra]

 
...
(DEFUN C:LAZY () ; give a paged list of the macros in this file              
(DEFUN C:LD () ; LOAD THE SPECIFIED LISP PROGRAM - I love this one!
...

Enjoy.

Another Nice tip. Glad to learn from you.

[mfowler]

I used to keep up a tips & tricks document, but that didn't really work out too well because it was difficult to update and keep my users current with the latest doc release.

Then I thought sharepoint would be perfect for this, but as some know too well, sharepoint isn't exactly the most user friendly solution.

So what I did recently was to leverage my employer's webhost account by creating a wordpress blog and registering a custom domain to point to it. Now I can update it whenever needed (from wherever), and utilize the feed reader built into Autocad to push updates to my users. I've found this to be hugely successful, and I've since opened it up to allow not only my own guys to contribute, but hopefully anyone who might be interested.

I've spent a fair amount of time adding some neato bells and whistles to make the blog both visually appealing, and easy to use. And best of all, it's accessible at the office, at home, and on the road. I'll soon even be adding a mobile version.

I would recommend this solution to anyone with the inclination to set one up. Of course, all are welcome to become a regular at my place.

See my sig to see what I mean.