Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published February 2014

ACADDOC.LSP

First, I do not write full routines in Lisp. Ben & Lee are my go-to guys if I have any worthwhile ideas. I can, however, write one-liners which have randomly appeared on these pages over the last 10 years. For future reference—or to see what other commands you can add to the following exercise—take a look at Michael's Corner for February 2012.

It has been many years since I encountered the benefit of ACADDOC.LSP, and I was reminded of it when I was preparing this article and came across the following information in acad2014.lsp:

Note: This file is normally loaded only once per AutoCAD session. If you wish to have LISP code loaded into every document, you should add your code to acaddoc.lsp.

Let's say that occasionally you would like to turn off the Selection Preview feature—such as when you're working on complex 3D drawings in a Visual Style other than 2D Wireframe—and there are also times when you would like to split your Model Space into 2 views. Both of these requests would require more than a single click to accomplish… unless you add them to a .LSP file.

How to Add Routines to ACADDOC.LSP

1. Launch Windows Notepad.

2. Enter the following lines. For reference, take a look at my very first article on Lisp back in February 2003. (And yes, it does appear that I have a tendency to write about .LSP file in February!)

   ;Michael's Corner, Feb/Mar 2014 ; ;This routine sets the Selection Preview feature to Off (the Default is On) (DEFUN C:P0()(COMMAND "SELECTIONPREVIEW" "0")(PRINC)) ; ;Split Model space into 2 vertical halves (DEFUN C:S2()(COMMAND "-VPORTS" "2" "VERTICAL")(PRINC)) ; ;Set Model space to a Single viewport (DEFUN C:S1()(COMMAND "-VPORTS" "SI")(PRINC))

   In these routines, if you type what follows the C:, you will run the command and options that follow. Type P0 and it turns off the Selectionpreview condition. Type S2 to split Model space into 2 vertical section, then type S1 to put it back to a single view.

3. To make this work, you must name the file ACADDOC.LSP, and save it to AutoCAD's ..\Support folder [C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 201x\Support].

4. Since this is the first ACADDOC.LSP file that you have created, you will need to close AutoCAD, then relaunch.

5. To test it, draw a rectangle and confirm that the variable SELECTIONPREVIEW is set to something other than 0. Now enter S2 to split your screen. Enter P0 to turn off the preview feature, then hover over the rectangle and it doesn't highlight. Now type S0 to put your screen back to a single view.

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