Grabowski R. Customizing BricsCAD V18

12th edition. — Canada: upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd., 2018. — 590 p.If you are a messy sketcher like me, then you appreciate how computer software makes your work neater. For some drafters, that’s what BricsCAD amounts to: a neater drafting machine.
The real power behind CAD (computer-aided design), however, is its ability to be customized to the way you work. Customize is jargon for letting CAD do some of the drafting for you. This ranges from employing line types that are specific to your discipline to generating a 3D staircase to fit between two floors — and more.
The benefit? You get your work done in less time, or, if you are a free-lancer, you get more work done in the same time.
The drawback? Customizing takes a bit of time:
You need time to learn how to customize BricsCAD — that’s what this tutorial book is all about
Then you need more time to create the customization
Time isn’t something most professionals have a lot of. I sometimes find myself doing repetitive editing under the false belief that it would take longer to write (and debug) a macro for automating the task than doing it by hand repetitively. So, I have this rule-of-thumb:
Write a macro when the same action is repeated more than three times.
There lies the responsibility of programmers to make automation easier for the end-user. Still, the time you invest in automation makes you a more productive BricsCAD user, even in the short run.
The information in this reference applies equally to BricsCAD running on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. When there are differences from Windows, the Linux and MacOS portions are highlighted in gray colored text.Summary of Contents:
Customizing the BricsCAD Environment.
Introduction to Customizing BricsCAD.
Adjusting BricsCAD’s Settings.
Changing BricsCAD’s Environment.
Adapting the User Interface.
Working with the Customize Dialog Box.
Introduction to the Customize Dialog Box.
Customizing the Menu Bar and Context Menus.
Customizing Toolbars and Button Icons.
Writing Macros and Diesel Code.
Customizing Ribbon Tabs and Panels.
Customizing Keystroke Shortcuts, Aliases, and Shell Commands.
Customizing Mouse, Double-click, and Tablet Buttons.
Customizing the Quad.
Customizing Rollover Properties.
Customizing Workspaces.
Other Customizations.
Designing Tool & Structure Panels.
Creating Simple and Complex Linetypes.
Patterning Hatches.
Decoding Shapes and Fonts.
Coding with Field Text.
Programming BricsCAD.
Writing Scripts.
Programming with LISP.
Designing Dialog Boxes with DCL.
Dabbling in VBA.
Appendices.
Command Summary.
System Variables and Settings.
Concise DCL Reference.
Concise LISP Reference.