AutoCAD 2012 – Missing a few things?

AutoCAD 2012 – Missing a few things?

The Array dialog box isn’t the only thing you might notice by its absence in AutoCAD 2012. I’ll do a proper “Putting things back to normal” post later, but here’s a quick one for those of you wondering what happened to a few things that appear to be AWOL in 2012.

Are you missing your aerial viewer, blips and/or screen menu? They’re still there, but the commands are undefined. To get them back, just redefine the commands:

REDEFINE DSVIEWER
DSVIEWER

REDEFINE BLIPMODE
BLIPMODE 1

REDEFINE SCREENMENU
SCREENMENU 1

These features are deprecated. That means unless enough of you kick up a fuss about needing them, they are likely to vanish without trace in a release or two.

Edit: Jimmy Bergmark pointed out that the same applies to the TRACE command. If you need it, redefine it.

38 Comments

  1. I just don’t get it.

    Why put your customers through the hoops like this? Do these (stable) commands interfere with the current code base or something? Is there a team of coders that need to maintain these features? Are they ultimately to be replaced with an alternative? Most likely not.

    For the record I make extensive use of the Aerial Viewer on a second monitor – I find it is an extremely efficient way of navigating around a document.

    I also find blips to be helpful to provide feedback on where I have previously clicked. In the event I’ve picked a couple of points for a selection window that didn’t quite get what I needed I know not to pick there again. Or in the case of trying to find endpoints (mid, whatever) of polyline vertexes (or other) I get a little visual feed back of where they are.

    WTH are they thinking?

  2. R. Paul Waddington

    Patrick, welcome to one of the uses of CIP. A tool to cull ‘little used’ software capabilty. I would still recommend CIP be OFF given the other uses; but what CIP does do (for those who have CIP on) is show Autodesk were a command is only used by a few and thus allows them to determine just how many users a cull may upset.
    A small number, lets say a couple of thousand (out of the millions), who use Aerial Viewer could be considered acceptable collateral damage knowing you probably will just complain here and that will be that: no real skin off Autodesk’s nose eh and more importantly no loss of revenue or custom!
    However, those who have lost out are now, quite probably going to be losing time & money and guess what you paid for Autodesk for your loss.
    How many of your customers can you get to pay you – in advance – to lower their productivity and loose them money and, keep them as customers?

  3. That command is actually done in LISP, and it’s still provided with 2012:

    C:AutodeskAutoCAD_2012_English_Win_64bitx64en-USacadAcadProgram FilesRootSupport3d.lsp

    However, it’s no longer autoloaded in 2012. If you want to autoload it, copy the loading bits you need from acad2011doc.lsp (same location) and add them to you own acaddoc.lsp (location of your choosing in the search path). Look at the relevant parts following this line:

    ;;;===== AutoLoad LISP Applications =====

  4. Dagmara

    A subject that was comming back with each new release. Is there a chance to get Classic workspace in 2012??? or it’s gone forever??? I had always changed directly to a classic interface as soon as I got a new release. So now I cannot find even a simple thing like changing colour from By layer to other one without going to properties! I love the “classic way” of working, is there a hope?

  5. Dagmara

    Well, I forgot to mention I´m using AutoCAD Architecture 2012. The gearwheel is in the bottom right in my ACAD and there is just Architecture, after comes customize, workspace settings, save current as.., display workspace label …… nothing more. But I mean as you said it used to be there AutoCAD Classic workspace??

  6. With the other ones (Start menu, desktop). Some of the verticals (e.g. Civil 3D) provide them, but I’ve never even seen AutoCAD Architecture so I didn’t know if it did too. Apparently not. 🙁

    I would say your best hope is to find a cuix that contains a classic workspace and try to import that workspace using the CUI command’s Transfer tab. Make safe copies of everything first! If that’s too risky, you’ll just have to make your own as briefly described here: http://www.blog.cadnauseam.com/2010/03/25/autocad-2011-putting-things-back-to-normal/

  7. Dagmara, if Joao’s observation applies to AA2012, then you should be able to copy the AA2012 shortcut and modify that copy to load the AutoCAD profile by placing the following at the end of the Target string:

    /p "AutoCAD"

    Once you double-click that shortcut, is there an AutoCAD Classic workspace available? If not, then you will need to import one from the 2011 cuix or make your own.

  8. hosam aldin

    hi steve,.,.
    I noticed just now that there is a missing command in this release 2012,.,. i am using it alot and they just ommited it,.,. i tried to redefine it as you say but they just keep telling me that this is unknown command!!!!
    the command is: MOVEBAK
    i am using it to move all the backup files with the .bak extension that automatically created and put it all in a one single file,.,.
    this command was working will in the previous release 2011,.,.,.
    please any help to get it back ???

    thanks

  9. hosam aldin

    Thank you so much, Mr.Steve
    I actually did not installed this part of the program
    Now I’ve install it and the ribbon appeared,.,.,.
    thanks again,.,.,.,.

  10. Jimmy Knapp

    What is the rationale for getting rid of the array window? The new method is extremly cumbersome and requires me to read the command line again. Aren’t we going backwords here?

  11. Jimmy Knapp

    After reading some of the other posts we deployed the service pack and viola! As another thread pointed out, most of the past service packs were not essential. One about 5 years ago even cause additional problems so I don’t install them unless we see a problem. In this case it was worth the time to deploy.

  12. Edward T

    Thanks for the knowledge about retaining/redefining the “screenmenu”.

    Q: Is there a way to get the screenmenu to load automatically? A simple macro was created to run the redefine command and then toggle 1. That’s the easy part. How to get it to autoload is next concern.

    Thanks in advance.
    E

  13. Ryan

    In AutoCAD 2010, you were able to use the “Page Up” & “Page Down” keyboard keys to scroll up and down the command line on the fly to view previous operations, Now, with AutoCAD 2012, you cannot do this anymore it seems…? You first have to click in the upper portion of the command line in order for the PgUp & PgDn keys to work….? Anyway to fix this?

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