Status Window

[Mario]

What happened to the "Status Window"?

I recently upgraded to PowerCADD 9 from 6 and the option to change Scale in the Status Window is now dimmed.
I have to change it via Menu slowing down my drafting.

What happened? It's something wrong in my Preferences or it's a software change from EngSW side?

Thanks

[huc]

It's something wrong in my Preferences or it's a software change from EngSW side?

The latter.

[jimnlacy]

I'm not sure why they made he change, but it is a constant gripe for me. I change scales for detail to plan sheets rather frequently. Every time I go up to the drawing setup to do change scales I feel like I'm using AutoCad. And I say "really"?

Jim

[patrickm]

It used to be a constant gripe for me, but I am so used to it now, that it no longer is a big deal for me. I have a keyboard command that opens the Drawing Setup window, and using the shortcut has become second nature to me.

regards,
patrick

[Damon]

Mario,

V6 to V9 is a big jump. You have missed many changes, and many improvements. The status window is 'old code' as I understand it, and is not really compatible with the current powercadd. Or V8.

Jim and Patrick:

We all (I assume) do details and plans at different scales. Why bother with the drawing setup window? It is much faster to simply draw details on a 'detail' layer, set to the scale that you want. Then there is a single click in the layer window. Changing the drawing scale of the entire drawing, simply to work on a detail, seems counterintuitive. I often have details as several scales and they are on layers, or sets of layers, at a particular scale. It is much easier to go to details on a layer that is set to the appropriate scale.

[patrickm]

I actually draw my details as separate files, then copy/paste onto my detail sheets. This way, I have a catalogue of all my details, for use in future jobs. I generally don't use layer scale, because I normally draw at one scale in a particular file.

Maybe I'll change in the future...

cheers,
patrick

[Damon]

Patrick,

No need to change. Doing details separately so that they are easily accessible and reusable is the smart way to do it. Actually, I should do that as well. But I expect that the pasted details would go into a drawing with layers where the layer is at the scale of the detail.

I'm always looking to reduce the number of mouse clicks, reduce the number of open palettes and minimize navigational mouse movements around the drawing. Hence my comments about the layer scale approach.

I just like it to be simple. Like me.

Damon

[jimnlacy]

Damon,

That's an interesting approach. I will consider trying it out.

Cheers,

Jim

[David Scott]

You can also reach the Drawing Setup… dialog by right-clicking on a ruler bar.

EngSW brought back the Status window due to demand, but for some programming reason they couldn't implement the drawing scale button- they should really just turn it into fixed text rather than a greyed-out button.

I use the Status window for the 'Go To' button. It's handy to click on an object, and then click on the 'Go To' button to take me straight to the layer that the object is in.

David

[pbacot]

Status window is also good as a constantly visible scale indicator (would that it were displayed the ways scales are in the list, but numerical is OK), even though it doesn't work for switching scales, and I too wish it did. I know the toolbar shows this but I won't use the toolbar until there are actually useful icons to put there.

you can use a macro program to change scales via the drawing setup window.

Also I like that the status window shows how many objects are selected and if multiple selected objects are on the same layer, which is handy for layer management. Edit window does not.