New tool idea

[jterry7484]

I thought of a great tool that seems like it would be easy to implement into pcadd. A hyperlink tool. You would choose the tool draw a rectangle around an area you wanted to be the "button" and then a dialog would appear asking for the location. You could then choose either a file, a website, or a location on the current drawing page. Then whenever you clicked on the "button" pcadd would open the file, or Safari would open the link ..... etc..

The possiblities of uses are limitless........ I can think of lots of ways to use this.

[Peter Severin Carlsen]

What are you trying to do that you can't do now? You might start with the problem you've encounterd and then explain how you want the solution to work.

This sounds on the surface like just another way to open a drawing or another way to cut and paste. It's clear to you, but I'm not sure what it could do for someone else.

[jterry7484]

Imagine opening a building elevation. There you would have a few section cuts like normal.... you could create a link attached to the section cut that would open the specific file that contains that detail. Sure you can go and find the file on your drive and open it that way, but suppose there is a colaboration with another person, they could look at the drawing see the section cut simply click on it and automatically open the appropriate file. Or suppose you want to include some documation from a website, you could attach a link that would carry you to that location on the web (using your browser of course).

For example, I draw cabinets primarily. Each cabinet has its own drawing, but then I have an "overall" drawing where I put everything together to make sure it works. Using this technique I could simply click on one of the boxes in the overall and it would open its "detailed" drawing.

[jasonlocher]

sounds like a request for viewports.

good luck!

[huc]

[jasonlocher]

[Peter Severin Carlsen]

It sounds like you would like a special target (for example: 3/A12), that when you clicked on it, holding down some special key it would "open" a separate drawing the target referenced. It would not be on the current drawing, but a separate file that is opened for reference.

Or do you want the drawing to appear in the original drawing at a different scale, in which case it does indeed sound like you want a referenced view port.

Still I wonder about the complexity of the whole thing. I have trouble keeping drawings together so they can be found whether by me or a program at a latter date to say nothing of properly keyed in target or reference. I don't think it would end up being as simple to use or administer as it sounds, but perhaps Im wrong.

[huc]

I really think the easy and clear first step is an Open referenced file menu item -- an example is attached. That example is a simple, single reference, item -- clearly with multiple referenced files as was the case with details discussed earlier, one click access similar to what's shown becomes even more important IMO.

Since the master drawing has all the references already inserted -- they appear in the Reference menu. Having anopen menu item, linked directly to the referenced drawing, would provide one step access.

while less complex than referenced view ports, etc., , maybe simple is the best place to start as it seems that would meet the original request as I understand it.

[huc]

[quote="jasonlocher"][quote="huc"]

[jasonlocher]

[Steve Woolf]

Let's keep this one alive. The excitement of the original post seems to have been trampled down to a much thinner concept and all but killed. The idea was to create pointers from specific places on your drawing to ANY information source. I think it's a wonderful idea!