Blocks, attributes and relative placement

What it does

CAPCAD_BLOCK_TOOLS — blocks utilities

Opens the Blocks Utilities form already on the Export tab. It is the same form as CAPCAD_BATCH_BLOCK, which opens it on the Insert tab — that tab is documented in Batch insert and is not repeated here.

The form is modeless and there is one instance per session: running the command again brings the window to the front on the tab you asked for, with everything you had already typed. On the first open, the block list and the replacement-block list are filled with the drawing's definitions, and the path field is given the current drawing's folder.

Control numbering is continuous across the tabs: one number identifies the same control in every image in this section.

The screenshots on this page are of a Portuguese session; the numbering is the same in both editions, and the tables give the English captions.

The Export tab — the library the drawing has become

The list appears empty outside the CAD: it is filled with the active drawing's definitions.

The Clone tab — copying a definition

The Block Replace tab — swapping one definition for another

The batch box (21) only enables with Batch (19) ticked; in the other two modes it is the replacement-block line (17, 18) that counts.

The replacement block always lands at the same insertion point, rotation, scale and layer as the one it replaced. A replacement block that exists neither in the drawing nor as a file returns Block file to be inserted not found, and swapping a block for itself returns the warning that the two names are the same.

The Utils tab

The XREFs tab

The Process internally tab — swapping a colour inside the blocks

Despite the generic label, only hatches inside the definitions matching the filter are recoloured. No other entity is touched.

The Position tab — taking blocks to a point

Every selected block goes to the same point — they end up stacked. This is a tidying command, not a distributing one.

The Find tab — the duplicate search result

The Duplicates tab

Two references count as duplicates when they match in effective block name (case-insensitively), insertion point (X, Y and Z), rotation, and X and Y scale, all rounded to four decimal places. Only model space is swept.

CAPCAD_BLOCK_LOAD — load a definition from the library

A diagnostic command, with no ribbon button and no form. It asks Block name to load: on the command line and brings the block's definition into the drawing — inserting nothing. The trailing .dwg may be typed or left off.

The search follows the same folder order the Road Library and the batch insert use:

1. a definition already in the drawing;
2. the Support\Dwg folder installed with CapCad;
3. the project's pavement-inscription folder;
4. its viario sub-folder;
5. the project's library folder;
6. its viario sub-folder;
7. the immediate sub-folders of the library folder.

Steps 3 to 7 are skipped when there is no active project. The .dwg found is imported as a block definition of the same name, with the units locked to metres — a definition already in the drawing keeps whatever units it has. The command line answers Loaded '<name>' from: <path> — or Loaded '<name>' from: (already in drawing) when the definition was already there, or Block '<name>' not found in any project folder.

It is the most direct way of finding out which folder a block is coming from when two library folders hold files of the same name.

CAPCAD_BLOCK_ATTRIBUTE_EDIT — Cap Attributes

The form is modal: while it is open the drawing accepts no commands. When it asks for the block it hides, and comes back on its own.

The line underneath is the status bar: it shows how many attributes the block has, or how many attributes were written across how many blocks. The block count includes every reference visited, even ones where nothing changed.

Constant attributes do not appear in the grid — they are part of the definition and have no per-reference value.

Not available in this version: value lists coming from CapCloud, copying attributes between blocks, "apply to all blocks" of any name, and the revision manager.

CAPCAD_BLOCK_ATTRIBUTE_IMPORT — Cap ATT-IN

The explanatory text inside the form is in Portuguese in every language of the product; the controls themselves are in English. The button numbered 11 reads Limpa — Clear.

The command runs the Entity Report in reverse: you export, edit in Excel and give it back. The table is tab-separated text with a mandatory header row.

How the table is read

• One header column has to be named ObjectID or HANDLE — that is what identifies the entity. Without that column, nothing is applied. The match is case-insensitive but must be the whole word: Object ID or Handles will not do.
• The TextContent column carries the content of a Text or MText.
• The DWG column says which drawing the row belongs to (see control 12).
• The Layer column moves the entity, when Layers (8) is ticked.
• Every other column is read as an attribute tag or as a dynamic block property name. The header decides: a column called KM feeds the KM attribute. Note that Layer is also offered as an attribute tag, so a block with a Layer attribute will have it written too.
• Rows with no value in the key column are silently dropped.

Controls

The form is modeless and there is one instance per session.

CAPCAD_REFERENCE_PLACER — reference placer

Numbers 4 and 8 mark the whole 3×3 grids, not the cell the callout sits in. The lower grid appears greyed out because Use opposite (9) comes ticked.

It aligns one selection ("objects to move") against a reference, by each one's bounding box: you choose an anchor point on the reference's box, an anchor point on the box of what is going to move, and the two points are made to coincide.

The flow

1. Select reference objects (1) — the reference. With Point as reference (2) ticked, the button asks for a click instead of a selection, and the reference's "box" becomes a microscopic square around the point.
2. Select objects to move (3) — what is going to shift. An ok appears beside each button once its selection is made: blue for the reference, orange for the objects to move — the same colours as the rectangles drawn in the drawing.
3. Choose the anchors (4 and 8), the axis (5, 6, 7) and the gap (10, 11). With CapDynamic (14) on, every change repositions the selection in the drawing at once.
4. Accept (12) when it looks right.

Controls

Going back from Only X / Only Y to All re-enables the Gap box but does not re-tick it, and does not restore the position.

The rectangles drawn

After each placement the command draws in model space, on the current layer:

• the reference's bounding box in blue (plus a blue POINT, in point mode);
• the bounding box of what moved, in orange.

The previous ones are erased before each redraw, and all of them go on Accept, on Reset or when the form closes. They are ordinary drawing entities — if the CAD closes with the form open, they stay.

Remembered between sessions

• CAPCAD_REFERENCE_PLACER stores, in the user preferences, the gap value and whether the Gap box was ticked. They are written when the form closes. The anchors, the axis, Use opposite and CapDynamic always come back at the factory values.
• CAPCAD_BLOCK_TOOLS, CAPCAD_BLOCK_ATTRIBUTE_EDIT, CAPCAD_BLOCK_ATTRIBUTE_IMPORT and CAPCAD_BLOCK_LOAD store nothing. For as long as the session lasts, though, the modeless forms keep whatever you typed.

Notes

• Prefer HANDLE to ObjectID in Cap ATT-IN. The handle is written into the file and holds forever; the ObjectID is the entity's pointer in that session. A spreadsheet exported, saved and reopened after the drawing was closed has invalid ObjectIDs, and the rows start pointing at the wrong entities or at nothing.
• The Define capcad layers box creates the layer, but does not style it — and outside Brazil the entity is left behind. In an English or Spanish session the layer is created under the country profile's translated name, while the entity keeps its old layer, without a message, and is not counted in the "entities changed" total. The same happens whenever Define capcad layers is unticked and the target layer is not already in the drawing. Use layer names that already exist in the drawing.
• Cap ATT-IN does not tell you what it could not do. It counts the entities changed and the keys not found; a column whose name is a tag the block does not have, or a value the dynamic property refuses, is ignored in silence.
• The dynamic clone (14) accepts a non-dynamic block. It does not check whether the picked reference is dynamic: on an ordinary block it simply creates a copy of the definition called <name>_static, swaps the reference for it and erases the original. Check what you picked.
• The duplicate-criteria boxes (26–29) have no effect. The key is always name + position + rotation + scale, to four decimal places. Ticking or unticking changes nothing.
• Find and delete does not show what it deleted. Button 44 reports only the count. Run 43 first, read the list on the Find tab, and only then delete.
• "Polylines only" and "hatches only". Change layers internally to 0 (24) touches only polylines and Process internally (36) only hatches, despite the generic labels.
• The Position tab stacks, it does not distribute. Every selected reference goes to the same X/Y (37, 38), and the name filter (39) has no effect.
• The placer does not undo. Accept and Reset do exactly the same thing on AutoCAD: they clear the rectangles and drop the selection. The objects stay where the last calculation put them. The way back is the CAD's U.
• On the other CADs the placer behaves differently. On BricsCAD, GstarCAD, ZWCAD and ARES Commander the CapSign button (15) is not available, the check rectangles are not drawn at all, and Reset really does return the selection to where it was chosen while Accept leaves it in place — so on those hosts the two buttons are not equivalent.
• A few texts stay in Portuguese in the English product: the Clear button of Cap ATT-IN reads Limpa, and the whole explanatory paragraph inside that form is Portuguese. Conversely, Select reference objects and Select objects to move on the placer, the Block replace report title and several of the blocks-utilities warning boxes are English in every language.

See also

• Batch insert (spreadsheet to drawing) — the Insert tab of this same Blocks Utilities form, and the batch commands that share the block loader.
• Entity Report — the export Cap ATT-IN reads back in.
• Road Library — where the block definitions come from.
• CapSign — the sign designer the placer's last button opens.