Entry points and modes

CAPCAD — bring the ribbon back

This is the rescue command: when the CapCad tab disappears from the ribbon, type CAPCAD on the command line.

What it does, in this order:

1. Runs RIBBON, which shows the CAD's own ribbon again if it was hidden.
2. Picks the menu file from the product language: the Brazilian menu in a Brazilian profile, the Spanish-America menu in a Spanish one, and the generic English menu in every other case.
3. Looks for that file in the CapCad installation folder and loads it with CUILOAD.
4. If the file is not there, it writes <name>.cuix not found in <folder> on the command line and loads nothing.

No CAD restart is needed, and the command has no ribbon button — for the obvious reason that the ribbon is exactly what is missing when you need it.

Three things to know:

• It does not unload the previous menu. The CUILOAD is done on top of whatever is already loaded. If the CapCad menu group is still in the session, you can end up with two CapCad tabs. Use CUIUNLOAD to drop the duplicate, or restart the CAD.
• Only three menu files are reachable this way. A UK menu and an airport menu are also distributed, but this command decides by language, not by country: a UK profile reloads the generic English menu. To get your country's ribbon back, switch profile with CAPCAD_COUNTRY_STANDARDS, which loads the correct menu.
• The right ribbon also comes back on its own at the next CAD start after a profile switch, because activation rewrites the auto-load file.

See also the Troubleshooting guide, item 9.

CAPCAD_BETA — the diagnostic switch

CAPCAD_BETA is a diagnostic session switch, not a design feature. It toggles a session mode that CapCad support may ask you to change.

Each run flips the state, which lasts only for the CAD session: close and reopen and you are back on the default.

Flipping the switch changes nothing in how the commands run. It stays in the product because it is the diagnostic path support uses, and because the recorded mode goes into the error report and into CAPCAD_DIAGNOSE.

Who it is for: CapCad support, and a diagnostic session they are running with you. It is not a working mode, it does not change any drawing result, and it should not be part of anyone's routine.

Two neighbouring commands:

• CAPDEV_MIGRATION_STATUS opens a text window with a diagnostic listing of the commands, for support. It does not flip the switch.
• CAPCAD_LEGACY is not a command: typing it returns unknown command. The name that works is CAPCAD_BETA.

The ribbon button is the small unlabelled one inside the System split button; its tooltip reads CapBeta in the English menu and CapCad Beta in the Brazilian one.

CAPCAD_DISENAL — load the Diseñal add-on

Diseñal is the Chilean road-signing application, distributed by a third party. CAPCAD_DISENAL loads that application into the running CAD and calls its DISENAL command.

How the command decides which file to load:

1. Reads the CAD version (ACADVER) and converts it into a release year.
2. Converts the year into a version band, the suffix used in the Diseñal file names: 2010_2012, 2013_2014, 2015_2016, 2017_2018, 2019_2020 and 2021_2022. Any CAD from 2021 onwards falls in the last band.
3. Looks in the CapCad installation folder for the Diseñal file of that band; failing that, accepts any Diseñal file it finds there.
4. On a hit, loads that file into the CAD and runs the DISENAL command.

If nothing is found, the message Diseñal not properly installed or in an unsupported location appears, naming the file it looked for. Answering "No" opens the Chilean signing manual in the browser; answering "Yes" just closes the box. That is the intended logic — "Yes" confirms you already know about it and do not want the website.

Notes:

• The button only exists on the Spanish-America ribbon (Señalización Vertical panel, CapSign split button). It is on neither the English nor the Brazilian ribbon; the command is still typeable.
• The messages are in English, in every language of the product.
• CapCad does not distribute Diseñal. It has to be installed in the same folder as CapCad.

Other doors into forms that already exist

The four commands below have no form of their own: they open a form documented elsewhere, with the tab, the category or the geometry already chosen. They exist because that choice is the work — there is no point asking you to open the form and then hunt for the tab.

In every case the form is one per session: if it is already open, the command only changes the tab (or the category) and brings the window to the front, keeping whatever you had filled in.

CAPCAD_ANALYTICS_SIGN_POST_HEIGHT — post height

Opens Road Signs Management straight on the Post height tab, and does one thing CAPCAD_SIGN_MANAGE does not: it loads the terrain before opening. If the drawing has a surface named in its configuration (a LandXML file), it is read and made available for the embedment and clearance calculation. Open the form with CAPCAD_SIGN_MANAGE and switch tabs by hand and the surface is not loaded.

It is the only one of the four that also runs on BricsCAD, GstarCAD and ZWCAD.

CAPCAD_DEVICE_TRAFFIC_LIGHT — the traffic-signal library

Opens the Dwg Library with the traffic-signals category already selected, so you can insert signal heads, poles and mast arms without going through the category list.

The pre-selection is made by exact category name, and the categories are the folders of the block library. The name it looks for is SEMAFÓRICA, so outside a Portuguese library the pre-selection does not happen and the form opens on no category at all.

CAPCAD_MARKING_AREA_ASSISTANT — the area-marking assistant

This is the only one of the four that decides anything. You select the geometry first, and the command chooses which area-marking form to open, handing it the legs it identified.

The rules, exactly as the command applies them:

Details that change the outcome:

• It counts vertices, not segments. An open polyline with four or more vertices — even one that looks exactly like two legs of a chevron — falls into the "any other shape" rule and is treated as an area. For the 2-flow marking, select the two lines separately, or draw the reference with exactly three vertices.
• Before counting, the entity is normalised anticlockwise, so vertex order does not depend on how you drew it.
• With two entities, both must be open. If one of them is closed the assistant refuses, two entities or not.
• When the selection is two lines that do not share an end point, the 2-flow form still opens, with a warning that the vertex order will be used as the reference instead of the common vertex.
• The refusal is an OK box. No rules page is opened; read the area-marking pages listed above.
• A closed 4-vertex entity always becomes 3 flows, never a filled area. To hatch the inside of a closed quadrilateral, run the filled area-marking command directly.
• The button for this command sits on the Portuguese-labelled road-marking panel only (Zebrados split button › Assistente Zebrinha!). On the English ribbon, type the command name.

CAPCAD_3D_SIGN_CHECK — the 3D tab of sign validation

Opens the Validate and publish sign form — the same one CAPCAD_SIGN_FILL opens — already on the 3D tab. This tab is about the three-dimensional sign drawing: turning a sign drawn from hatches into a solid, saving it into the project's sign folder, and opening samples.

The 3D tab. The 2D tab belongs to CAPCAD_SIGN_FILL and is described on the sign-correction page. The capture is from a Portuguese session; the control numbers are the same in every language.

Convert sign to standalone 3D

Save and samples

The samples are downloaded from the CapCad server the first time and reused afterwards; with no connection, the button reports that the download failed.

Clicking 10, 11 or 14 raises a notice: the conversion is not available in this version.

Notes

• CAPCAD is not the command that installs CapCad. It only reloads the menu. Installation and first use are in Introduction.
• Changing country is a different command. CAPCAD_COUNTRY_STANDARDS changes norms, layers, library, language and ribbon in one step.
• On ARES Commander six of these commands answer "…is not yet available in ARES (coming soon)". CAPCAD_ANALYTICS_SIGN_POST_HEIGHT is the exception: it is real there, and on BricsCAD, GstarCAD and ZWCAD too.
• None of these commands has a keyboard alias. The aliases that exist point at the commands that do the work: VA for sign validation, A1 / A3 / AA for the area markings. See Command shortcuts.

See also

• Introduction — the ribbon, the installation and the shortcuts.
• Troubleshooting guide — what to do when the ribbon disappears.
• Command shortcuts — the alias tables, per language file and per host.