2004

Table Of Contents

20 | Chapter 2 Menus, Toolbars and Tool Palettes

Tool Palettes

Tool palettes are tabbed areas within the Tool Palettes window that provide

an efficient method for organizing, sharing, and placing blocks and hatches.

Tool palettes can also contain custom tools provided by third-party

developers.

Insert Blocks and Hatches Using Tool Palettes

Tool palettes are tabbed areas within the Tool Palettes window. You can place

blocks and hatches that you use often on a tool palette. When you need to

add a block or a hatch to a drawing, drag it from the tool palette onto your

drawing.

Blocks and hatches that reside on a tool palette are called tools, and several

tool properties including scale, rotation, and layer can be set for each tool

individually.

Blocks that are placed with this method often must be rotated or scaled after

they are placed. You can use object snaps when dragging blocks from a tool

palette, however grid snap is suppressed during dragging.

Scale Blocks Automatically

When a block is dragged from a tool palette into a drawing, it is scaled auto-

matically according to the ratio of units defined in the block and defined in

the current drawing. For example, if the current drawing uses meters as its

units and a block is defined using centimeters as its units, the ratio of the

units is 1 m/100 cm. When the block is dragged into the drawing, it is

inserted at 1/100 scale.

Note In the Options dialog box, User Preferences tab, the Source Content

Units and Target Drawing Units settings are used when, either in the source

block or the target drawing, the Drag-and-Drop Scale is set to Unitless.