Goodness, am I not the worst blogger ever? My apologies to all of my loyal readers; last week was quite a monumental week. As I have mentioned a few times before, The CAD Geek is something I do in my free time. Consequently the time I would have otherwise spent blogging, was spent putting a contract on a house. That’s right, I am about to enter the world of being a first-time homeowner. As I am sure many can appreciate, it’s both exciting, and a little scary! Anyone wishing to make a donation to the "Donnie Gladfelter Home Ownership Foundation" is welcome to. For anyone interested in contributing, I accept all major credit cards through PayPal. Sorry donations are not tax deductible, but they will allow me to blog from the comfort of a couch, not my floor ;-).
Nonetheless, after going all last week without blogging, I am back with a post to introduce the all-new Action Recorder inside AutoCAD 2009. Looking through my e-mail archive, I can’t tell you how many e-mails I have received from readers such as yourself asking about script files. Personally, I have always liked SCRIPT files because they are relatively easy to learn, and even easier to use. Even still, SCRIPT files intimidated many, and proved elusive to many CAD Users.
AutoCAD 2009 sets out to fix that with a new feature Autodesk calls the Action Recorder. The best way I can think to describe the Action Recorder, is a tool which provides a user interface for creating SCRIPT files. With the Action Recorder, anyone who can type commands and/or click toolbar buttons (oops Ribbon Tools) can create a macro within minutes. After using the tool myself, I was quite impressed at how intuitive the tool was. Even still, the Action Recorder does offer some more advanced options, further accentuating the tools strengths. I’ve recorded a quick video to introduce how to use the Action Recorder within AutoCAD 2009:
record Macro in Autocad land development
please let me know how to run a macro ( i mean to say that recording of work done in autocad-2006)
@rahul – AutoCAD 2009 is the first release to have the Action Recorder. Before 2009 your best alternative is to write a SCRIPT (.SCR) file. I have a couple posts here on The CAD Geek, and there’s also a bunch of resources on the web to get you started with SCRIPT too (a quick Google search is probably your best starting point). Hope that points you in the right direction.
Hello. And Bye. :)
@Ron – The interface has a play/pause button in the lower left corner, and also one in the center of the video before it starts playing. Keep in mind your connection speed will determine how quickly things load.
OK, I’m at your website: http://thecadgeek.com/blog/2008/04/07/introduction-to-the-autocad-2009-action-recorder-video/
How do I run the video? I’m not a blog or a video geek.
Maybe you can help me. I’m trying to create an action macro to draw stairs for me prompting me only for the rise, run and tread number. I had one created that was almost what I had in mind but when I played the macro it would stop each time it prompted me for information and ask me if I want to proceed. I was annoyed by this and I checked a box that I believe said it would not prompt any more. Well, now I can’t get it to prompt me at all for my rise, run or tread number. It just blows right through the entire macro and finishes automatically. How do I get it to prompt me again?
Good observation, I am in fact using Civil 3D (Beta 2), not vanilla AutoCAD. Additionally, you are also correct in the way that Civil 3D keeps what is otherwise known as the “Classic” interface (i.e. NOT the Ribbon). For what it’s worth, I’m personally surprised the folks in Manchester, NH were able to ward off the Ribbon in 2009, and would be incredibly surprised if the Ribbon were not a mainstay within Civil 3D 2010. That’s just me talking, I have nothing other than my own intuition to fall back on there.
As for the recorded actions. If you go to the OPTIONS command you’ll find a new node titled “Action Recorder Settings”. The node is divided into two categories; Actions Recording File Locations, and Additional Action Recording File Locations. I have not personally tested this, but as I understand it you could leave the local path unchanged, but add an “Additional Action Recording File Location” path on the network. Post the “company” recordings there, and I’m pretty sure they should then be available to everyone. Again, I have not tried that concept personally, so I would be interested to hear how things went for you with your own configuration.
Two Questions.
First, you are using Civil 3D with the ribbon. My understanding was that Civil 3D was not getting the ribbon in the 2009 release. Did you load the standard ACAD menu group into Civil 3D, or is my understanding incorrect?
Second, I noticed there was a path to where the recorded actions are saved. I assume that in the profile there is a path listed where you can point this to a centralized location such an a server, so all in an office can share the same recorded actions.