Power Tip From CADD Master Ray CADD and the Environment

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From the Winter 1991 issue of Generic Software News

   Until you've read the fine print, you may think that Generic made, together with all the forward progress in version 5.4 one giant step backwards with CONFIG.
   What we need are MORE configurable parameters, not LESS you may be lamenting. Where do you set your snap options, AutoDimensioning variables or default color selections? Not to mention all the NEW configurable variables we were hoping for.   Looks like they really blew it.
   Hardly. With 5.0, not only can you configure almost every imaginable toggle and parameter, but you can do it dynamically, on the fly, and maintain a custom configuration for every drawing file. It's simply in CADD, not CONFIG, and the configuration (now known as the "environment"), is stored in your drawing file instead of in CONFIG.FIL,
   When you save a drawing and call it back up again later, your grid size stays set, your manual entry mode remains intact, and you are right back on the same layer as when you left, drawing in the same line color. All of these return to the settings that were active the last time you worked on the drawing, NOT the last time you used Generic CADD.
   How then, to establish a default configuration for NEW drawing files, which have no history of settings to draw upon! Enter the Environment command, EN. This command saves the current values for an environmental parameters into an otherwise blank drawing file, GCADD.DWG. The environment stored in this drawing file is used when you load CADD 5.0 without calling up an existing drawing file.
   To establish a default environment for new drawings then, startup CADD, set all the toggles and variables that you wish, then issue the EN command. From now on,   until you use EN again, these will be the default settings for all new drawings. At this point, you can go ahead and make your first drawing using these parameters without leaving CADD, or you can quit CADD and use the newly established parameters later.

   If you want to use more than one environment, you can emulate this process by simply saving and calling up blank drawing files. After setting up a particular parameter configuration, simply save the drawing without drawing anything. I have a blank drawing called DETAIL for example, which has all of the parameter settings that I like to use when doing details. I call it up at the DOS prompt by typing CADD DETAIL. I can maintain as many different environments as I want using this technique.
   Note that certain hardware configuration items, specifically the video graphics device, pointing device, memory settings, and database unit, are still stored in CONFIGS.FIL and cannot be changed from within CADD or stored in a drawing file. Still other items such as paths and additional peripheral interface data are stored in ENVIRON.FIL, and not in the drawing files. To implement multiple versions of these, the old technique of using DOS to COPY these will still work Just make sure that the ones that you want to use are named CONFIGS.FIL and ENVIRON.FIL.
   Please note: CADD Master Ray is an independent, trained professional, operating without a net. Generic Software Technical Support makes no representations regarding being able to get you out of whatever CADD Master Ray gets you into.