THE AllyCAD BLOCK EDITOR

This tech tip explains how to use the Block Editor Function.

The Block Editor allows you to edit the entities in the block definitions in your CURRENT drawing.

It is recommend that you read and understand the following block related tech tip tutorials:

• Creating Blocks
• Inserting Blocks
• Editing Block Attributes

There are several ways to insert blocks onto your drawing, however for this Tech Tip Tutorial, we will use the Block Browser:

1. Start a new drawing.
2. Open the Control Centre by selecting View > Control Centre from the menu.
3. In the Control Centre, select the “Block Browser” tab (at the bottom edge of the Control Centre).
4. Expand the Road Sign folder by clicking on the little [+] next to the Road Signs folder icon.
5. Select ROAD_SIGNS.sym.dr4, and all the blocks contained in the DR4 file will be listed in the right-hand pane of the Block Browser.
6. Double-click on block R1 to import it from the symbol file and insert it in your drawing.
7. Click anywhere in your drawing to insert the block into the drawing. Since this block has an attribute, you will be prompted to enter a value for the attribute. Type 'STOP 1' and press Enter.
8. Press ESC key to quit the block insert function.

Now we can finally get round to editing the block definition we have added to our drawing:

1. Close the Control Centre
2. Start the Block Editor by either:
   • Selecting Block Editor from the Application menu.
   • Selecting the block insert you inserted before, then right-clicking and choosing Edit Block Definition from the context menu.
   • Going to the Block Manager, selecting the block there, right-clicking and choosing the Edit option.

The drawing window will be replaced by the Block Editor window:

The Block Editor window shows the contents of the block definition. Instead of a paper rectangle, 2 dashed lines are drawn to identify the hook point (base point) of the block definition. You can only return to the drawing window by exiting the Block Editor window.

For this example, we want to make sure that the entities in the block are set up to display in the pen, linestyle and lineweight of the block insert entity, when we insert a block insert using this block definition into the drawing:

1. Select all entities in the block by choosing Edit > Select All from the menu.
2. Right click > Properties to display the Properties Bar.
3. 3. In the Properties Bar:
• Change layer to Layer '0'.
• Change Pen to ByBlock.
• Change Line Style to ByBlock.
• Change Line Weight to ByBlock.
• Change Transparency to ByBlock.

You may add entities to, or edit the entities in the block:

Close the Block Editor window. You will be prompted to save your changes to the block definition. Select Yes.

The Block Editor window should disappear and your drawing will be displayed.

All the block inserts which use block definition 'R1' (the STOP sign) should update to reflect the changes you have made to the block definition.

Note: You have edited the block definition in your CURRENT drawing. The original symbol drawing 'ROAD_SIGNS.sym.dr4' is not affected.