RE: DBUG> alias - WAY TOO COMPLICATED

[James Horecka, AIA <jhorecka@pe.net>]

I hear what you guys are saying, that for most normal stuff we simply don't
need the Alias method of doing things.

But it's not like it's a situation of "EITHER/OR." We've not lost any of the
existing functionality. The Alias stuff has been ADDED to the overall
functionality, not replacing anything.

Sooooo, those who prefer operating exactly as they are may continue to do
so, never troubling themselves with Aliases. No sweat. Nothing has changed
as far as all the methods we are used to.

For those of us that are currently into rather long Keyboard Sequences, the
new Alias feature will prove quite useful and will certainly save some
trouble.

I mentioned the other day one of the new Aliases I am currently using:
Simply "J" for Justify. This Alias will fully-flush justify (L&R) selected
text, calling upon the third-party tool Scrive. This is still a fairly short
sequence if done manually, but nevertheless involves several steps if by
Mousing only:

Click Edit
Click ToolBox
Scroll over to find Scrive.dcx.
Dbl-Clk Scrive.dcx
Choose FullJust

That's a fair amount of mousing around, involving pop-up windows, eyeball
searches, etc.

Of course I also have a Keyboard Sequence for this memorized, using special
shortcuts and setups right now. For the above example, I've customized
certain shortcuts so that Alt-U, S2 calls the same thing up until now. But
Aliases offer a different way of approaching longer more complex sequences,
and can do many more of them.

Aliases are in addition to the existing Immediate Mode Interrupts, Keyboard
Shortcuts, Toolbar Icons, and my favorite Keyboard Sequences.

You might, for example, have an Alias that does all the following:

Change by Group the LineType to Solid, LineWgt to 1, Color to White, Spacing
to 1', Overshoot to 0', Z-Base to 0' and Z-Height to 0'. Sort of a basic
strip-down. A simple Alias could do all that with a coupla' key presses.

Let's name it P, for Plain. To call it, you would hit Ctrl-Space, P, Enter.
Here is the code:

^;^F0^F2^F8^F1^F9^1^$^F0^F1^S1^1^$^S2^0^$^S3^0^$^S4^0^$^$^

Clearly the Alias represents an easier way to handle this specific task,
which I've chosen merely for illustrative purposes.

In short, I think the concept of Aliases opens up a whole new horizon of
possibilities. But does not mean that anyone need adopt them should they
choose not to.

James Horecka, AIA, Architect
jhorecka@pe.net  http://www.pe.net/~jhorecka
DataCAD Roundhouse:  http://www.pe.net/~jhorecka/DCADLinks.html

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