Are you structured?

To structure or not to structure, that is the question. Structure is an interesting concept in Mechanical and does have some great advantages. I am not here to argue about it, but I am commenting on how to get around it. When we began with AutoCAD Mechanical 2006 from AutoCAD Mechanical 6 (2002), we found that our drawings now had structure. Structure might seem like a good thing, but we do not work that way and we did not want to rethink our antiquated ways. With structure enabled, we could no longer use our Hide/Restore dialog from previous releases. Our design process (for better or worse) relied on blocks, their naming, and the ability to block edit them. Help! Now, Associative Hide worked but not the way we worked previously with Hide/Restore. The answer, go back in time. Or in layman's terms SAVEAS. Save to a previous version and when you close and then reopen the drawing, make sure Structure is turned off in the ASSIST>>OPTIONS>>STRUCTURE tab of the menu.

This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship

I have decided to start this blog to post my successes and failures with using AutoCAD Mechanical. I find help to be somewhat scarce for this software and I wanted to create a place for others to meet and see what is going on with it.
Well, page 1.
AutoCAD Mechanical 2006 and the CUI. In a word, "I hate it" (oops ... well three words). I guess I can see where Autodesk is headed with this but I find myself like my kids, "Are we there yet"? Maybe I am just set in my old ways but I feel like the waters are so murky here that I am afraid what I am going to step on. I have found that the the best way for me to bring in my old menus and toolbars is to use the base interface and then MENULOAD my custom ones. I retain my icons (buried in a dll I created) and the push-pull process of turning things off and on is easier.
A interesting thing I found out and I have seen posted elsewhere is that the Enterprise Customization CUI is turned on when you add it in the ASSIST>>OPTIONS section. A caveat or note is that you cannot edit it when it is current though. You can edit the Main Customization file and then you can swap the MAIN and ENTERPRISE in the OPTIONS. From that point, you can change the Enterprise one. Once you are finished, swap the two back in the OPTIONS and you can go on with your life again.
Last thing of note is that by default, AutoCAD retains the last button selected on a flyout toolbar. Mechanical does the opposite and that annoys me a little. I remember the days when you could pick which ones did an which ones did not. The CUI has no editable fields I can see (I know, I know, don't touch this file unless you want to give up your left big toe) and the forums at Autodesk are no help.
Enough ranting for today. Get back to work.