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Holt Design Tools: Increment Attribute Name

The Holt Design Tools are an add-on application for AutoCAD Electrical, and are available for subscription purchase on the Autodesk App Store. There are currently 15 tools in the toolkit, with plans to add more tools in the future. The Increment Attribute Name tool is a part of the Symbol Building family of tools. Check out all of the great features in the Holt Design Toolkit here. Description The Increment Attribute Name tool incrementally changes the suffixes of an alphanumeric series of attributes (e.g., TERM01, TERM02, TERM03, etc.). The user is prompted to insert the beginning value, and then given the option to increment or decrement with each click, or select a group of attributes to update. The tool allows the user to update a single or group of attributes with the same suffix (e.g., TERM01, TERMDESC01, X1TERM01) to the selected suffix. When building larger symbols, such as wiring diagram relay symbols with dozens of pin connections, IAN will greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to add all the appropriate terminal, wire connection, and wire annotation attributes. Use this tool when creating large, custom symbols like SEL rear-view panel symbols. In symbols of this nature, there is typically a long series of incremented attributes that the user creates by copying one attribute (or group of attributes) at a time. Copying the attributes does not increment their names, however, so the user ends up with dozens of attributes with the same name. Rather than double-clicking on each attribute to edit the name in a dialogue box, the IAN tool automatically edits the attribute name with a single click. Directions The user will be directed to input a new suffix value as the first value of the incrementation process. The new suffix should be two (2) characters only, and all numbers below 10 should have a leading zero. For example, to change TERM01 to TERM02, the suffix should be “02.” AutoCAD Electrical will not allow a three-digit attribute suffix, meaning that there cannot be an attribute named TERM100 following TERM99. Instead, the next attribute after TERM99 is TERMA0. The IAN tool will automatically increment from 99 to A0, and then from A9 to B0, and so on. (Suffixes beginning with the letters “I” and “O” are automatically skipped because of how closely these letters resemble the numbers one and zero in some fonts.) After inputting the new suffix, the user…

Now Available: Holt Design Tools for AutoCAD Electrical

We are excited to announce that the Holt Design Tools app for AutoCAD Electrical is now available for purchase in the Autodesk App Store! This is a collection of 15 tools designed to help users improve productivity and efficiency by reducing the possibility for errors and automating certain AutoCAD Electrical practices. Trim days off of medium-to-large projects with these simple, easy-to-learn tools. Get all of your projects done quicker, and start new projects sooner with the Holt Design Tools for AutoCAD Electrical! Symbol Building Tools There are five tools in the symbol building family: Increment Attribute Name Increment Attribute Value Change XTERM Attribute Direction Set Attribute Gap Reorder Attributes The Increment Attribute Name and Value tools do exactly what they sound like: they allow the user to automatically increment attribute names and values. For example, if the user copies and pastes a dozen instances of TERM01, the Increment Attribute Name tool allows him or her to quickly change those attributes to TERM01 – TERM12. In the same way, the user can use Increment Attribute Value to change the values of those attributes to, for example, A01 – A12. The Change XTERM Attribute Direction lets the user change the direction of the wire connection attributes on their AutoCAD Electrical symbols with a single click. The Set Attribute Gap tool gives users the power to define the gap distance between the text of two or more attributes. Visible attributes don’t have to look messy anymore! Finally, the Reorder Attributes tool allows the user to decide the order in which attributes will appear in the Quick Properties and Enhanced Attribute Editor dialogs. No more scrolling through a disorganized list of attributes to find the one you need! Terminator Tools There are three powerful new tools in the terminator family: Map Terminal Strips Make Terminal Assignments Preview Annotation The Map Terminal Strips tool lets users form relationships on panel front view drawings between terminal strips and other components. For example, the engineer may decide at the beginning of the project that terminal strip TB1 is going to be assigned to control relay CR1. The drafter can use the Map Terminal Strips tool in the Holt Design Tools to forge the relationship between the relay and the terminal strip. This relationship will come in handy with the next tool. The Make Terminal Assignments tool builds on the foundation of the relationships formed in the mapping…

Coming Soon: Holt Design Tools for AutoCAD Electrical

We are excited to announce that a brand new set of tools from Holt Design Co. will be coming soon to the Autodesk App Store. For the past six months we have been busy pouring our expertise and experience into a set of 15 tools specifically designed to make drafting electrical projects in AutoCAD Electrical faster, easier, and much more efficient. If you are an AutoCAD Electrical user, you are going to want to have these tools. We are confident that the time and money you will save using these tools will not only give you an edge over your competition, but will also make your user experience more satisfying and enjoyable. Imagine being able to process all of the wire sequences in your project with a single click. Imagine getting all of your terminal assignments right the first time. Imagine a simpler and easier quality checking process. Imagine being able to see your annotation before you even build a wiring diagram. All of these things, and so much more, are possible with the Holt Design Tools coming soon for AutoCAD Electrical. We’ve also made extensive improvements to many of the tools you can find in our free toolset. Users of the free tools have come to love them, and we’re confident that you’re going to love the enhanced versions even more. We’ve upgraded some of our most helpful tools like Increment Attribute Value, Increment Attribute Name, and Attribute Gap. Designing complex symbols and getting everything just where you want it to be has never been simpler. The new Holt Design Toolset will be available for subscription purchase on the Autodesk App Store in summer 2020. Check back soon for videos that show off the new enhancements and the brand new tools. In addition to everything that’s going to be available this year, we have many more ideas that we can’t wait to add to the toolset. We would also love to hear from our customers about what you need, and what you would like to see from us in the future. This is an exciting time to be an AutoCAD Electrical user, and we can’t wait to make your experience even better!