Thank You for trying ALS (Another Layering System) Copyright 1993-1995
                                                     (C) Brad Bylls

I have very seldom seen a project that has all of the drawings on one sheet
of paper. Most of the drawings for a project that come into our company are 
on 3 to 20 different sheets, and they are in 3 to 20 seperate drawing files
if they come in on disk(s).  Each sheet or drawing in a seperate file.

We design and build molds for rubber products, mainly for the automotive and 
medical industry.  I have found that when working on a project, I copy many 
of the components from the assembly drawing to a drawing that details the 
component for manufacturing.  I may also copy other components with it to show 
details of a sub-assembly, clearances or numerous other details.

To do this with seperate sheets or drawings is time consuming.  You have to 
exit the drawing you are working on, go to the drawing that contains the 
component you need to copy, write block the component to disk, close that 
drawing and return to the original drawing, and then insert and explode the 
component that you need from disk. Whew. . .(time is money)

With ALS you can keep all of the drawings for the project in the same drawing 
file, and easily navigate from one sheet/drawing to the next.  You can also 
maintain a Boarder layer that is always on/thawed for your sheet boarder and 
title block (This prevents copying information from sheet to sheet and avoids 
possible errors).

EXAMPLE:
     You draw the assembly view of the mold on sheet 1 of 5.  The plan view of 
the mold on sheet 2 of 5.  And then you detail all of the components on 
sheets 3 of 5, 4 of 5 and 5 of 5.

Most companies that do design work, have a standard set of layer names that they 
use.  These are either for the industry or discipline that they are in, or for 
internal standardization.

To start, you create or edit the file ALS.DAT that is included in this file 
(see below).

WATER,HEATING AND COOLING,150,HIDDEN
VIEW,LAYER TO HIDE FROM VENDORS,122,CONTINUOUS
TEXT,TEXT AND NOTES,007,CONTINUOUS
SECTION,SECTIONS LINES,001,PHANTOM
PLATES,PLATES,001,CONTINUOUS
LAYOUT,CAVITY LAYOUTS,001,CONTINUOUS
INSERTS,INSERTS AND HARDWARE,003,CONTINUOUS
HIDDEN,HIDDEN OBJECTS / LINES,008,HIDDEN
HATCHING,HATCHING,006,CONTINUOUS
DIMENSIONS,DIMENSIONING,004,CONTINUOUS
CONSTRUCT,CONSTRUCTION LINES (TURN OFF FOR PLOTTING),111,CONTINUOUS
CENTER,CENTER LINES (NOT CIRCLE CENTERS),002,CENTER
  |             |                         |    |--- Linetype
  |             |                         |-------- 3 digit color number
  |             |---------------------------------- Description
  |------------------------------------------------ Layer name

The LAYER NAME is any AutoCAD acceptable layer name (ALS will add 2 digits to
the front of the name for the sheet number).

The DESCRIPTION is user definable up to  50 characters (This will show
up in the dialog box during the command execution).

3 DIGIT COLOR NUMBER is the AutoCAD color number 1-255 (This must be 3
digits long - i.e. 001, 035, 150)

The LINETYPE is any AutoCAD linetype acceptable name.

You are not limited to the number of lines in the file ALS.DAT and the words
do not have to be all capitals (This was just my preference).

The file ALS.DAT is an ascii file that contains the 4 items described above
seperated by commas.  This file should be in the same directory that
contains your ACAD.EXE file.

Next, you would (load "als") from inside AutoCAD.

To start on sheet 1 of your drawing anter "ALS" at the command prompt.
When the dialog box appears, click the "1" button on the left side of the
dialog box, and then click on the layer description for the layer you want
to draw on (i.e. PLATES).  This will create layer 01plates, color 1(red)
with a continous linetype and make it the current layer.

To draw on a different layer on sheet 1, repeat "ALS" at the command
prompt, click "1" and a layer description.  If the layer has already been
created, it will make it the current layer.  If it has not been created,
it will create it according to the file "ALS.DAT" and make it the current
layer.

If you change from sheet 1 to sheet 2, all layers on sheet 1 will be frozen
and all layers on sheet 2 will be thawed.  Layers on sheet 1 are all created
with 01 as the first two letters.  Sheet two layers are all created with
02 as the first two letters and so on.  You can create 99 sheets (01 thru 99)
and you do not have to create them in numerical order.

The command "ALSCOPY" will let you copy entities from one sheet to another
sheet.  If the new sheet/layer does not exist it will create it and then
make the copy.

If you make a change to the section of the AutoCAD lisp file "Xplode.lsp" 
that I show below, it will let you explode a block to an existing layer using 
the dialog box.

;;; Set a layer if it exists.
;;;
;;; xp_sla == XPlode_Set_LAyer
;;;
(defun xp_sla (/ temp)
  (while (null temp)
    (initget 1)
;    (setq temp (getstring (strcat                                ;remark line
;      "\n\nXPlode onto what layer? <" (getvar "clayer") ">: "))) ;remark line
     (layermgt)                                                   ;add line
     (if (> (ascii (substr nl 2 1)) 64) (setq NL(strcat "0" NL))) ;add line
     (setq temp nl)                                               ;add line
    (if (or (= temp "") (null temp))
      (setq temp (getvar "clayer"))
      (if (not (tblsearch "layer" temp))
        (progn
          (princ "\nInvalid layer name. ")
          (setq temp nil)
        )
      )
    )
  )
  temp
)

Using ALS in a mold drawing environment works real well.  It may work equally
as well in an architectural environment?  Using ALS keeps everyone using the
same layer names, colors and linetypes in the company.  Anybody can edit a
drawing and use the same layer attributes as anybody else. STANDARDIZATION !

It works great for us, I think it will work great for you.

Address all comments to Brad Bylls 70272,2127 on Compuserve