C3d 2010: Three Questions...

> Question 1: Is there a way to delete more than 1 pt group at a time?

Select Point Groups in the top part of your Toolspace, then use Shift-Select to pick from the list in the bottom part of the Toolspace. Right click to delete the selected groups.

> Question 2: In Prospector/Point Groups, some groups have a black dot in a white square to left of the Pt Group name. What does that indicate? (I have noticed that the groups with the dot have "Apply Description Keys" enabled on the rt-click menu, and the others do not.)

Those point groups have points in them. The ones without the dot don't have any points that match the criteria to be included in that group.

> Question 3: Say, after you have imported all the pts, can you apply a different set of description keys to all the pts? Or just individually, one group at a time?

Description keys are organized in sets. You can have the same description in multiple DescKey sets, with different styles and controls for each set. The order of the DescKey sets in the list controls which one will be used. I'm not sure of why you would want to do this however. Wouldn't it be easier to use a point group override to change the display of your points?

Thanks a lot for those answers, Steve. They will help me a lot.

Description keys are organized in sets. You can have the same description in multiple DescKey sets, with different styles and controls for each set. The order of the DescKey sets in the list controls which one will be used. I'm not sure of why you would want to do this however. Wouldn't it be easier to use a point group override to change the display of your points?

Well, my situation is that when I run the Import Event with our now existing F2F settings, I get so many pt groups that it makes the Pt Group Hierarchy box almost unusable. (The way ours is set up now is that there is a different figure style, pt style and pt label style for every descriptor code. I hear this is way overkill).

The pt styles and pt labels were not the way I "personally" like them, so I had to go thru and change them Pt Group by Pt Group (except for the groups with symbol blocks for the Pt Style. (In the future I should create a larger pt group which contains all the groups of a common type I want to edit).

I was then thinking that if I created a different DescKey set which had my preferred styles in it, I could apply that to the groups and it would be faster (as it will change the Pt Style and Pt Label style at the same time) than editing each Pt Group for the settings. Was hoping this could be done for all groups at one time.

But until the Figure Styles, etc get changed, I think my best answer is to create just a few new pt groups (that contain many similar style groups)and keep them at the top of the hierarchy.

Thanks again Steve. I appreciate it.

-Steve

If you right-click on the Points item in the Prospector tab of your Toolspace then you can edit all points, not just a particular group. Once you have the editing panorama open you can sort the list by left clicking on any of the column headers. This will allow you to sort by the descriptions.

Now you can shift-select groups of points and then right click on a column header to do a mass edit of their style, layer etc. As long as you don't re-apply the DescKeys your edits will stick.

I often use this method to deal with points that have not been coded to our standards.

That's gold, Steve. Life's gonna be easier now.

Thank you,

Steve

> Well, my situation is that when I run the Import Event with our now existing F2F settings, I get so many pt groups that it makes the Pt Group Hierarchy box almost unusable. (The way ours is set up now is that there is a different figure style, pt style and pt label style for every descriptor code. I hear this is way overkill).

It sounds like your template drawing was created with all of those point groups already in it. This was the method that we used to use for organizing points but we switched to organizing points by layers several years ago.

If your company standard requires that the existing groups be used then your idea about having your own group would work.

Create a point group for yourself in an blank drawing which includes all of the point descriptions that you would need to change. Turn on the overrides for style and label styles in this point group and set them to suit yourself. Save this drawing to your Desktop.

Now you can use this drawing as a source to drag and drop your personal "Steve Adams" point group into any drawing. As long as your group is at the top of the list then your settings have priority over the other groups. Once you have finished then you can delete your group and the company standards will apply again.