CompuServe Messages

Well, I'd like to try to convince you, anyway. Sure, not every user or discipline will have the need to change the properties of specific xref'd entities, but some of us do. It's common enough for us to run into situations where we have entities in certian drawings which can have lables like "proposed-existing" or worse used to describe them. It won't happen in new construction, usually, but can easily happen when improvement work is being done on a parking lot, road, or highway. The need to show one particular stretch of curb & gutter as a solid linetype in one construction detail drawing (for purposes of clarity, or other reasons), even though it really only one part of an overall design otherwise, is difficult to deal with now. I wouldn't want to use the capability on a large-scale basis, but the ability to change the appearance (or even presence of) a few selected entities in an xref'd drawing would definately be ideal for such cases. It modifies the appearance in only that one target drawing (and perhaps even only one viewport), and the alternatives are not pretty. Another way may be the ability to simply control visiblity of specific xref'd entities, and then to draw on top of it with the correct color & linetype, but having to duplicate those entities fragments the design database somewhat, and may have other drawbacks. The only alternatives available now are to return to the source file, add a new layer, and move the entities to that layer. And then you still have the VISRETAIN problem to deal with (gosh, I hope that get's soved in R12!), and possibly other problems related to VPLAYER on/off settings for new viewports (?). I really don't see it as such a major extention, but rather a needed enhancement. Nor do I see it as defeating the purposes of xref's. In fact, I think my example shows how it could make them much more flexible and usefull. Just my $.02*inflation=??? Back to your side of the court…