CompuServe Messages

Peter – "A third type of block"? Well, that's what they'll view it as, if you choose to name such a feature that way, but that's not necessarily the way it would/could/should work. It could, for example, be called "backdrop", or "background", or what have you, which helps to make the distinction between it and the other types of complex entities. I am also not questioning your need for the functionality that you would like XREF's to provide, I am just saying that XREF's are not the preferred vehicle to provide that functionality. XREFS are externally defined things that can't reference local settings. The type of beast that I'd prefer to have for this type of externally-defined geometry that can create and reference objects in the target drawing, is preciesely what everyone seems to be trying to use the XREF for, and I maintain that it wasn't designed with that use in mind, and it should not be hacked to death in order to achieve that goal. I don't know much about what is going to be in R12 and what isn't, so I can't comment on that aspect of the subject. The real solution to most of these problems will not be realized in R12, and that has more to do with some fundamental limitations of the current database architecture that we are hoping R13 will eliminate. The real solution to this and other problems you people keep hemming and hawing about<g>, is a database architecture whose scope extends beyond both a physical and logical "drawing" (e.g, it could encompass an entire project). But you're not going to see anything like this for some time. -TonyT.