Dynamic Behavior

Instead of being a fixed part of a drawing, a dynamic block reference can be changed or manipulated as you work in a drawing.

Block Editor

The Block Editor is a special authoring area for creating block definitions and adding dynamic behavior. The Block Editor provides quick access to block authoring tools.

The Block Editor provides a drawing area in which you can draw and edit geometry as you would in the program’s main drawing area. You can specify the background color for the Block Editor drawing area in the Display tab of the Options dialog box.  You can use either the Block Editor contextual tab or the Block Editor to edit or add dynamic behavior to block definitions that exist in the current drawing. You can also use it to create new block definitions.

Parameters Manager

The Parameters Manager allows you to display and edit constraints, user parameters, user variables, action parameters, and block attributes from within the Block Editor.

User Parameters in Dynamic Blocks

You can control the geometry of constraint parameters with mathematical expressions. While you can insert both user variables and user parameters in the Block Editor, only user parameters are displayed as editable custom properties for a block reference.

There are several types of user parameters. For more information, see Parameters Manager – Dynamic Blocks. User parameters can be exposed as custom properties of the block reference. If it does not define an equation, then the property can be edited. If it is an equation, then the property is read-only.

Block Properties Table

You can define and control values for parameters and properties within a block definition using a Block Properties table. The Block Properties Table dialog box consists of a grid with parameters defining column headings and rows defining the different property set values. When selecting a block reference, it can be set to the values defined by one of the rows in the block properties table.

A table can include any of the following parameters and properties:

• Action parameters
• User parameters
• Constraint parameters
• Attributes

Dynamic Block Definitions

You can modify dynamic block definitions in the Block Editor.

After you’ve defined a dynamic block, you can modify it in the Block Editor. You can delete, add, and modify the following elements in the Block Editor:

• Constraints
• Parameters
• Actions
• Geometry
• Visibility states
• Lookup tables
• Grips
• Properties

You can also use the BACTIONSET command to change an action’s selection set. If you delete a parameter associated with an action and need to reassign that action to another parameter, use the BASSOCIATE command.