We've got a macro for drawing our most commonly used nuts, bolts and screws automatically, but it needs a toolbar with a minimum of 18 icons, most of them just to select options - see the image.
It works like this:
- Choose the options for screw head, nut, washer, length and whether to draw fitted or exploded
- Choose what fixings to draw with one of the last 4 icons
- Select a hole on the illustration and a point for direction
- Macro draws fixings in the right orientation and scale, with thick/thin changing to medium/thin or all thin and threads being removed depending on how small the fixings are
The limitations:
- There's no indication of what options have been selected - you have to remember
- All the options have to be displayed all the time, making more clutter on the screen
- When we add more fixing types, it will just add more icons
- The macro can't prompt the user what to do next - unless we accept the user has to click the screen to remove the prompt
Things that could make it better:
- If the toolbars could swap icons as items are picked, it could be reduced to just 9 icons.
- If toolbars could be controlled from within macros we could, say replace the 4 icons for choosing the screw head type with just 1 - that pops up a toolbar to choose the head, then closes it again when one is selected - changing the main toolbar icon to show the selected head type.
- alternatively, a macro controlled menu could display all the options together rather than in one long toolbar.
Can anyone think of a better way to present the options for macros than this?
Can anyone at PTC tell us whether there is any possibility in the future of the macro language being extended enough to make the delivery of macros to the illustrator more effective?