Editing blocks and external references

Commands: REFEDIT, -REFEDIT, REFSET and REFCLOSE

The Refedit command edits block references and externally-referenced drawings (Xrefs) through a dialog box (short for "reference editor"). Refedit is referred to as in-place reference editing. RefEdit either works on a portion of the reference or on the entire drawing or all entities in the block.

The -Refedit command edits block references and externally-referenced drawings through the command bar.

The Refset command adds and removes entities from the reference being edited.

The Refclose command closes the reference editor.

The XFADECTL system variable sets the fading level for the entities which are not in the working in the current refedit session.

Reference Editing

To edit Xrefs or blocks

1. Do one of the following:

2. Click the Refedit tool button () on the Refedit toolbar.

3. Type refedit in the command bar, then press Enter.

The command bar reads: Select reference:
Click the Xref or block.

• Double click the Xref or block.

The Reference Edit dialog opens.

2. The Reference Edit dialog helps you to visually identify the reference to edit and controls how the reference is selected.

2. Path: Location of the selected reference; if the reference is a block, no path is displayed.

3. Reference Name: The name of the currently selected reference and any references, that are nested within the selected reference.

4. Preview: Displays the reference as it was last saved in the drawing. Please note that the preview image is not updated when changes are saved back to the reference.

3. (option) If multiple nested references display in the Reference name tree, select a referece to modify.
   Click the expand/collapse button to show/hide nested references.
   You can edit only one reference a time.

4. Select one of the following to Select nested entities ...:

5. Automatically: All the entities and nested blocks in the selected reference are  included in the reference editing session.

6. Prompt: After you close the Reference Edit dialog, you are prompted to select the enties and nested blocks in the reference that you want to edit. Only these entities will be temporarily extracted and be made available for modification within the context of the current drawing.

This temporary working set of entities can be edited and then saved back to update the reference being edited. To distinguish 'current drawing' from 'editing set' Bricscad displays all the entities of the current drawing as faded. The fading level is controlled through the XFADECTL settings variable, of which the default value is set to 50.

5. Check the Settings:

6. Enable unique layer and symbol names:

7. • If selected, named objects in xrefs are altered, adding a $#$ prefix.

   • If cleared, the names of layers and other named objects remain the same as in the reference drawing.

8. Display attribute definitions for editing: Controls whether attribute definitions in blocks are extracted and displayed during reference editing.

9. Lock entities not in working set: Entities in the reference being edited that are not included in the temporary working set (see step 5) cannot be manipulated, nor entities in the host drawing or other Xrefs.  This behavior is similar to objects on locked layers.

6. Click the OK button to start editing the working set (see step 5).
   The Reference Edit dialog closes.

7. (option) Click the Add to Refedit tool button () to add entities to the working set.
   The selected entities will be removed from the host drawing and added to the reference being edited when the working set is saved back.

8. (option) Click the Remove from Refedit tool button () to remove entities from the working set.
   The selected entities will be removed from the reference being edited when the working set is saved back. These entities are not added to the host drawing.

9. Do one of the following:

10. Click the Refclose and Save button () to save the changes back to the Xref source drawing or the block definition in the current drawing.

11. Click the Refclose and discard button () to stop the refedit session without saving. The source drawing or block definition is left unchanged.