Tipster Danny Korem shows us how he used AutoCAD tool palettes to customize a multiline style for a client.

"I'm not a nostalgic guy, yet sometimes I remember that some AutoCAD features are older than several of my clients — for instance, mline (for multiline). This command is many AutoCAD versions old, but when combined with a specific tool palette I was able to satisfy my customers' needs. I created two mline styles with different layers and fills as a substitute for hatching. Now when my customer draws, he creates a pair of parallel lines, with caps at the end if free-standing. All corners are cleaned up neatly and when the procedure finishes, a solid hatch-like fill appears as well.

"After the style was appropriately defined, I moved to the assigned layer, created a multiline object, and dragged it into a tool palette where I altered the properties just a bit. Since the geometry was created in a specified layer, that is actually predefined in the command that was created in the tool palette. Now I approached the command string of the feature that originally was "^c^c_mline" and changed it to "^c^c_mline style;wall_ext_25;"

"I then duplicated the tool within the tool palette and changed the properties till it looked like the image below."

Notes from Cadalyst Tip Patrol: Tool palettes can be very useful. They are easy to create, set up, and customize. They can also be saved, exported, imported, and shared. Draw an object in AutoCAD, select it, and drag it onto a tool palette; a command drawing that object on that specific layer was created. It can also be set to draw circles at certain radii. Tool palettes are for more things than just blocks; add dimensions with specific styles to a tool palette. The same can be done with text, multileaders, hatch patterns, or anything.