Autodesk AutoCAD 2016 is now released. You might already be able to download it from your Autodesk Account. This is the 30th version of AutoCAD.

There are a few nice news added that you might find useful. Revision Clouds are easier to create and modify. Using the REVCLOUD command the new Modify options makes it possible to draw new revision cloud segments as well as erase selected portions of existing revision clouds.

I will keep updating the AutoCAD 2016 page with more about this new version as well as make some blog posts about specific new or updated features.

A good thing is that the file format is still the same old DWG 2013.

Most custom programs that work for AutoCAD 2015 will also work in AutoCAD 2016. In near future all JTB World apps will be updated to fully work with AutoCAD 2016. Several apps on Autodesk Exchange Apps are already updated for AutoCAD 2016.

FlexNet version to be used for network licenses is 11.12.1.4. JTB FlexReport works fine with it but you might need to copy the new lmutil.exe to the JTB FlexReport folder.

JTB Change Title for AutoCAD is a freeware from JTB World that just been released.

Sometimes there can be a reason why you want to change the application title in AutoCAD. It can be that you need to take nice screenshots for documentation for example. In my case I could not right now register the new AutoCAD 2016 as it’s just been released an Autodesk is probably not yet ready with the registration part of it. Instead of showing "Autodesk AutoCAD 2016 - UNREGISTERED VERSION" or "Autodesk AutoCAD 2016 - NOT FOR RESALE" you want it to show "Autodesk AutoCAD 2016" or something else. With JTB Change Title this can be done.

Before

After

JTB World’s DigSigStamp for AutoCAD has been updated with bug fixes and support for AutoCAD 2016.

• This plug-in allows you to specify a block that will change its display when plotted to indicate whether the drawing had a valid digital signature at the time of plotting.
• The DigSigStamp plugin helps you identify visually when drawings have valid digital signatures. You use one of the plugin's commands to specify blocks to display when a drawing has a valid digital signature and when it does not. You then assign a particular block reference - which usually exists in the title block of your drawing - that will change its display to one of these two block definitions depending on the state of the drawing. The application even works when plotting, an operation that typically invalidates a drawing's digital signature.
• Available as AutoCAD App (Plug-in) on Autodesk Exchange Apps to purchase or to try.

The following is an example of how the block can look like. The design of them is completely up to you. This drawing has a valid digital certificate.

JTB World’s DimensionPatrol for AutoCAD has been updated with bug fixes and support for AutoCAD 2016. DimensionPatrol is also available to try or purchase at Autodesk Exchange Apps.

This plug-in highlights dimensions in a drawing for which the user has customized or edited the dimension text and helps to ensure the quality of the drawings.

Manually overridden dimension are highlighted in red by the DimensionPatrol plugin.

JTB FlexReport 9.0 is now released and available. JTB FlexReport is a solution for monitoring network license usage and software usage in general. With its reports you are in a better position to know the actual usage of often expensive licenses. You will easier predict when and how to handle the need of increases or decreases of your licenses.

JTB FlexReport Core, JTB Process Monitor service and client, and JTB SPLM service and client are updated. JTB FlexReport Chart Service and Client will be updated soon but we wanted to get out what’s ready first.

Here are some of the main news:

• DSLS support added including import of historic logs and denials.
• The SLM tab is renamed to SLM/RMS and adds improved functionality for Sentinel RMS. AVEVA Licensing System fully supported.
• SPLM 2012 support added.
• Altium license monitoring support added.
• JTB Process Monitor updated to handle idling of processes with detection of usage of an application if mouse movement or keyboard usage is detected for the application or if the CPU usage for the application exceeds a specified level.
  This way you will get a better picture of how much the applications really are being used as sometimes an application can be running the whole day but only being used an hour or so. If monitoring network licenses both with JTB FlexReport Core and JTB Process Monitor you will now see that they match better, especially if you’re making use of TIMEOUTALL or TIMEOUT on the FlexNet license server.
• JTB Process Monitor can now detect if different AutoCAD verticals are running even though they use the same acad.exe by the added title filter. Thus you get a report on AutoCAD 2016 as well as AutoCAD Architecture 2016 separately.
• Added automatic reading of user and host names from AVEVA’s ALS XML.
• Several improvements and bug fixes related to 12D usage monitoring.
• Added support for showing user group information on the HTML report grouped on servers. User groups are first taken from the FlexNet options file if it’s been specified on the FlexNet tab, otherwise from user groups defined in the Group Administrator.
• Added support for SLM based licenses to show up in the HTML reports and also log feature usage to the ‘log’ table.

For more details see the revision history and download here. Trial is also available.

Access multi-valued fields can be useful but sometimes they can cause problems working with the database. If you eventually would want to move the database to SQL Server you will need to redo certain things so related tables are used instead. This article describes how to solve certain things of this Access-only feature.

The article says: In Office Access 2007 (same with newer versions like Access 2010 and Access 2013), you cannot use an append query that references a table that contains a multivalued field. For example, the following query is not valid:

INSERT INTO NewIssues ( ID, Title, AssignedTo )
SELECT Issues.ID, Issues.Title, Issues.AssignedTo
FROM Issues;

An INSERT INTO query cannot contain a multi-valued field.

Here’s the Issues table:

Depending on what you want to achieve this two step workaround could be an option. First use an append query like this that does not reference any multi-valued field:

INSERT INTO NewIssues ( ID, Title )
SELECT Issues.ID, Issues.Title
FROM Issues;

Resulting in:

Followed by an update query like this that does contain the multi-valued field AssignedTo:

INSERT INTO NewIssues ( AssignedTo.Value )
VALUES ("Lisa")
WHERE NewIssues.Title In
(SELECT NewIssues.Title
FROM Issues INNER JOIN NewIssues
ON Issues.Title = NewIssues.Title);

Final result:

I recently released a new version of JTB FlexReport and soon heard from users that they were unable to install it on Windows Server 2003.

Installation Incomplete: The installer was interrupted before JTB FlexReport Core could be installed. You need to restart the installer to try again. Click “Close” to exit.

The message is not much help. The next step was to look at the setup log files. Here are some of the rows that eventually helped me to find the solution:

MSI (c) (D8:34) [07:33:25:065]: Connected to service for CA interface.
Action ended 7:33:25: DIRCA_CheckFX. Return value 3.
MSI (c) (D8:CC) [07:33:25:127]: Doing action: FatalErrorForm
Action 7:33:25: FatalErrorForm.
Action start 7:33:25: FatalErrorForm.
MSI (c) (D8:CC) [07:33:25:127]: Note: 1: 2235 2:  3: ExtendedType 4: SELECT `Action`,`Type`,`Source`,`Target`, NULL, `ExtendedType` FROM `CustomAction` WHERE `Action` = 'FatalErrorForm'
Info 2898. For VSI_MS_Sans_Serif13.0_0_0 textstyle, the system created a 'MS Sans Serif' font, in 0 character set, of 13 pixels height.
Info 2898. For VSI_MS_Sans_Serif16.0_1_0 textstyle, the system created a 'MS Sans Serif' font, in 0 character set, of 20 pixels height.
DEBUG: Error 2826:  Control BannerBmp on dialog FatalErrorForm extends beyond the boundaries of the dialog to the right by 3 pixels
The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2826. The arguments are: FatalErrorForm, BannerBmp, to the right
Info 2898. For VsdDefaultUIFont.524F4245_5254_5341_4C45_534153783400 textstyle, the system created a 'MS Sans Serif' font, in 0 character set, of 13 pixels height.
DEBUG: Error 2826:  Control Line1 on dialog FatalErrorForm extends beyond the boundaries of the dialog to the right by 3 pixels
The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2826. The arguments are: FatalErrorForm, Line1, to the right
DEBUG: Error 2826:  Control Line2 on dialog FatalErrorForm extends beyond the boundaries of the dialog to the right by 3 pixels
The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2826. The arguments are: FatalErrorForm, Line2, to the right
Action 7:33:25: FatalErrorForm. Dialog created
MSI (c) (D8:E0) [07:33:25:143]: Note: 1: 2731 2: 0
Action ended 7:33:27: FatalErrorForm. Return value 1.
Action ended 7:33:27: INSTALL. Return value 3.
=== Logging stopped: 4/2/2015  7:33:27 ===
MSI (c) (D8:CC) [07:33:27:268]: Note: 1: 1708
MSI (c) (D8:CC) [07:33:27:268]: Product: JTB FlexReport Core -- Installation failed.

MSI (c) (D8:CC) [07:33:27:268]: Windows Installer installed the product. Product Name: JTB FlexReport Core. Product Version: 9.0.0. Product Language: 0. Installation success or error status: 1603.

MSI (c) (D8:CC) [07:33:27:283]: Grabbed execution mutex.
MSI (c) (D8:CC) [07:33:27:283]: Cleaning up uninstalled install packages, if any exist
MSI (c) (D8:CC) [07:33:27:283]: MainEngineThread is returning 1603
=== Verbose logging stopped: 4/2/2015  7:33:27 ===

In previous versions I had used Visual Studio 2010 and now I was using Visual Studio 2013 together with Visual Studio Installer Projects Extension v1.0.0.0. On this post I found the solution in the comments. There were several different ones but the one I found was easiest was this one that requires that you have VS 2010 available.

SOLUTION: Copy dcpa.dll from “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Tools\Deployment” to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\VSI\bin”, start VS 2013 and rebuild the setup project.

Now I will rebuild all setups and make release them so it works for those still using Windows Server 2003 even though Microsoft has put it on end of life as of July 14, 2015.

JTB Align Plus 3.5 has been released. If you want to align objects quickly in AutoCAD this app is for you. Here are the news:

• Added support for AutoCAD® 2016
• Fix slide image side-effect bug
• Fix bug when working in paper space's viewport
• Upgrade error handler functions
• Added digital signing of MSI file

The JTB_Align_Any and JTB_Align_Objects commands will copy and align your text, block or selection of objects at picked point of selected line or curve. Curve can be Arc, Circle, Polyline, Leader or 3D Polyline, in current space as well as nested inside Blocks or Xrefs. For more features visit JTB Align Plus.

A free trial is also available on Autodesk Exchange Apps.

JTB FlexReport 9.2 has been released. Chart Service and Client are the only affected parts. Here are the fixes.

• Changed to smaller width of current day lines.
• Preset values reverted to 6 months bug fixed.
• Fixed a regression problem where the current day did not show in some charts.
• Fixed some regression problems with charts not being created.
• Fixed a regression problem where some automatic reports did not work.
• Fixed a regression problem where denials did not show up in charts.
• Some other minor bugs fixed.

Here’s a chart showing usage as well as the number of times users have been denied license requests as well as how many different users have got denials.

JTB FlexReport LT 1.2 has also been released. This app is a freeware that shows current FlexNet usage in a nice HTML report.

JTB Text Bubble Plus 2.1 has been released.

• Compatible with Autodesk® AutoCAD® 2016
• Upgrade error handle functions
• Fix bug when working in layout's viewport
• Upgrade to 3D working space.
• Add leader landing length setting
• Add additional attribute tags used as mark
• Fix slide image error cause true type font not plot

With Text Bubble Plus you can insert text bubbles to lines, curves, or draw leaders with it, or quickly make a schedule from text bubbles and/or other blocks. Incrementing of numbers or letters is done automatically. To learn about all features visit JTB Text Bubble Plus.

JTB Text Bubble Plus Trial can be downloaded here.

JTB CAD Automation Tools 4.2 has been released. New in version 4.2 is AutoCAD 2016 support and that AutoUpd can import block and attribute data from drawings.

With the Import from drawings button you can get block and attribute information from one or many drawings.

What is JTB CAD Automation Tools?

Multiple drawings can be automatically created from a typical drawing or updated based on a control file that can be created with an Excel template. Make the changes in Excel and let the program do all the work for you. This is a real time saver if you need to make adjustments on hundreds or thousands of drawings.

Optionally an AutoLISP file (*.lsp;*.vlx;*.fas) can be loaded for each drawing. Each drawing can use a separate AutoLISP file if needed. This gives you almost unlimited flexibility when it comes to what task you want to automate.

Example of usages: Add a stamp block; insert a title block; update text or attributes in the title block; insert text, block or xref; change text or attribute values and more. Change all external references (xrefs) from absolute paths to relative paths for archive purpose. Find and replace attribute or text values.

Bulk updating AutoCAD or BricsCAD drawings in most any way that you would like.

Visit JTB CAD Automation Tools and read more and why not give the free trial a go.

JTB World’s SmartPurger has been updated to support AutoCAD 2016. SmartPurger is a batch and script utility for processing multiple AutoCAD drawings with full control. Execute LSP or SCR files on multiple drawings. SmartPurger handles crashes so the AutoCAD batch processing continues to the end and leaves bad drawings to be corrected manually. Many purge and cleanup settings are available. Useful before backups and distribution of drawings. The file's modified time stamp can be restored. What do you want to automate?

A free trial is available for here as well as on Autodesk Exchange Apps.

JTB Steel 1.2 has been released with added support for all Windows Region and Language settings. Thus it works fine with languages like Chinese or Japanese.

Quickly insert sections and frames in AutoCAD and much more with JTB Steel.

A free trial is available here.

Spiro is a add-in can be used with AutoCAD to create Spirograph (TM)- like patterns. Turn AutoCAD into an educational toy that will provide hours of fun for the whole family! Spiro creates a hypotrochoid pattern based on the specified outer circle, inner circle and pen distance. A variety of polylines created with the Spiro plugin in AutoCAD and its verticals.

This new version has some bugs fixed and adds support for AutoCAD 2016.

Available for free on Autodesk Exchange Apps here.

JTB Batch Change 1.0 is now released.

JTB Batch Change brings the AutoCAD ActiveX Object Model to your command via Excel design spreadsheets. Some examples of feature commands are:

With Batch Rename Objects you can rename layers in hundreds of drawing by substituting text "Concrete" with "CONC", or add a prefix of "AC " to each layer's name

With Batch Find and Replace you can find and replace text on multiple drawings.

You can import and update all blocks from a standard drawing to hundreds of other drawings.

You can replace all inserted blocks "DOOR-BD3" in layer "Archs" with block "DOOR-AC1", and move them to layer "ARCH-FURN"

You can change all texts whose styles are not prefixed with "ELEC" to "ELEC Standard" style, then change all block's attributes whose tag is "DATE" to current date.

You can convert all your inserted blocks from dynamic to static, or to anonymous blocks.

You can flatten all your drawing objects by setting all Z coordinates to 0.

Batch change drawing properties

Additionally, you can perform Batch Audit and Purge as well as much more.

When done with a batch processing you can see what has been processed in the log.

This is a great tool in the hands of AutoCAD users or CAD managers.

JTB Batch Change is available as a trial.

When you’re going to install different Autodesk 2016 products like AutoCAD 2016 you need to use the correct product key or you will get into problems to activate the products.

You can now find a complete list of Autodesk 2016 Product Keys here among product keys dating back to Autodesk 2010 products.

The list with FlexNet feature codes has been updated with Autodesk 2016 products.

In JTB FlexReport Config>Features and our freeware JTB FlexReport LT you can use the “Get Feature Descriptions” button to get the descriptions for codes like 86445ACD_2016_0F and more so the feature description is used in reports instead of the feature code.

JTB Steel is an AutoCAD add-in that helps with drafting of steel frames and steel detailing. Version 1.2.1 is now available.

A free trial is also available.

As you might know JTB World has several of the apps on Autodesk Exchange Apps Store and now this store has reached the 1 million download milestone! This has been posted about on Autodesk’s In the Fold blog.

“We’re celebrating the one-millionth app download on the Autodesk Exchange Apps, a web-based design and engineering app store created for the Autodesk community.”

JTB World is also mentioned: “One person operations such as SoftDraft, LLC, RedTransit Consultants, LLC and JTB World have also participated in Exchange Apps, contributing anywhere from 15-50 apps – with JTB World emerging as an early adopter of new store features like the BlueSnap payment gateway.”

Take a look at our apps here and you might find a productivity favorite among them making your AutoCAD work easier or quicker.