Over 200 program settings can be specified in the Configure command under the Settings menu. These values are used to initialize Carlson program options when opening a new or existing drawing. Among these settings is the coordinate point number format, file and printer output options and settings for each module.
To set the drawing defaults, edit the template drawing (.DWT
file). This drawing is loaded when new drawings are created. In the
template drawing you can set the layers and AutoCAD /IntelliCAD
variables. For example you could create your standard layers and
set variables as you like such as BLIPMODE off. For Carlson, the
drawing template should be set to Carlson##.dwt where the ## is the
AutoCAD version number. For Carlson running in AutoCAD 2007, the
template name is Carlson07.dwt. The Carlson template is located in
the Carlson support directory (i.e.
C:\Carlson2008\SUP\Carlson07.dwt). To customize the template, run
the OPEN command and choose the drawing template. In the
Select File dialog, set the type of file to Drawing Template (DWT)
instead of regular drawings (DWG). Then make your changes and
SAVE the drawing as Carlson##.dwt.
When starting a new drawing, one of the first steps is to run Drawing Setup under the Settings menu. Drawing Setup sets the drawing scale, the unit mode as either English or metric, and the text, symbol and linetype size scalers. The initial values for these Drawing Setup variables are set in Configure. When a drawing is saved, the Drawing Setup variables are saved with the drawing.
In Carlson, the text style height should be set to zero. The Carlson routines will set the text height according to the drawing scale and text size scaler set in Drawing Setup. For example, if the horizontal scale is set to 50 and the text size scaler is 0.1, Carlson will draw the text with a height of 5 (50 * 0.1). Then when the drawing is plotted at 1"=50', the text will be 0.1 inches. Use the STYLE command to set the text style height to zero.
The Set Data Directory command in the Settings menu can be used to specify the directory for the project data files. By default the drawing is stored in the Carlson WORK directory and the data files are stored in the DATA directory. The drawing file is the (.DWG) file. The data files are the coordinate (.CRD) file, profile (.PRO) file, grid (.GRD) file and other Carlson data files. In Configure>Project/Data Folders, there is an option to store all data files in the directory of the drawing. With this option active all the files for the drawing C:\Carlson2008\Work\JOB500\JOB500.dwg would be stored in C:\SCAD2006\WORK\JOB500.
Another level of file management is the automatic project file recall. Every drawing remembers the data files that are being used for the drawing. When the drawing (.DWG) file is saved with the SAVE, SAVEAS, or QSAVE command, Carlson writes a settings file that contains all the active data file names. Then when the drawing is reopened, the data files default to their previous settings. For example, you won't have to choose which coordinate file to use unless you want to change it. The settings file is stored in the same directory as the drawing file and has the same name as the drawing with a .INI extension. For example, a drawing survey.dwg would have a settings file called survey.ini. You can turn off the INI files with the Save Drawing INI Files option in Configure under General Settings.